The latest report on AHCJ members’ awards, fellowships, job changes and other news includes Alicia F. Ault, Eileen Beal, Sheri Fink, Kenny Goldberg, Markian Hawryluk, Sandra Jordan, Bridget M. Kuehn, Meryl Lin McKean, Ivan Oransky, Paul Raeburn, Gabriel Sanchez, Fred Schulte, Gary Schwitzer, Liz Seegert, Karl Stark, Stephanie Stephens and Marijke Vroomen Durning.
Alicia F. Ault (@aliciaault) is freelancing for Medscape Medical News and Smithsonian.com, among other outlets, concentrating on health, science, and medicine stories. She was with Frontline Medical News.
The Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging has partnered with website Next Avenue on a series of articles on caregiving challenges, issues and milestones, all of which are written by AHCJ member Eileen Beal, M.A. The series provides insight, information, tips, real-world strategies and empowerment for family caregivers.
Sheri Fink, M.D., Ph.D., (@sherifink) is part of a New York Times team that received the George Polk Award for Health Reporting for their coverage of Ebola in West Africa. Fink spent three weeks embedded in an Ebola treatment unit. Other members of the team are Adam Nossiter, Norimitsu Onishi, Ben Solomon, Helene Cooper, and Daniel Berehulak. Read their work: “Dying of Ebola at the Hospital Door” and “How Ebola Roared Back.” The annual George Polk Awards honor special achievement in journalism, with a premium on investigative and enterprising reporting that gains attention and achieves results.
Kenny Goldberg (@kghealth), health reporter at KPBS-San Diego, won the 2014 Golden Mike award for medical & science reporting from the Radio & Television News Association of Southern California for his two-part television piece on brain surgery.
Markian Hawryluk (@MarkianHawryluk), formerly a health reporter at the Bend Bulletin in Oregon, has joined the Houston Chronicle, where he will be doing mostly enterprise and investigative work covering the Texas Medical Center.
Sandra Jordan (@Twittobugg) has joined The St. Louis American editorial board. She is the paper’s award-winning health reporter and the lead author of “For the sake of Michael Brown,” The American’s first editorial on the Ferguson crisis that went viral and was reprinted in The Nation, among other print and digital publications.
Bridget M. Kuehn (@bmkuehn) has left her staff role at JAMA’s news section after 10 years and is freelancing full time. She specializes in mental health, substance abuse, health policy, health care improvement, and infectious diseases.
Meryl Lin McKean, health and medical reporter at WDAF-Kansas City, received the 2014 Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Central Missouri.
The American Medical Writers Association Southwest Chapter presented Ivan Oransky (@ivanoransky) with its John P. McGovern Award. Oransky is vice president and global editorial director at MedPage Today and vice president of AHCJ.
Marie Powers (@mariempowers) was promoted from staff writer to news editor at BioWorld Today, a Thomson Reuters publication. Powers was a 2014 AHCJ-National Library of Medicine Fellow.
“Do Fathers Matter?: What Science Is Telling Us About the Parent We’ve Overlooked” by Paul Raeburn (@praeburn) received a gold award from the National Parenting Publications Awards.
Gabriel Sanchez (@gabejsanchez), a student at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism who reports on health policy and politics, received a White House Correspondents’ Association Scholarship.
A Center for Public Integrity team, including Fred Schulte (@FredSchulte), won a first place 2014 Philip Meyer Journalism Award for a series that “exposed how the medical industry has raised the “risk scores” for elderly patients to overbill the Medicare Advantage program tens of billions of dollars.” Other members of the team include David Donald, Erin Durkin and Chris Zubak-Skees.
Gary Schwitzer (@garyschwitzer) received a $1.3 million grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation to help re-establish HealthNewsReview.org, which publishes systematic reviews of health care news stories. Among the 40-member team of contributors are AHCJ members Alan Cassels, William Heisel, Andrew Holtz, Sally James, Trudy Lieberman, Kathlyn Stone and Tom Watkins. The project is based at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, where Schwitzer has an adjunct associate professor appointment.
Liz Seegert (@lseegert ), an independent journalist and AHCJ’s core topic leader on aging, has been selected as a fellow of the 2015 Age Boom Academy, “Global Aging: Danger Ahead?” The Age Boom Academy is a joint program of the Columbia Aging Center and the Columbia Journalism School.
Karl Stark (@kwstark), president of AHCJ’s board of directors, was promoted to assistant managing editor, business, health and science at The Philadelphia Inquirer. He has led the newspaper’s health and science desk since 2008.
Stephanie Stephens (@StephStephens) of Los Angeles/Orange County, Calif., has been admitted to the Television Academy and has written, produced and hosted a pilot for a health and lifestyle show for women over age 50.
“Just the Right Dose: Your Smart Guide to Prescription Drugs & How to Take Them Safely,” by Marijke Vroomen Durning, R.N., (@MarijkeD) was released in January.
