Insights

You learn a lot when you spend months reporting on a given issue or community, as our fellows can attest. Whether you’re embarking on a big new story or seeking to go deeper on a given issue, it pays to learn from those who’ve already put in the shoe leather and crunched the data. In these essays and columns, our community of journalists steps back from the notebooks and tape to reflect on key lessons, highlight urgent themes, and offer sage advice on the essential health stories of the day. 

Author(s)
By Shuka Kalantari

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!

Author(s)
By Ryan Sabalow

<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>

Author(s)
By William Heisel

<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>

Author(s)
By Barbara Feder Ostrov

<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>

Author(s)
By William Heisel

<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>

Author(s)
By William Heisel

<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.

Author(s)
By Barbara Feder Ostrov

<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>

Author(s)
By William Heisel

<p>Ask your doctors about the hardest period of their lives, and they likely will say their medical residency. The hours are long. The work is mentally and physically exhausting. There's little credit when you get something right. Getting something terribly wrong can send you packing.</p> <p>Dr. Bruce Anthony Ames, Jr. (Oregon License No. 23261, California 97046) found a hobby, of sorts, to relieve his stress.</p>

Author(s)
By Deborah Shelton

<p>Probably every health reporter in the country has been asked at one time or another to write a story about live organ donors. But is the obvious benefiit for the recipient really worth the risk to the living donor?</p>