Alex Smith
Alex Smith began working in radio as an intern at the National Association of Farm Broadcasters. A few years and a couple of radio jobs later, he became the assistant producer of KCUR's magazine show, KC Currents. In January 2014 he became KCUR's health reporter.
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Rural Areas Send Their Sickest Patients To The Cities, Straining Hospital CapacityIn Kansas City, hospitals are treating local COVID-19 patients as well as patients transferred from rural counties in Missouri and Kansas, where there's no mandate or culture for wearing masks. -
Rural Missouri counties are becoming coronavirus hot spots, with some slow to embrace safety protocols. Testing problems and funding delays only worsen the situation.
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Missourians will vote Tuesday on whether to expand Medicaid to uninsured adults. The pandemic has raised the stakes for residents who have lost jobs and insurance coverage.
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Health and hospital officials in two states report that a Trump administration change to how pandemic data is collected has left them unable to access vital information. -
Pediatricians Stand By Meds For ADHD, But Some Say Therapy Should Come FirstNew treatment guidelines don't assuage concerns that some children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are being prescribed medication too soon, before behavioral interventions are tried. -
Loretta Boesing is on a mission to make sure prescription drugs delivered by mail are safe and effective. The life of her son — and others who order medicine by mail — could depend on it, she says. -
Despite running against the Affordable Care Act for years, many Republicans are airing ads saying they support a central feature of the law: the requirement that pre-existing conditions be covered.
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A pediatrician is working to make sure every hospital in Kansas can give babies with neonatal abstinence syndrome the soft start they need, ideally right next to their mothers. -
How Soon Is Soon Enough To Learn You Have Alzheimer's?Only about half the people with Alzheimer's symptoms get a diagnosis, partly out of fear of an incurable decline, doctors suspect. But Jose Bolardo says facing the future allows him to plan for it. -
Branson, Mo., welcomes more than eight million tourists each year, but the economic boom has passed by many of its low-wage workers who struggle to find safe and affordable housing.
