Jon Hamilton

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Jon Hamilton has covered health and medical topics for 15 years, working for a variety of newspapers and magazines as well as online and broadcast media. After graduating from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1984, he went to work for Physician's Weekly, a medical news publication based in New York. During five years there, he served as assistant editor, associate editor, and eventually Washington Bureau chief. After leaving that publication, he became a freelancer in New York, writing medical news and features for publications including Family Circle, American Health, and the Washington Post Health section.

In 1990, Jon accepted a job as a health care reporter at The Commercial Appeal newspaper in Memphis. In 1995, Hamilton left Memphis to resume a freelance career in Bellingham, Wash. There, he began writing for several medical web sites, including Sapient Health Network, and taught journalism as an adjunct instructor at Western Washington University. In 1997, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation selected Hamilton for a media fellowship; he used the yearlong fellowship to study and report on Medicaid reform. In 1998, he began working as a stringer for National Public Radio and as a contract writer for WebMD. In 1999 he became a staff reporter for NPR.

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