Jane E. Allen, a health reporter for ABCNews.com and member of the ABC News Medical Unit, won the 2011-12 Michael E. DeBakey Journalism Award in the online category. Her winning story, “Canine Cancer Studies Yield Human Insights,” focused on ways that experimental treatment of canine osteosarcoma can potentially extend the lives of children and adults with bone cancer.
Karen Brown, a reporter/producer for New England Public Radio in Amherst, Mass., who specializes in mental health journalism, has been named a 2012-13 Knight Science Journalism at MIT Fellow. Her focus will be on brain science and how early experience affects brain development.
Alan Cassels published a book on medical screenings called “Seeking Sickness: Medical Screening and the Misguided Hunt for Disease.”
Massimo Cecaro, D.V.M., is executive editor of the Journal of Mass Communication and Journalism for OMICSgroup. He is general secretary and professor in Italy and Romania of an international master of scientific communication program that will start next year at the University of Camerino.
Dan Diamond, managing editor of Daily Briefing and contributing editor of California Healthline, is also writing for Forbes. One of his first pieces, published just ahead of the Supreme Court’s Health Policy decision, was about SCOTUSblog.com and why it transformed from an advertorial to news site.
Hannah Douglas was accepted to the Public Affairs Reporting Program at the University of Illinois at Springfield, where she will pursue a master’s degree and fine-tune her health care reporting.
John Fauber, of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, won the beat reporting category in the Gerald Loeb Awards for his work on Side Effects, an ongoing look into medical conflicts of interest and the flawed science used by drug companies and device makers to win FDA approval for their products.
Nancy B. Finn’s book, “e-Patients Live Longer, the Complete Guide to Managing Health Care Using Technology,” was released in September.
Maggie Fox has accepted a job with MSNBC.com as senior health writer and editor, based in Washington, D.C.
Melanie Fridl Ross has been named the immediate past president of the American Medical Writers Association. She is director of Health Science Center News & Communications at the University of Florida in Gainesville and is on the adjunct faculty at UF’s College of Journalism and Communications. She also is senior producer of “Health in a Heartbeat,” which airs on public radio affiliates in 18 states and Washington, D.C.
Pedro F. Frisneda, of El Diario, won a 2012 Award for Excellence in Journalism from the The Stuttering Foundation for his Oct. 21, 2011, article, “El tartamudeo se puede vencer,” an article that explained stuttering to the Spanish-speaking community and offered tips for parents.
Barbara Gastel, M.D., M.P.H., professor, integrative biosciences/medical humanities at Texas A&M University received the university’s 2012 Distinguished Achievement Award in the category of Extension, Outreach, Continuing Education, and Professional Development.
Amy Harmon, of The New York Times, won a 2012 Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism in the “single article: over 200K” category for “Autistic and Seeking a Place in the Adult World,” and was a runner up in the multimedia category for “Autism, Growing Up.”
Rose Hoban, R.N., M.P.H., left WUNC public radio to be the founding editor of North Carolina Health News, a site that launched in January.
Harriet Hodgson‘s 31st book, “Help! I’m Raising My Grandkids: Grandparents Adapting to Life’s Surprises,” has been published. Hodgson is assistant editor of “ADEC Connects,” the electronic newsletter of the Association for Death Education and Counseling. In June, she spoke to the Bereaved Parents of the USA in Tampa, Fla., about “Raising Grandkids: Continuing My Daughter’s Life Mission.”
Susan Ince‘s Good Housekeeping feature, “Fractured”, received a 2012 MORE award from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons in 2012 and was a finalist for a 2012 National Magazine Award in personal service.
Bruce Japsen is blogging about health care and policy at Forbes.com. He is still contributing to The New York Times, teaching at Loyola University Chicago and contributing to other news outlets.
Prerna Mona Khanna, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.C.P., was awarded the 2012 Institute of Medicine of Chicago’s Humanitarian Global Health Award. She is an associate clinical professor at the University of Illinois in the Departments of Medicine and Public Health, and an associate in the Center for Global Health.
Chris King, of the St. Louis American, was a visiting scholar at University of Hawaii – Hilo, where he is co-producing a multimedia project with Art Department Chair Michael Marshall and helping to write multimedia curricula for the Art Department. He also had recent work as a poet published in Ink (London), Enpipe Line (Vancouver) and the 20th Anniversary edition of Drumvoices (Southern Illinois University).
