Health Care
Fearless Focus recap: Five takeaways on barriers to health care for women
Health greatly affects how women are able to show up in both work and life. When women in Iowa face barriers to receiving the health care they need, they struggle to thrive in many other aspects of their lives. The Fearless team held our second Fearless Focus of the year Read more…
Health Care
Fearless Focus preview: Medical professionals discuss barriers to health care for women
Event details:Thursday, June 19 | Noon to 1 p.m. | Virtual | Register for free Women have long faced disparities in accessing adequate health care, and conditions that predominantly affect women have fewer studies dedicated to them. Iowa ranks last among all 50 states with the fewest obstetrics doctors per Read more…
Health Care
Hope Jensen wants to change the narrative about menopause
When Hope Jensen was studying to become a nurse practitioner, she bought textbooks on reproductive endocrinology in hopes she’d learn about women’s health in ways her coursework wasn’t providing. This was around 2007. Five years earlier, the Women’s Health Initiative, the largest National Institutes of Health study ever focused on women’s Read more…
Child Care
How might a future measles outbreak disrupt life in Iowa?
According to the Center for Disease Control, 30 states had reported a total of 935 confirmed measles cases as of May 1, 2025. The United States declared the virus eliminated in 2000, but experts say a decrease in vaccination rates has led to the return of the virus. Three measles deaths Read more…
Health Care
Guest opinion: The need for compassionate listening in health care
By Malinda Shultice I’ll never forget my first day of what was intended to be a temporary and very much part-time position at a senior living community in rural Iowa. We had just moved for my husband’s job, giving me more time alone with my thoughts than I knew what Read more…
Child Care
Section 504 lawsuit stokes fears for families with disabilities
Shane and Jackee Austerman with their children, Isaiah and Elizabeth. Contributed photo. Shane and Jackee Austerman’s children, Isaiah, 15, and Elizabeth, 12, were born with phenylketonuria, or PKU, a rare genetic disorder where the body is unable to produce an enzyme that breaks down the amino acid phenylalanine. Their diagnoses Read more…
Health Care
Essay: How becoming a mother taught me the importance of self-advocacy
By: Jaclyn Overton My oldest daughter just turned 5. Looking back at photos from the day she was born, I’m reminded of the pure, unmatched joy I felt. Becoming a mother was something I dreamed of more than anything, and it’s a title I feel so deeply honored to have. Read more…
Health Care
Taking action for Black mothers: Takeaways from the My City My Health conference
Host Keesha Ward opened the 2024 My City My Health Conference with a request from the audience: Don’t just write down what you learn here today. Commit to taking at least one action to improve health equity. Health equity was the entire ethos of the My City My Health conference, Read more…
Health Care
Passion fuels local nurse through nearly 6-decade career
When Carol Mefford began her nursing career 58 years ago, nurses didn’t use gloves at patients’ bedsides. It was considered rude. She graduated from college the same time Lyndon B. Johnson passed Medicare. She worked as an oncology nurse at the beginning of the field’s development. She used to have patients Read more…