Sarah Fentem
Health ReporterSarah Fentem reports on sickness and health as part of St. Louis Public Radio’s news team. She previously spent five years reporting for different NPR stations in Indiana, immersing herself deep, deep into an insurance policy beat from which she may never fully recover.
A longtime NPR listener, she grew up hearing WQUB in Quincy, Illinois, which is now owned by STLPR. She lives in South St. Louis, and in her spare time likes to watch old sitcoms, meticulously clean and organize her home and go on outdoor adventures with her husband Elliot. They have a dog named Ginger.
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Wash U students, alumni and supporters protested the university’s relationship with Boeing at the university’s commencement ceremony and just outside the campus border.
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Planned Parenthood officials in Missouri say they will not give Attorney General Andrew Bailey the records of its young transgender patients.
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The breast milk dispensary at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in O'Fallon, Illinois, opened earlier this month.
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Drug overdoses have killed more than 23,000 Missourians in the last two decades. Many of those were involved fentanyl and other potent opioids.
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St. Louis has the highest rates of syphilis infection in the state. Local health officials want to slow the spread in parts of the city where resources are scarce.
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A federal rule will require long-term care facilities to have a minimum number of nursing staff on hand at all times to take care of residents.
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Proponents of the bill said it would relieve poor residents of a financial and mental burden. That's despite a recently released working paper by economists that shows the positive effects of medical debt forgiveness may be limited.
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Total solar eclipses occur every year or two, but it is exceedingly rare for the paths of two of them to intersect only a handful of years apart, as it has in a swath of southern Missouri and Illinois.
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Local officials said the planned facility on 60 acres in Wentzville could bring jobs and services to one of the state's fastest-growing areas.
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The Chesterfield-based Catholic health system submitted a letter of intent to build the $650 million facility to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, which regulates the construction of new hospitals. The proposed 75-bed hospital would be where Interstates 64 and 70 meet in Wentzville.
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Leaders from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration visited St. Louis University on Wednesday to discuss what federal officials could do to reduce the state’s high rate of maternal and infant deaths. Community health workers, patients and government officials took part in a roundtable at St. Louis University with agency officials from Washington, D.C.
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IUDs have been used for decades, but many patients describe waves of pain when a nurse or doctor inserts them. Providers are now are now considering offering women the option of sedation to make the insertion less unpleasant.