Chuck Kurtz has gone back to school for web design and development and has started a blog, viewfromthemidwest.com, since the Johnson County (Kansas) Sun ceased publication on Aug. 17, 2011.
“The Forever Fix: Gene Therapy and the Boy Who Saved It,” a narrative nonfiction book by Ricki Lewis, Ph.D., was published by St. Martin’s Press in March.
Scott Mace is the senior technology editor at HealthLeaders Media, still based in Berkeley, Calif.
Diana Mason, R.N., Ph.D., received the Media Award from the UCLA School of Nursing. She is co-director of the Center for Health, Media & Policy at Hunter College, City University of New York, and co-moderator of Healthstyles, a radio program on health and health policy.
Maryn McKenna, an Atlanta-based independent journalist and AHCJ board member, was selected as a Schuster Institute Ethics & Justice Investigative Journalism Fellow.
Anna Miller is now associate editor of Monitor on Psychology magazine. She was a writer/assistant editor at the George Washington University Medical Center.
Fred Mogul was part of the WNYC public radio team that was awarded a 2012 Dart Award for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma for “Living 9/11,” a documentary about people who were affected by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and are still struggling to make sense of those events.
Stephanie O’Neill, who recently returned to public radio at Southern California Public Radio, is a finalist in four categories at this year’s Los Angeles Press Club awards. The categories are: Radio Journalist of The Year; News for her coverage of Conrad Murray’s sentencing; News or Feature Short Form for her coverage of the Seal Beach Massacre and Feature for a health story on Laura’s Law.
Peggy Pico has been named weeknight anchor and host of Evening Edition at KPBS-San Diego. Pico was previously the science / technology reporter for KPBS TV & Radio, an NPR affiliate. Previously, she was the medical /science reporter at NBC in San Diego & San Francisco.
Olga Pierce, of ProPublica, was among the winners of the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists in the national reporting category. She, along with Jeff Larson and Lois Beckett, won for “Redistricting: How Powerful Hands Are Drawing You Out of a Vote,” an investigation into the politics and manipulation that go into redistricting.
Chris Rauber, a reporter at the San Francisco Business Times, was named a Health Coverage Fellow and attended the annual fellowship program this spring in Wellesley and Boston.
Joe Rojas-Burke, a science writer at The Oregonian newspaper and a contributing writer with Consumer Reports, has been selected as a 2012-13 Knight Science Journalism at MIT Fellow.
Ryan Sabalow is now on the investigations and enterprise team at The Indianapolis Star, where he expects to cover health and the environment.
Gary Schwitzer, publisher of HealthNewsReview.org, was a keynote speaker at the University of Wisconsin’s event, “Science Writing in the Age of Denial.” He led another National Cancer Institute international health journalism workshop – this one in Beijing – and spoke about his work to the Institute of Medicine’s Evidence Communication Innovation Collaborative in Washington, D.C.
Rochelle Sharpe, a freelance journalist in Brookline, Mass., who has worked recently with the Center for Public Integrity, the New England Center for Investigative Reporting and AARP, has been selected as a 2012-13 Knight Science Journalism at MIT Fellow.
Curtis Skinner was selected for a fellowship at Columbia University with The New York World where he is covering health care and education. His first story was about pressure sore prevalence at New York City nursing homes and how state fines are largely ineffective at getting some homes into compliance. There is an attendant interactive map that shows the increase/decrease in sores among high risk residents since 2007 when the State started their “War on the Sore.”
Laurie Udesky, an independent journalist based in San Francisco, spoke at the Communications in the Millenium conference at Istanbul University, organized by Istanbul University, Anadolu University and University of Texas, Austin. Her talk, “An Ethical Compass for Reporting on Teenagers and Children,” was based on an article she wrote about a mental health court for teenagers who break the law.
Kurt Ullman, of Arthritis Today, won the 2012 Media Orthopaedic Reporting Excellence (MORE) for Consumer Print Journalism: National Magazine.
Amy Wallace was part of the NPR team that received an honorable mention in the 2012 Dart Awards for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma for “Native Foster Care: Lost Children, Shattered Families.”
John Wasik is blogging for the Medicare News Group, as well as writing for Reuters and contributing to the The New York Times, AARP, Forbes and other national publications.
Patricia Wen, of The Boston Globe, earned an honorable mention in multimedia category of the 2012 Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism for “Getting In.”
Do you have news to share with your fellow journalists? Send it to info@healthjournalism.org for a future blog post.
