The July 18 story came from a reader tip, one of the 6,000 people whose account had been sent to collections by mistake by Dignity Health. The error, discovered July 9 by Dignity Health, caused consternation among these people, some of whom had not even seen a doctor. The Sentinel provided information on how people in this situation can protect their credit and dispute inaccuracies. The medical tourism story came from a request by a friend of Dawni Pappas who was trying to help her raise money to get new teeth in Mexico to eliminate the disease that was attacking her whole body. She said this week the story was far-reaching, opening a door to her many friends to understand the issue and help her raise $23,000 for her new teeth, which by the way look beautiful. She says she will have to return to Mexico because the damage caused by gum disease was more extensive than she expected. The biking story came from a tip from a reader, a dentist impressed by what his fellow dentist accomplished. At first I thought the story was about the dentist but it really was about his employees and how they were motivated to follow his lead and bicycle to work. What is most significant is that no one in the state dental association or national dental association was aware of another dentist who had gone to such lengths to persuade his employees to bike to work. The story of recovery is about postpartum depression but I did not want to use that label, because I felt it was off-putting and discourage readers. You will notice the phrase appears just once and not in the headline. That is by design. After seeing several announcements about a postpartum support group, I wanted to tell the story through the eyes of a mom and dad who lived through it, and luckily, the support group leader was able to find a mom and dad willing to share their story (despite the HIPAA obstacles). Two important elements in this package are the sidebar on how to know if you should seek help and where to find local resources.
