special report: Rural health

'Surviving a stroke'

Two years after surviving a stroke, Bev Marcue of Lancaster has relearned how to walk and talk but struggles with daily life.

Dec 24, 2010 | 1:00 pm

Surviving a stroke
Two years after surviving a stroke, Bev Marcue of Lancaster has relearned how to walk and talk but struggles with daily life. She didn't get …
Video: 'Guardians of normal birth'
Midwives at the Northern New Mexico Birth Center give options to pregnant women. Midwives are being seen as a way to provide delivery services…
Video: Practicing on the Plains
Karyn Thornton, a physician assistant from Wisconsin, moved four years ago to Montana, where she works at seven rural hospitals. Click here to…
Video: Remote Area Medical
Demand is high for free health care services. Remote Area Medical brings its corps of volunteers to eastern Tennessee for a weekend clinic, a…
Interactive: Map of clinics that target the uninsured
Free and low-cost medical clinics in rural southcentral Wisconsin.
Video: A bitter pill
After nearly dying from taking too many painkillers, Misty Schramm fought her addiction through treatment. Her brother got on a waiting list …
Interactive: Long distances to mental health help
Missy Zoephel and her daughter, Shelby, traveled far from home for nine months before finally getting an appointment with Dr. Richard Immler, …
Video: Saving Shelby
Missy Zoephel knew her daughter Shelby needed help. Shelby was hearing voices and trying to hurt herself, but help from a child psychiatrist …
Video: The value of a smile
Dental care can be hard to find for people on Medicaid or with no insurance. For Rob Homerding, a federally funded clinic in Darlington, 30 m…
Interactive: Map of dental clinics targeting the underserved
Dental clinics run by federally qualified health centers that take patients on Medicaid, with private insurance and without insurance in Wisconsin.
Interactive: Lost rural pharmacies
Timeline and map showing rural communities where pharmacies have opened or closed, leaving many small towns with limited options.
Video: Becoming a rural doctor
Clay Dean, from a beef farm near Blue River, west of Madison, is in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health's new Wisconsin Academy for Ru…
Interactive: The financial health of Wisconsin's rural hospitals
Video: Long-distance deliveries
Katrina Polencheck had to decide whether to drive 42 miles along a rural highway from Park Falls on a cold winter night to deliver a baby. Cli…

Out of Reach: The rural health care gap

Technology can aid health issues in rural areas

Broadband video links allow rural hospitals to consult with specialists on treatment options.

Dec 26, 2010 | 2:00 pm | Loading…

In places with scarce prenatal care, midwives deliver maternity solution

The people who live in and around the small city of Las Vegas, N.M., where the foothills meet the plains can count on an important service: Th…

Nov 23, 2010 | 9:30 am | Loading…

Frontier medicine in Big Sky Country

Montana is a national test site for ways to solve rural health challenges.

Oct 17, 2010 | 9:00 am | Loading…

Wisconsin’s free health care clinics might emulate Kentucky program

Organizers of Wisconsin's rural free clinics are paying attention to Kentucky Homeplace — a state-funded program that helps people navigate th…

Sep 27, 2010 | 5:30 am | Loading…

At these clinics, income no object

They assembled in a parking lot on a hot afternoon — diabetics, men with toothaches and chest pain, a woman with torn cartilage, workers whose…

Aug 29, 2010 | 5:15 pm | Loading…

Drugs easy to find, but treatment scarce in rural Wisconsin

Overdose deaths from drug abuse in rural America are outpacing the deaths in urban areas. But Suboxone, an alternative to methadone, is expand…

Jul 27, 2010 | 7:10 am | Loading…

Finding ways to live with mental illness in rural Wisconsin

Despite a greater need, mental health services are hard to come by in rural areas, especially for children. The Wisconsin State Journal's ongo…

Jun 29, 2010 | 7:25 am | Loading…

Too few dentists, too much pain in rural Wisconsin communities

Dental care, "the biggest and deepest" hole in health care, can be hard to find in rural Wisconsin.

May 23, 2010 | 11:05 am | Loading…

Disappearing drugstores: Small-town health suffers as rural pharmacies close

Rural residents across the country are seeing pharmacies shuttered as customer volume fails to keep pace with financial challenges. The losses…

Apr 25, 2010 | 7:30 am | Loading…

Wanted: Doctors for rural clinics

Wisconsin's small clinics and hospitals, like those nationwide, are desperately in need of primary care physicians. The UW and others are taki…

Mar 28, 2010 | 8:50 am | Loading…

Life and death in Park Falls

This remote North Woods town tells a larger story: Good, consistent health care is hard to come by in rural areas across America. The conseque…

Mar 07, 2010 | 7:00 am | Loading…

Links: Free and low-cost clinics in South Central Wisconsin
Beaver Dam: Church Health Services, 920-887-1766 or www.churchclinic.org. Boscobel: InHealth Community Wellness Clinic, 608-375-4324 or e-mail…
Links: Dental clinics
Health centers that have dental clinics for the underserved in Wisconsin.
Links: Rural pharmacies
Information about small-town pharmacies in Wisconsin.
Links: Hospitals, doctors and free clinics
A list of Wisconsin agencies that work to recruit doctors and provide care in rural areas.
Links: Park Falls health care
More information about the Park Falls providers facing challenges in delivering care in the North Woods.

Michael Flores at Madison School Board forum
Michael Flores speaks at a forum for candidates for Madison School Board on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2012, at the Madison Concourse Hotel. The forum…
Mary Burke at Madison School Board forum
Mary Burke speaks at a forum for candidates for Madison School Board on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2012, at the Madison Concourse Hotel. The forum was…
Arlene Silveira at Madison School Board forum
Incumbent Arlene Silveira speaks at a forum for candidates for Madison School Board on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2012, at the Madison Concourse Hotel…
Nichelle Nichols at Madison School Board forum
Nichell Nichols speaks at a forum for candidates for Madison School Board on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2012, at the Madison Concourse Hotel. The foru…
Jimmy the Groundhog's big day
The area's most famous groundhog, Jimmy, faces the public on his big day in Sun Prairie's Cannery Square. Also see the raw video of Jimmy's pr…
RAW VIDEO: Jimmy the Groundhog's forecast
Sun Prairie Mayor John Murray gets the word from Jimmy the Groundhog Thursday morning, but handler Jerry Hahn seems dubious.