Author

Brett Kelman

Brett Kelman

Brett Kelman, Correspondent, joined KHN after 15 years of beat reporting at three newspapers in the USA Today Network, most recently covering health care, the opioid crisis, and the coronavirus pandemic for The Tennessean in Nashville. At The Pacific Daily News in Guam, his reporting was directly responsible for the arrest of three police officers who aided in a human trafficking conspiracy. In California, he was a contributor to The Wall, a Pulitzer Prize-winning examination of the border wall proposed by former president Donald Trump. He is a graduate of the University of Florida. [email protected] | @BrettKelman

This rural, red Tennessee county was a vaccine success story. Not anymore.
By: - May 20, 2022

MEIGS COUNTY, Tenn. — At a glance, it seemed like a Southern pandemic success story in a most unlikely place. A small county northeast of Chattanooga, along the twisting banks of Chickamauga Lake, for much of the past year has reported the highest covid-19 vaccination rate in Tennessee and one of the highest in the […]

Jacqueline Brewster. (Screengrab by Brett Kelman, Kaiser Health News)

A travel nurse leaves fears of hospital drug tampering across three states
By: - April 14, 2022

Health officials in at least three states are investigating a travel nurse suspected of tampering with and potentially contaminating vials and syringes of opioid painkillers in two hospitals, then returning the vials to medication cabinets where they could be unknowingly given to patients. One hundred patients who may have been exposed to contaminated syringes last […]

Tennessee taxpayers could, under a new court ruling, be liable for years of back payments to emergency room doctors. Photo at Vanderbilt University Medical Center by John Partipilo.

Why nurses are raging and quitting after the RaDonda Vaught verdict
By: and - April 5, 2022

Emma Moore felt cornered. At a community health clinic in Portland, Oregon, the 29-year-old nurse practitioner said she felt overwhelmed and undertrained. Coronavirus patients flooded the clinic for two years, and Moore struggled to keep up. Then the stakes became clear. On March 25, about 2,400 miles away in a Tennessee courtroom, former nurse RaDonda […]

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