Kristin and Warren Scaife fishtailed along the gravel road that winds south out of Grand Marais, on the rocky shores of Lake Superior. Kristin was in labor, but she couldn’t go to the closest hospital. Helen Newberry Joy Hospital didn’t have a birthing unit. A decade earlier, Kristin’s mother-in-law had found that out when she […]
Ron French
Ron reports on a variety of subjects across the state. Ron came to Bridge in 2011 from The Detroit News, where he was a project reporter. Born and raised in Indiana, Ron graduated from Purdue University. He reported for newspapers across Indiana before moving to Michigan in 1995. Ron lives in Okemos, and like the true Michigander he’s become, he now has a family cabin Up North. You can reach him at rfrench@bridgemi.com or 517-214-3636.
Posted inQuality of Life
CMU eyes locals to relieve doctor shortage for rural Michigan
Northern Michigan needs to take a gardening approach to solve its shortage of medical services, and grow its own doctors. That’s the advice of Ernie Yoder, dean of the yet-to-open Central Michigan University College of Medicine. The shortage of physicians in the northern half of the Lower Peninsula and in the U.P. causes some rural […]
Posted inChildren & Families
Welfare reform results: few jobs, few state answers, refuge in a vacant home
Welfare reform hasn’t been kind to Tamika Thomas. Eight months ago, the 33-year-old lived in a rental home in Detroit with her four children. She attended Wayne County Community College, where she was working her way toward an associate’s degree in radiological technology that would have led to the first good-paying job of her life. […]
Posted inChildren & Families
Some Michigan welfare recipients get reprieve
When the long-awaited cash appeared in her Bridge card account June 29, Elizabeth Weaver had her list ready. She made an appointment to repair her car, which had been leaking coolant for months. The 31-year-old bought shelves, and filled them with toilet paper and toothpaste, things she can’t buy with food stamps. “I need to […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
What's the business case for second Detroit bridge?
Editor’s note: Gov. Rick Snyder joined Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper last Friday to announce a formal deal to start construction on a second bridge linking Detroit to Windsor, Ontario. Snyder announced his support for the span in his first weeks as governor in 2011. Michigan’s share of the construction costs — $550 million — […]
Posted inQuality of Life
Michigan gets med-school boom, doctor bust
More doctors will be graduating from Michigan medical schools in the next decade. Whether that means more doctors practicing in Michigan is another matter. New medical schools have opened, or will open soon, at Oakland University, Central Michigan University and Western Michigan University. Michigan State University’s two medical schools also are greatly expanding their enrollment. […]
Posted inQuality of Life
Beaumont's success fuels medical brain drain
You can’t swing a stethoscope at Beaumont Health System without hitting a resident. More than 400 young doctors — 429, to be exact — are working as residents and fellows at hospitals in Royal Oak, Troy and Grosse Pointe, making Beaumont, until recently, the largest training hospital in the country without its own medical school, […]
Posted inTalent & Education
Study on Michigan early childhood efforts provides startling results
Children who attended a public pre-K school program had greater success throughout their K-12 career, including graduating at a higher rate, according to a first-of-its-kind study that followed more than 500 Michigan children for 14 years. That study, to be discussed today at a meeting of the State Board of Education, provides fuel to growing […]
Posted inTalent & Education
Michigan goes hard after student loan defaulters
Former college students in the eastern half of Michigan get hauled into federal court for defaulting on their student loans at 10 times the rate of the national average. That doesn’t mean more Michigan residents are stiffing the federal government on their loans – but it does mean they’re more likely to face legal consequences if […]
Posted inTalent & Education
Romney and a student walk into a coffee shop …
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney spoke at Lansing Community College Tuesday, suggesting that “somewhere in a coffeehouse, a student, maybe here in Lansing, is sketching out an idea that will change our lives.” A block away from the auditorium where Romney spoke is Gibson’s coffee shop, a hangout for students attending Lansing Community College. […]