Month: November 2011

Joseph E. Kerschner, an ear nose and throat doctor and former executive vice president at Children's Hospital and Health System, has been appointed to the top academic job at the Medical College of Wisconsin. (JOURNAL SENTINEL, 11/15)

Let's play "the Feud!" That's "Family Feud," of course, and a St. Mary's Hospital executive and her family did just that over the summer, with their episodes of the long-running game show scheduled to air locally this week. "It was so fun," said Kristin McManmon, vice president of operations for St. Mary's, who taped the show in August. (WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, 11/15)

A Dane County judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit to stop the University of Wisconsin System's federally funded broadband projects in four Wisconsin communities. The grant — made available through federal stimulus funds — will build high-speed Internet fiber to anchor institutions such as libraries, schools and government, health care and public safety buildings. (STATE JOURNAL, 11/14)

The southern Chinese city of Guangzhou has mastered many of the trades Milwaukee championed in the last century: machinery, motors, metalworking. Guangzhou's boom has coincided with the sunset of manufacturing in Milwaukee, which in mere decades lost one of the nation's densest concentrations of mass production. The two cities crisscross in another way: Babies in China's industrial heartland now have a far better chance of reaching their first birthday. In Milwaukee, one baby under the age of 12 months dies for every 95 who live, making it one of America's most fatal cities for infants. A generation ago, Milwaukee was one of the safest. (JOURNAL SENTINEL, 11/14)

Community health centers, which provided care to 271,000 patients statewide and almost 78,000 in Milwaukee last year, would be among the first to see the effects of the proposed changes to BadgerCare Plus and other state health programs. The changes - approved Thursday by the legislative committee that oversees the state budget - could result in an estimated 65,000 people dropping or losing their coverage, according the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. The federal government, which pays more than 60% of the cost of Medicaid programs such as BadgerCare Plus, also must approve the proposed changes. (JOURNAL SENTINEL, 11/14)