First-year MCG/UGA Medical Partnership student Lum Frundi interviews 91-year-old Consie Ellington about her medications at the Athens Community Council on Aging. Frundi, originally from Cameroon, now lives in Georgia, where she would like to practice pediatrics. Photo by Andrew Davis Tucker

Training minority doctors a big priority for Georgia

Shirley Mapp was admitted to Athens Regional Medical Center for chest pain in 2006. When her doctor came into the room, Mapp recalls, he didn’t look at her or speak to her. “He said to the nurses, ‘There’s nothing wrong with her heart. She’s just got high blood pressure.’ ” Then he left the room without…

Funding cuts force Grady to shut two clinics

Funding cuts force Grady to shut two clinics

The news that Grady is closing two neighborhood clinics and raising prescription co-pays shows how cutbacks in government funding can squeeze front-line medical services. Grady Memorial Hospital has come back from the financial brink in just four years, aided by corporate and foundation support and new management. The safety-net hospital is an indispensable part of…

Disabilities ombudsman job still vacant

Disabilities ombudsman job still vacant

The job of state disability services ombudsman remains unfilled six months after becoming vacant. The Georgia ombudsman fields complaints and promotes the rights of people with mental illness and those with developmental disabilities or addictions. The previous ombudsman, Jewel Norman, produced a report last year that cited problems in Georgia’s mental health system. The continuing…

Health budget under the microscope

Health budget under the microscope

Many financially strapped states are doing more than cosmetic surgery to their health agency budgets. Georgia and its Department of Community Health aren’t immune from the painful cuts. When the state’s main health agency presented its fiscal 2012 budget numbers to a legislative panel Thursday, most of the proposed spending reductions went unchallenged by the…

What doctors say about their patients

What doctors say about their patients

Consumer Reports provides a fascinating survey on what physicians say about their patients. Those who were interviewed said patients can get the most out of their interactions with a physician if they value continuity in that relationship, take their meds, and even take notes while in the exam room. Other guidance involves patient research of…

3 nursing homes added to federal watch list

3 nursing homes added to federal watch list

Federal officials have cited three Georgia nursing homes for serious quality of care problems. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) placed the three facilities – in Midway, Tifton and Albany — on its latest ‘’Special  Focus Facility’’ list. The designation means that a nursing home has had a history of serious quality problems, and…

Solving the problem of chronic pain

Solving the problem of chronic pain

Chronic pain can be debilitating, and finding the right treatment challenging. The Patient Money column of the New York Times guides you through the financial, medical and insurance questions that you face in dealing with pain that doesn’t go away.

Primary care shortage will complicate reform

Primary care shortage will complicate reform

Georgia faces a huge supply-and-demand challenge under health reform, a new statistical analysis has found. The data show that Georgia has the second-largest problem among states in offering enough primary care medical providers for the number of residents who will be newly insured under reform. Starting in 2014, when reform is fully implemented, the state…

Mental health concerns echo after shootings

Making bizarre statements to a professor and fellow students. Posting an Internet photo of himself holding an assault rifle. Predicting that he would soon either be in jail or dead. That scenario played out four years before the Tucson rampage. The individual involved was a graduate student at the University of Georgia in Athens. The UGA…

The Atlanta Medical Center entrance

Trauma network may grow despite fee defeat

Despite uncertain government funding, two metro Atlanta hospitals are poised to expand the area’s trauma network. State regulators are expected to visit the Atlanta Medical Center this month to determine whether it should be elevated to a Level 1 trauma center, the kind that handles the most serious cases. The downtown hospital has operated a…