Ryan Sabalow

<p>California communities have received millions of dollars for mental health treatment from a new state tax. Are they wasting it? Get tips on how to find out.</p>

<p>This Sunday in the Record Searchlight, we revealed that nearly two thirds of Shasta County's doctors are older than 50, and there aren't nearly enough young doctors lining up to replace their retiring peers.</p>

<p>Women in Redding, Calif. face a major dilemma should they decide to try to have a natural birth after a previous Cesarean section.</p> <p>Redding may be a regional medical hub serving basically every rural county adjacent to the northern Sacramento Valley, but the doctors here refuse to perform vaginal births after a previous c-section (VBAC).</p>

<p>Got restrictions on your medical board license? A couple of arrests in your past keeping you from landing a good-paying medical job? If you're an MD in California, you might want to consider opening a marijuana clinic.</p><p>Sunday in the Record Searchlight, I explored the growing number of these lucrative new medical business models popping up in Redding and the doctors behind the town's three cannabis clinics.</p><p>Critics say California's vague medical marijuana laws open the door to unscrupulous doctors looking to make easy cash handing out "'scrips" to whomever wants one.</p>

<p>This probably sounds familiar to most local health reporters.</p><p>A public health department puts out a press release about someone in their county catching a communicable disease like West Nile virus, meningitis or H1N1. The press release doesn't provide a person's age or hometown. If you're lucky, it might provide the patient's gender. A little digging reveals that the person was sickened so long ago that the news seems stale at best.</p>

<p>This weekend, we ran a story that looked at Shasta County's high rates of hysterectomies and back surgeries, an important -- and touchy -- topic in our community given Redding <a href="http://www.redding.com/news/2009/oct/24/former-rmc-heart-surgeon-realyv… still recovering</a> from its years-long ordeal following FBI agents investigating allegations of unnecessary heart procedures performed at what was then Redding Medical Center </p>

<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>