Marcia Frellick

Chicago, IL USA
Website: http://www.marciafrellick.com
Contact

Professional Experience

Experienced print/online journalist specializing in health care. I have more than 30 years of experience writing and editing in major markets with feature and news clips ranging from an essay on my frugal father to how the Affordable Care Act affects your taxes.

Expertise

Copy Editor
28 Years
Editor
28 Years
Writer
28 Years

Specialty

Finance
4 Years
Personal Finance
4 Years
Health
6 Years

Industries


Newspaper - Local/Regional
28 Years
Magazine - Trade magazines/publications (B2B)
5 Years
Online/new media
5 Years

Total Media Industry Experience

28 Years

Media Client List (# assignments last 2 yrs)

American Medical News (10+), Chicago Tribune (10+), CreditCardGuide.com (10+), CreditCards.com (10+), Medscape Medical News (10+), Nurse.com (10+), Illinois Issues (6-10), Hospitals and Health Networks (6-10), Chicago Sun-Times (3-5), Visual.ly (3-5), Northwestern magazine (1-2), Academy of General Dentistry (1-2), Arthritis Today (1-2), Huffington Post (1-2)

Other Work History

Chicago Sun-Times, 8.5 years as Sunday news editor Cincinnati Enquirer, 9 years, deputy news editor

Computer Skills

Word, Power Point, QuarkXPress, Quark Copydesk, Adobe Photoshop

Equipment

Laptop, digital camera

References

Upon request

Associations

Association of Women Journalists, SPJ/Chicago Headline Club, Association of Health Care Journalists Other

Showcase

Healthcare

Testing DNA to find best psychotropic drugs
(Nurse.com 8/27/2012)
Pharmacogenetic testing involves a swab or a blood or saliva sample sent to a lab that analyzes patients' DNA - specifically cytochrome P450, the enzymes that metabolize medication - to find out how they metabolize a certain drug. That can influence which drugs are prescribed and in what amounts.
Tax on sugary drinks could reduce obesity
(Medscape Medical News 10/31/2013)
Taxing sugar-sweetened soft drinks at 20% would cut the number of obese adults in the United Kingdom by 180,000 (1.3%) and the numbers of overweight adults by 285,000 (0.9%), researchers report in a study published online October 31 in BMJ.
Alarm fatigue alert
(American Medical News 4/24/2013)
Medical equipment alarms that beep and buzz throughout hospital units may be a serious threat to the patients they are meant to protect, says a sentinel event alert issued by the Joint Commission.
Self-referrals cost Medicare an extra $109 million
(Medscape Medical News 11/2/2012)
A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report finds that physician self-referrals for advanced imaging are rapidly increasing and cost Medicare more than $100 million in 2010.
New med schools open with primary care focus
(Medscape Medical News 4/5/2013)
Two medical schools will open this fall with an unusual focus: primary care. The need for the schools mirrors the dire need for primary care doctors in their surrounding counties.
Nurse practitioner will see you now
(Hospitals & Health Networks 7/1/2011)
With physician shortfall projections hovering at 63,000 by 2015, the promise of 32 million more Americans gaining health insurance, and a patient population rapidly aging, hospitals are scrambling to line up caregivers. One strategy gaining momentum is the increasing use of NPs and PAs.
Programs help "disruptive physicians"
(Medscape Medical News 4/11/2013)
Programs can help "disruptive" physicians manage their anger and help hospitals avoid costly problems.
Mount Sinai re-invents pre-med path
(Medscape Medical News 3/4/2013)
Mt. Sinai is tossing out the MCAT requirement and changing course requirements in hopes of attracting medical students who are brilliant and passionate about medicine but may not do well on standardized tests.
Mammograms steady despite recommendations
(American Medical News 5/5/2013)
Despite controversial recommendations by a government-backed task force in 2009 to reduce the rate of mammograms, the numbers of women getting them regularly have not changed significantly, according to a study in the April 19 issue of Cancer.
AMA declares obesity a disease
(Medscape Medical News 6/19/2013)
Physicians voted overwhelmingly to label obesity as a disease that requires a range of interventions to advance treatment and prevention. However, there was impassioned debate in the hours before the vote here at the American Medical Association (AMA) 2013 Annual Meeting.
Illinis Medicaid Moves to Managed Care
(Chicago Tribune 4/29/2014)
Hundreds of thousands of Medicaid recipients in Illinois are being shifted into some kind of managed care this year as part of a sweeping overhaul intended to fix a program widely acknowledged to be broken. Sherry Loveless can see the promise right through her bedroom door.

Personal essay

My frugal father knows best
(Northwestern Magazine 9/1/2004)
We didn't have air conditioning in our three-bedroom ranch house in Evansville, Ind., nestled right on the steamy banks of the Ohio River, which is not a problem unless you hope to be happy on any given day between May and September. We worked around it by having huge blue metal fans throughout the

Consumer

Illinois housing market after the recession
(Illinois Issues 11/1/2009)
Home building is just one of the industries waiting for positive turns in the economic forecast and to see how consumers' lifestyles and desires will emerge after the slump.
Gen X
(Illinois Issues 5/1/2012)
The financial future looks more shaky for this group than for baby boomers.

Infographics

Real cost of long-term care infographic
(Huffington Post 6/27/2013)
Most Americans aren't even thinking about it, but the numbers say we should be. While the costs and the means to pay for long-term care can be daunting to think about, the one thing that can put one's mind at ease is preparedness. In the infographic below, you'll get some of the facts about actual