Month: May 2011

Wisconsin made only marginal progress last year in addressing one of the most entrenched problems in its health care system: access to dental care for needy children. The state's performance lagged Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois in a report released last week by the Pew Center on the States. And it did no better than states such as Mississippi and West Virginia. (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 5/31)

A Milwaukee County psychiatrist who resigned in January while facing disciplinary charges over questionable patient care and has a history of accusations he had sex with patients is collecting a six-figure pension payout this year. Karl I. Strelnick left the county with a "backdrop" lump-sum payment of almost $138,000. He also receives monthly pension checks of nearly $4,500, or almost $54,000 a year, county records show. If he had skipped the backdrop payment, his monthly retirement check would have been $5,184 - more than $62,000 a year. (MILWAUEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 5/31)

Gone are the days of plastic-tasting chicken and soupy mashed potatoes. Today, area hospitals are hiring chefs to make sure patients leave the premises feeling well and well fed. (MILWAUKEE BUSINESS JOURNAL, 5/27)

A Marshfield man planned on taking a handgun into a Madison Planned Parenthood clinic Thursday "to lay out abortionists because they are killing babies," according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court. (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 5/27)

Last year, Thomas Zdeblick, one of the most renowned spine surgeons in the United States, got a pointed letter from a young, relatively unknown doctor in Croatia. Only two years out of his residency, Tomislav Smoljanovic was raising serious questions about published medical research by Zdeblick and other top American spine surgeons and their work involving a lucrative spine surgery product sold by medical device maker Medtronic. (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 5/26)

First lady Michelle Obama sent top federal officials to the Menominee Indian reservation in Keshena on Wednesday to launch a specially targeted “Let’s Move! in Indian Country” initiative to help a group of children who statistically are twice as likely to be overweight as the general population. The first lady’s broader “Let’s Move!” initiative, launched last year, aims to eliminate the childhood obesity epidemic within a generation. (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 5/26)

The state would use a huge influx of new tax money expected over the next two years to help pay a looming debt to a medical malpractice fund but drop some $30 million in concessions from state workers, under draft legislation circulated Tuesday by Republican lawmakers. (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 5/25)