About Pia Christensen
Pia Christensen (@AHCJ_Pia) is the managing editor/online services for AHCJ. She manages the content and development of healthjournalism.org, coordinates social media efforts of AHCJ and assists with the editing and production of association guides, programs and newsletters.
Jeff Baillon, an investigative reporter at KMSP-Minneapolis/St. Paul, received a 2013 National Headliner Award for health/science reporting. The story, “No Charge, No Chance,” examined problems with automated external defibrillators which resulted in hundreds of deaths nationwide.
Steve Beale, editor of Bulldog Reporter’s Inside Health Media and news editor for Bulldog Reporter, is writing a column for Daily Dog called “Deskside.”
Independent journalist Laura Beil won a first-place award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors in the category of “Reporting on a Significant Topic” for her Men’s Health story “The Dirty Truth About Hospitals.”
Susan Brink’s book, “The Fourth Trimester: Understanding, Nurturing, and Protecting an Infant Through the First Three Months,” was published by the University of California Press.
Yolanda (Linda) Reid Chassiakos, M.D., director of the Klotz Student Health Center at California State University, Northridge, is a co-author of “New Leadership for Today’s Healthcare Professionals.”
Elbert Chu is now an associate producer at MedPage Today.
Daniel J. DeNoon, formerly at WebMD, is now executive editor of the Harvard Heart Letter.
Coshandra Dillard, a staff writer at the Tyler (Texas) Morning Telegraph, received an Anson Jones, M.D., award from the Texas Medical Association in the category of publications with circulation less than 100,000. The award was for reporting on a program that promotes healthy habits in children. She also recently earned a third place award from the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors for her feature series on the 75th anniversary of the New London school explosion.
Bob Finn has left Medscape Medical News, where he had been assignment editor, to join the Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis as executive editor of the MS Discovery Forum.
The “Labor Pains” series written by John George, senior reporter at the Philadelphia Business Journal, won the grand prize for public service presented by the Philadelphia Press Association and a first-place award for investigative reporting from the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association. He was the first journalist honored by the Maternity Care Coalition with its annual “Spirit of Motherhood Award” for the series. The series, which looked at the impact of maternity ward closings on obstetrical care in and around Philadelphia, was the result of George’s selection to be part of the 2012 AHCJ Reporting Fellowships on Health Care Performance.
Kristin Gourlay, a health care reporter at Rhode Island Public Radio, received a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for her 10-part documentary series about medical education and the future of health care, “Future Docs.”
Shuka Kalantari, previously the health outreach coordinator at KQED-San Francisco, is now a freelance reporter. She will be reporting for KQED, PRI’s The World, BBC World News Service, and other radio and online media outlets. She received the International Center For Journalists “Bringing Home the World: International Reporting Fellowship Program for Minority Journalists,” for which she will travel to Canada and Turkey to report on health and social issues affecting Iranian refugees who are sexual minorities.
Richard Kipling will take over the California HealthCare Foundation Center for Health Reporting in June, when current editor David Westphal retires. The Center, based at the University of Southern California, partners with local news organizations to produce in-depth coverage of health issues. For nearly 25 years, Kipling was an editor at the Los Angeles Times.
Dirk Hanson’s fourth book, “Addiction Inbox: Cutting-Edge Research on Drugs and Dependence,” was published by CreateSpace in April.
Whitney Howell was awarded a press fellowship to cover the 66th Annual World Health Assembly, hosted by the United Nations Foundation and the World Health Organization, in Geneva.
Roma Lightsey graduated from the University of Alabama at Birmingham with a master’s degree in clinical research management. She is now an adjunct faculty nursing instructor at Fortis Institute in Birmingham and continues to write health and medical articles.
Maryn McKenna was awarded the June Roth Memorial Book Award and an honorable mention for the Donald Robinson Award for Investigative Reporting, both from the American Society of Journalists and Authors. McKenna was Science Writer in Residence for spring 2013 at the University of Wisconsin.
Jennifer Ringler has completed a master’s degree in health communication through the distance education program at Boston University.
Wally Roberts has been awarded a fellowship by Investigative Reporters and Editors to support research of a book on the nursing home industry.
Margot Sanger-Katz, a health care correspondent for National Journal, has been named a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in economics and business journalism by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Nazli Senyuva, a medical researcher for The Dr. Oz Show, has been accepted into Columbia University’s Journalism School to pursue a master’s degree in health and science journalism next year.
Curtis Skinner was chosen by the Kaiser Family Foundation as the summer health reporting intern for 10 weeks at The Philadelphia Inquirer. After his internship, he will start a Reuters nine-month traineeship in New York City.
Sarah Jane Tribble is now a health reporter at ideastream, Cleveland’s local NPR affiliate. She was most recently a reporter at The Plain Dealer.
Kelly Tyrrell won a Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Award for a story or series of stories that she wrote last year in The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal.
Matthew Weinstock was promoted to assistant managing editor of Hospitals & Health Networks. He’s been with the publication for nearly 10 years. In his new role, Weinstock adds management of H&HN Daily to his responsibilities. He received the 2013 McAllister Editorial Fellowship, jointly awarded by the Association of Business Information & Media Companies and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, and will serve as a guest lecturer at Medill in the fall. H&HN was named “Publication of the Year,” by the American Society of Healthcare Publication Editors.
Karen Weintraub, a freelance health and science journalist has written a book, “Fast Minds: How to Thrive if You Have ADHD (Or Think You Might),” with psychiatrists Craig Surman and Tim Bilkey. The day after its Feb. 5 publication, it rose to #14 on the Amazon best-seller’s list in Canada, right below “How to Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You.” Her first book, “The Autism Revolution,” co-written with Harvard pediatric neurologist Martha Herbert, came out in paperback in March.
Theheart.org, under managing editor Shelley Wood, was named “Best Website” in the American Society of Healthcare Publication Editors 2013 Awards.
Amy Yee, a freelance journalist based in New Delhi, India, who focuses on development, business approaches to reducing poverty and stories with social impact, has been named a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in economics and business journalism by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Now 68, Dorschner has retired from The Miami Herald after working there since 1970. That’s almost 43 years with the newspaper.