Karen Shakerdge
Reporter/Producer - HealthKaren Shakerdge covers health for WXXI News. She has spent the past decade asking people questions about their lives, as a documentary film producer, oral historian and now radio reporter.
Karen spent months producing Exited, a podcast about young people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities navigating life after high school, which she developed with colleagues at NPR’s Story Lab.
Karen has a bachelor's degree in cultural studies and media studies from The New School and a master's degree from the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.
In 2016, the Association of Health Care Journalists recognized her story about liver transplantation with an Award for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. Her two-part story about donor breast milk banks received an Outstanding Public Affairs Program award from the New York State Broadcasters Association in 2017.
-
The Trump administration is cutting funding to programs that promote Obamacare – by a lot.The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released a…
-
Clostridium difficile is a common bacteria that can be harmless. But for some – especially older adults taking antibiotics who visit hospitals or nursing…
-
Transgender New Yorkers should now have a greater chance of getting medical services covered by insurance.New York State has issued a letter that says…
-
New medical marijuana policies could be coming to New York State in the coming months.The NYS Department of Health says the policy changes should make…
-
A new study in Pediatrics, led by a Rochester General Hospital physician, explores reasons why ear infections rates have been dropping. To learn more…
-
For the first time, veterans with an other than honorable discharge can access mental health services at VA centers. Veterans with this kind of status…
-
A new study finds New York is an outlier in more ways than one when it comes to health care spending.The latest analysis from The Pew Charitable Trusts…
-
One day when Amy Plouffe was at work, she felt a sharp pain on the left side of her body.“The side of my rib cage down to my hip and my leg was very, very…
-
Residents of Wayne and Ontario counties eligible for nursing home care now have another option to try. ElderONE is a new center in Newark, run by…
-
People with serious mental illness who have been arrested for misdemeanor crimes are less likely to end up with additional criminal convictions and stay…