Charles Ornstein
Charles Ornstein is managing editor, local, overseeing ProPublica’s local initiatives. These include offices in the Midwest, South, Southwest and Northwest, a joint initiative with the Texas Tribune, and the Local Reporting Network, which works with local news organizations to produce accountability journalism on issues of importance to their communities.
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Charles Ornstein is managing editor, local, overseeing ProPublica’s local initiatives. These include offices in the Midwest, South, Southwest and Northwest, a joint initiative with the Texas Tribune, and the Local Reporting Network, which works with local news organizations to produce accountability journalism on issues of importance to their communities. From 2008 to 2017, he was a senior reporter covering health care and the pharmaceutical industry. He then worked as a senior editor and deputy managing editor.
Prior to joining ProPublica, he was a member of the metro investigative projects team at the Los Angeles Times. In 2004, he and Tracy Weber were lead authors on a series on Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, a troubled hospital in South Los Angeles. The articles won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for public service, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service.
In 2009, he and Weber worked on a series of stories that detailed serious failures in oversight by the California Board of Registered Nursing and nursing boards around the country. The work was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for public service.
Projects edited or co-edited by Ornstein have won the Pulitzer Prize for public service, the Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting, the Scripps Howard Impact Award, the IRE Award, the Online Journalism Award and other major journalism honors.
He previously worked at the Dallas Morning News, where he covered health care on the business desk and worked in the Washington bureau. Ornstein is a past president of the Association of Health Care Journalists and an adjunct journalism professor at Columbia University. Ornstein is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
Two New Lawsuits Allege Surgical Errors During Heart Transplants at St. Luke’s in Houston
In one case, a patient claims a surgeon sewed a major vein closed, causing blood to back up in his head. In the other, a patient alleges that the same surgeon sewed through his colon, filling his abdomen with feces. The lawsuits follow a yearlong investigation by ProPublica and the Houston Chronicle.
What We Learned From the First Year of the Local Reporting Network
Reporters across the country are brimming with ideas for great stories to investigate. All they lack is time and support.
Local Reporting Network
St. Luke’s in Houston Replaces Its President, Other Top Leaders After Series of Care Lapses, Recent Deadly Error
The sudden removal of the three executives follows a yearlong investigation by ProPublica and the Houston Chronicle into widespread problems at the hospital, including deaths in its heart transplant program.
Memorial Sloan Kettering Curbs Executives’ Ties to Industry After Conflict-of-Interest Scandals
The cancer center will now bar top officials from sitting on outside boards of for-profit companies, and is conducting a wide-scale review of other policies.
Top Cancer Doctor, Forced Out Over Ties to Drug Makers, Joins Their Ranks
AstraZeneca has hired Dr. José Baselga, the former chief medical officer at Memorial Sloan Kettering, to lead its cancer research unit.
Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Season of Turmoil
One of the nation’s top cancer hospitals has grappled with how to bring breakthrough treatments to market while remaining true to its mission.
Top Cancer Doctor Resigns as Editor of Medical Journal
Dr. José Baselga, the former chief medical officer of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, was asked to resign after he failed to disclose corporate ties in dozens of scientific articles.
An Unsigned Letter Alleged Mistakes During Heart Transplants at St. Luke’s. Now a Widow Is Suing.
David Kveton died a week after receiving a new heart at the Houston hospital in 2017, and his story was featured in a ProPublica and Houston Chronicle investigation. A new lawsuit alleges a series of medical errors.
Doctors Aren’t Disclosing Industry Ties in Medical Journal Studies. And Journals Are Doing Little to Enforce Their Rules.
Leading medical figures have not accurately disclosed their relationships with drug companies.
As St. Luke’s Heart Program Faltered, Deaths After Liver and Lung Transplants Also Ticked Upward
Some patients and family members who came to the Houston hospital for liver and lung transplants have complained about the quality of care provided. A St. Luke’s spokeswoman says the transplant programs still meet national benchmarks and argues against focusing on outcomes from a single calendar year.