Tuesday, December 17, 2024
Welcome to the third and final special episode of Live Well & Thrive - Silver Lining Playbooks. Listen in for a beautiful tapestry of stories from our Kaiser Permanente Northern California caregivers reflecting on how they learned and grew along with the enduring hope they carried throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Monday, December 9, 2024
Welcome back to a special edition of Live Well and Thrive: Silver Lining Playbooks. I'm your host, Carrie Owen Plietz. In our first special episode, it was incredible to hear caregivers’ stories about the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our teams fought a novel virus which sometimes defied treatment. They faced overwhelming odds and their own fears. So how did caregivers find the strength to provide the compassionate care patients and families needed? In this second episode, we'll hear stories of sadness and loss, but also of joy and laughter, and how our teams found strength in the support from their communities, their families, and each other.
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Welcome to a special series of Live Well & Thrive - Silver Lining Playbooks, The Beginning. In early 2020, when COVID-19 first hit, there was fear, challenges, confusion, and just overwhelming odds. But then came learning, and hope, and stories we can't forget. We invited a cross-section of our care team to tell us about their first encounter with a COVID-19 patient along with some of the lessons they learned from each other and their patients over the three-plus year pandemic. Over the course of three special episodes, we'll hear what our frontline caregivers experienced from confusion and fear to mutual support and some silver linings. Let's go back to the beginning.
Tuesday, October 22, 2024
You don’t have to be a news junkie to know that we are a deeply divided nation when it comes to politics. We’ve become polarized and estranged from one another over issues large and small. As we approach another contentious election season as well as the Thanksgiving holiday, we’re going to explore productive ways to bridge the divides between us. Spoiler alert: it involves something called “courageous listening.” And it doesn’t necessarily involve changing anyone’s mind!
Wednesday, October 9, 2024
For Breast Cancer Awareness month we’re talking with two female leaders on the Kaiser Permanente Northern California team – both with unique perspectives on breast cancer prevention and early detection. Dr. Monica Kendrick, physician-in-chief, Kaiser Permanente San Francisco medical center and an OB-GYN. Dr. Kendrick is also an expert on women’s health and is passionate about supporting women’s life-long health. Debra Flores, Senior Vice President and Area Manager, Kaiser Permanente Greater Southern Alameda area. She is also a registered nurse and a breast cancer survivor.
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
We live in a hyperconnected world. So many of us use our phones or other digital devices to access news and information, to stay connected to one another, and to just do our jobs. But at this point, it goes without saying, there is a dark side to digital dependence. To help unravel this conundrum we turn to Dr. Michael Rich, who refers to himself as a Mediatrician. He is also a parent, a pediatrician, a child health researcher, and children's media specialist. Dr. Rich teaches pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. His recent book, The Mediatrician’s Guide: A Joyful Approach to Raising Healthy, Smart, Kind Kids in a Screen-Saturated World, is a science-backed approach to give parents the confidence they need to raise a child well (and to raise a well child) in the digital age.
Wednesday, August 7, 2024
Have you ever felt moved – or even healed – by coming across a particular poem, song lyrics, or story at a specific time in your life? Or maybe you’ve written some lines in a journal as a way to process difficult emotions or experiences? Today we are talking about the healing power of poetry. Some mental health providers even prescribe it to their patients. It’s a practice called poetry therapy. This episode's guests both work at the intersection of poetry and mental health.
Ali does weekly reporting for Marketplace - with a focus on the intersection between environment and economics.
After the Mountain West News Bureau (and after becoming a new parent at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic) Ali took a role as Senior Producer for Colorado Matters, a live statewide public affairs program on Colorado Public Radio.
She reported and produced weekly interviews and features — both for broadcast and digital audiences — for this daily live statewide public affairs program. This included her participation in the Colorado Matters holiday special as well as reporting on the closing of a coal-fired power plant for the show’s the state-wide reporting road trip.
Ali was recognized with several newsroom awards for her work on the Colorado Matters team.
In 2018, Ali moved from California to Colorado to be a founding reporter for the CPB-funded regional journalism collaborative, the Mountain West News Bureau. She was based at KRCC Radio in Colorado Springs.
While there, Ali reported for public radio stations across Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, and Nevada. Her stories covered issues of public land, water, urban growth, wildlife, politics, immigration, native issues, climate change, and Western culture and heritage.
Credit: Matt Bloom/ KUNC
During her time with the Bureau, Ali landed several stories on national programs like NPR’s All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, NPR Newscasts, Here and Now, and Marketplace. She was interviewed about her reporting by Joshua Johnson on 1A. Alongside her team, Ali reported a feature story for an in-depth series on private prisons funded by the Pulitzer Center.
Ali Budner came to KALW as a volunteer reporter with Crosscurrents in early 2009, then joined the Your Call team as a producer in March of 2010.
