Rae Ellen Bichell
I cover the Rocky Mountain West, with a focus on land and water management, growth in the expanding west, issues facing the rural west, and western culture and heritage. I joined KUNC in January 2018 as part of a new regional collaboration between stations in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. Please send along your thoughts/ideas/questions!
As a science reporter and Kroc fellow with NPR, I did important things like following the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, but also not-so-important stuff like spending far too much time searching for a piece of NASA audio from 1969 that captures the moment when an astronaut finds a loose turd floating through his spacecraft. As a Fulbright grantee living in Helsinki, Finland, I learned that dark winters are sad, reindeer meatballs are good, and ice swimming is best when avoided. Before that, I went to Yale to study archaeology, journalism and anything that involved handling insects and plants.
In my free time, I like reading, playing indoor soccer (not very well) and doing a crazy sport I came across in Colorado called canyoneering. Home is Nashville, Tennessee.
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The health care industry is obsessed with consumer satisfaction. But national patient surveys still don't get at an important question: Are hospitals delivering culturally competent care? -
With kids back in school, business is picking back up for professional delousers. But how are kids getting head lice if they're physically distancing in the classroom? -
Obstetrical emergency departments are a new aspect of some hospitals that can inflate medical bills for even the easiest, healthiest births. Just ask baby Gus' parents about their $2,755 ER charge. -
The CDC sent in a team to investigate a delta variant hotspot in Mesa County, Colo. That didn't stop tens of thousands of people from flocking to the state's largest country music festival. -
A college student never learned the cause of intense pain that drove her to an ER, but her bill totaled $18,735.93. She and her mom, a nurse practitioner, were outraged after dissecting the charges. -
Billy Barr has lived alone in a cabin in a Colorado mountain ghost town for almost 50 years. He offers advice on how to find and maintain happiness in isolation.
