Keough’s story: “Coping When All Is Hopeless”

Here is the link to Keough’s Plain Dealer that recently won the Missouri Lifestyle Award. 

http://blog.cleveland.com/health/2008/08/coping_when_all_is_hopeless_th.html

Keough Wins Another National Award

KEOUGH WINS MISSOURI AWARD

Diana Keough, co-editor in chief and senior producer at medicalmommas.com,  finished first in the Health and Fitness category of the
Missouri School of Journalism today announced the 2008 Missouri
Lifestyle Journalism Awards.

More than 100 newspapers and writers submitted more than 1,100 entries
for this 48th year of the contest, originally known as Penney-Missouri.
It is the oldest and best-known feature writing and editing competition
in American newspapering. Winners receive $1,000 in prize money and a
lead crystal vase trophy.

She won for a story published in The Plain Dealer titled, “Coping when
all is hopeless.”

Here’s what the judges had to say:

“We often read good stories about patients who are coping with dying,
but we rarely get to read stories about doctors who are coping with
dying patients. Often these doctors are reticent to reveal their feeling
about this important work. That is not the case with this story. Dr.
Bruce Cohen is a neurologist at the Cleveland Clinic who cares for patients fighting tumors, cancer, cysts and seizures. The writer got this man to speak candidly
about how losing patients affects him * he knows the names of all his
patients who have died. This is a wonderful inside look beyond the staid
doctor profiles written by a journalist with a talent for telling
elegant everyday stories.”

Other finalists were “A doctor at war,” by Abigail Tucker of The
Baltimore Sun and “The high price of keeping Dad alive,” by Laura
Meckler, The Wall Street Journal.