Insights

<p>Pia Christensen of the Association of Health Care Journalists responded to an <a href="http://bit.ly/VQ4KV">earlier blog post</a> that I had essentially ignored some good reporting on the <a href="http://www.tradewatch.org/publications/release.cfm?ID=7659&amp;secID=11… Citizen report</a> about how hospitals are failing in a very big way to report bad doctors to the National Practitioner Data Bank. She cited three stories, saying: </p>

<p>I recently <a href="/blogs/cdcs-environmental-health-tracking-system-new-slow-resource-journalists">wrote</a> about the new <a href="http://ephtracking.cdc.gov/showHome.action">National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network</a> launched by the Centers for Disease Control. A fascinating resource for reporters, but
molasses-slow at its debut. </p>

<p>I'm happy to report that after playing with the network again, the online database has recovered from its torpor, which might be explained by an estimated 10,000 hits upon its launch. </p>

<p>Four days after Michael Jackson died of an unexpected heart attack on June 25, <a href="http://www.dcpaindoc.com/html/physician_profile.html">Dr. John Dombrowski</a>,an anesthesiologist and pain management specialist, posted <a href="http://www.dcpaindoc.com/THE_DEATH_OF_MICHAEL_JACKSON_062909.pdf">a letter</a> on his Web site, demanding better pain management for all patients and a recognition that pain care is an important specialty.</p>

Trudy Lieberman is the president of The Association of Health Care Journalists board of directors, and she is the director of the health and medicine reporting program at the Graduate School of Journalism at City University of New York. Ms. Lieberman is also a contributing editor to the Columbia Journalism Review, and a contributor to The Nation. Below is her blog post on how health care reporting is possible - and necessary!

<p>We live in California. That means wildfire. But in some areas, particularly poor rural ones surrouned by federal forest land, the smoke could be slowly making residents sick.</p><p>This spring, the <i>Redding Record Searchlight</i> teamed with the Center for California Health Care Journalism to discover that last summer's wildfires made many poor, elderly residents seriously ill. Some continue to have chronic respiratory problems a year later.</p>

<p>It sounds like a line a standup comic might use while flailing for a laugh: "What's a guy gotta do around here to get arrested? Steal somebody's kidney?"</p> <p>If you are a doctor in a hospital in most of the United States, the answer is: yes.</p>

<p>Here's a quick roundup of recent articles localizing the potential impact of federal health reform and California's health budget cuts (see Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's additional $656 million in line-item vetoes <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/capitolalertlatest/vetoes1.pdf">he…; and the full California budget document <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/capitolalertlatest/FullBudgetSumma…;).</p>

<p><em>UPDATE: The Associated Press <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090728/ap_on_re_us/us_michael_jackson_inve…; Monday afternoon that Dr. Conrad Murray gave Jackson propofol to help him sleep, and the dose proved to be lethal. Today, police and federal drug enforcement officials are reportedly <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/07/detectives-in-michael-jac…; Murray's Las Vegas home. <br /></em></p><p>It is the most anticipated autopsy in modern history.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.theheart.org/article/932995.do">Dr. Sidney Wolfe</a>, the acting president of <a href="http://www.citizen.org/">Public Citizen</a> and the head of its <a href="http://www.citizen.org/hrg/">Health Research Group</a>, is a guy you don't want to have as an opponent. He has an encyclopedic command of the facts and a delivery that manages to be both gracious and a little intimidating.

<p>Here's more coverage of the California budget cuts and their impact on health care, along with some new ideas for stories. </p>

<p>The general media consensus is that the state's Republicans won big in forcing major cuts in health and welfare programs, while Democrats are spinning their victory in saving the CalWORKS welfare program and the popular Healthy Families children's health insurance program from being
eliminated outright. </p>