Medical Reporting

Catalog description

Reporting and scientific research are quite different, but they share a defining characteristic: healthy skepticism. Students will learn how to think critically about the medical literature and about the practice of medicine. The goal is to apply those critical thinking skills to reporting, and to turn them into informative, appropriately skeptical, and well-written stories. Students will get lots of practice thinking about studies like a veteran reporter does. They will think about the difference between correlation and causation, the trouble with disease-mongering, and how to put findings in context. The course also includes how to find reliable and trustworthy experts, using PubMed and other databases, and how to approach and interview those sources to get the best stories, publishable at top news outlets.