In 3+ years, Ali produced more than 500 live shows on a diverse array of topics, from health care to the environment to education, politics, the arts, and beyond.
She also helped facilitate and teach a 10-month radio education program, KALW’s then-nascent Audio Academy.
While at KALW, Ali reported and co-produced an hour long documentary, The Race To An Emergency, about the 9-1-1 system in Oakland, California. In 2014, the piece was honored with several awards including the national Edward R. Murrow award for best radio news documentary in a large market.
In late 2014, Ali traveled to Fukushima, Japan with a group of journalists from San Francisco State University to report on the ongoing aftermath of the tsunami and radiation disaster of 2011. Her feature story from the trip aired on KALW.
Claudia Angulo stands with her four children outside their home in Orange Cove, California. Angulo says her son Isaac was exposed to toxic levels of the pesticide chlorpyrifos while she was pregnant with him. Ali Budner / Capital Public Radio
Link: http://www.capradio.org/articles/2017/08/14/continued-battle-over-pesticide-raises-questions-about-role-of-science-in-regulation/
Photo: Andrew Nixon
Link: http://www.capradio.org/articles/2017/07/11/ditching-diesel-sacramento-schools-test-drive-electric-buses/
Photo: Andrew Nixon
Link: http://www.capradio.org/articles/2017/06/15/plumas-schools-weigh-response-to-opioid-epidemic/
And here's live program, Insight, where Ali talks to Beth Ruyak about her reporting along with guest James Wilson: http://www.capradio.org/news/insight/2017/06/15/insight-061517a/
At 16th and South Van Ness in San Francisco. Photo: Anna Muessig
Gehl Studios in San Francisco created a project they called The National Street Service, designed to make people stop and think about streets as public space and how we interact with each other in that space. I was invited to collaborate on the part of the project that was specifically about fostering more empathy on the street. This became a site-specific non-narrated audio installation at 16th and South Van Ness. That's where, in 2013, 21-year-old, Dylan Mitchell was struck and killed on his bike while on his way to work. I had the honor of talking to Dylan's mother, Julie, about her son, his life, his death, and what street safety means to her now.
Here is her story:
Web link: https://www.nationalstreetservice.org/blog/2017/4/24/thestreetspeaks-stories-from-of-and-by-the-street
Ted (right) and Rachel (left) Santos of San Jose are pictured here. Ted Santos worked as a welder and maintenance supervisor with San Jose State University for 45 years. Sam Harnett / Capital Public Radio
If you want reliable retirement security, the general wisdom is to get a job in the public sector. Most government employers still offer their retirees a guaranteed monthly pension check — unlike private employers. Is it a necessary perk to keep public sector jobs competitive or just too expensive, given the public sector pension debt challenging cities and states around the country?
Story Link: http://www.capradio.org/articles/2017/02/09/a-tale-of-two-sectors/
On Thursday morning, scores of Oakland police officers in tandem with the Department of Public Works, showed up to clear a unique homeless encampment called “The Village” at 36th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way, near the MacArthur BART Station. The camp had been a grassroots partnership between homeless residents, local neighbors, and activist groups like Feed the People and Asians for Black Lives.
Just a day after the city's annual homeless count, Oakland police stepped in and took apart a homeless encampment that had been built by local volunteers. Tiny houses had been constructed from plywood to offer shelter to about 16 people. Video production by Erasmo Martinez.
Corrie Ordway and her daughter, Ellie. Photo: Ali Budner
Managing depression with medicine during pregnancy puts women in a bind, but experts say some risks are better than others.
Story link: http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/thepulse
Link to full 1 hour show on WHYY's The Pulse about making tough decisions: http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/thepulse/item/100804-rock-and-a-hard-place
Political cartoon on office wall of former San Jose mayor, Chuck Reed. Photo: Ali Budner
Cities and states across the country are facing public employee pension debt that is challenging and, in some cases, crippling their budgets. But some municipalities are experimenting with ways to solve that problem. In San Jose, California, voters passed a set of sweeping pension reforms back in 2012. The public employee unions fought back in court. Now a new initiative passed this November may offer a compromise that works.
Corrie Ordway and her daughter Eleanor. Photo by Andrew Nixon / Capital Public Radio
A pregnant mother has a lot of choices to make. Hospital, birthing center, or home birth? natural birth or epidural? Breastfeed or formula? Co-sleeper, sidecar, or separate crib? But a pregnant woman with depression has one more huge decision to make for her health and the health of the fetus.
More and more women of childbearing age in the United States are being diagnosed with and treated for depression. And pregnancy itself can come with an increased risk for serious mood disorders. At this point little is known about the effects of antidepressants on an unborn fetus. But many healthcare providers agree - the consequences of going off medication can be disastrous.