Inside Hospitals, and Finance on the Web

Today, we’re revisiting a conversation about what goes on behind the swinging doors of a major hospital. When you visit a hospital in the real world, you probably won’t see the quick diagnoses and swarthy doctors that populate TV shows like ER and Grey’s Anatomy. In fact, it may even be a while before you get to see a doctor.

Hospitals are big businesses, where bureacracy, budgets, politics and personalities shape patient care. Award-winning journalist Julia Salamon spent a year getting an insider's view of one of the nation’s largest hospitals. After her time at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn’s Borough Park neighborhood, she came away with a revealing portrait of modern medicine from those who make the system run.

Her book is called Hospital: Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity, Plus Red Tape, Bad Behavior, Money, God and Diversity on Steroids. She says that the diversity of the patients, the treatment of the uninsured, and the available technologies at Maimonides Medical Center are all indicators of where American health care is headed in the 21st century.

We also look at the current financial news, as told on the Web. Though news off of Wall Street is slightly better today - this morning U.S. markets rebounded at the open, only to fall again - headlines are still pretty bleak, like this one: "Financial Crisis Enters New Phase," from The New York Times.

Back in April, Karyn McCormack, senior producer for BusinessWeek.com’s Investing Channel, wrote an article called "Financial Blogs: The Best of the Bunch." She joins Word of Mouth with what's being discussed in the financial blogosphere, and offers advice for people looking for business news on the Web.

(Photo by Alex)