By Katja Ridderbusch Every couple of weeks, police in Americus, a small city in southwest Georgia, respond to trouble at the home of the same young man. The man goes through psychotic episodes, sometimes violent ones. He’s on the autism spectrum and has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. The man got a lucky break…
By Katja Ridderbusch Sometimes, Pamela Winn isn’t sure how to connect with people, even those she loves, like her 9-month-old granddaughter. When the baby is in her arms, “I sit there quietly, and I don’t know what to say. What to do,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “My socializing skills are just not…
By Katja Ridderbusch Every once in a while, after working long and sometimes grueling shifts, after getting yelled at and spat on and occasionally having plastic cups thrown at him, Officer Brian Vaughan feels so worn down that he wonders if being a cop is still worth it. “I guess the answer, for now, is…
By Katja Ridderbusch Michael Goodroe isn’t the type who worries easily or is quickly scared. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, “I was a little sad,” he says as he sits down in his parents’ Roswell bungalow, his hands neatly folded on the large wooden dining room table. “Because I felt that the life I knew…
By Katja Ridderbusch When Randall Hampton got his first dose of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine in mid-January, he asked the nurse to give him the booster shot right away. “But they wouldn’t do it,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “They wanted me to come back three weeks later.” (As eager as he was, the wait is…
By Katja Ridderbusch Fabian Kausche doesn’t plan on getting a tattoo any time soon, and without much hair, a visit to the barber shop isn’t a priority either. Even though personally, he may be safe to do so. In mid-March, Kausche tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. He was ill…
Harry Wuest was the third patient to receive a heart transplant at Emory University Hospital in 1985. Today, as researchers are looking into alternatives to donated human hearts, he’s the longest-surviving heart transplant recipient in Georgia, and one of the longest-surviving anywhere. By Katja Ridderbusch Whenever Harry Wuest has a doctor’s appointment in northern Atlanta’s…
Emory Saint Joseph’s is one of the few centers in the country to offer minimally invasive robotic heart surgery, mainly valve repairs. Most hospitals in the U.S. still do open-chest surgery. Read the full article: WABE
This article is published with permission from Rural Health Quarterly, where it first appeared. Lee Whitton is almost unique among his peers at Morehouse School of Medicine. A white male raised in a small town near Chattanooga — he’s a third-year medical student at the Atlanta school, which has a predominantly black and female student…
This is the fourth in a series of articles on foreign-born physicians practicing in Georgia. Other articles in this special report have focused on barriers that immigrant doctors face if they want to work in the state; a clinic that serves mainly immigrant and refugee patients; and on Indian physicians here. If you get admitted…