2025 Association of Health Care Journalists Conference Empowers Writers

Click-clacking keyboards and scribbling pens on notepads created a comforting white noise at the Association for Health Care Journalists’ 2025 health journalism conference, which took place May 29 through June 1 in Los Angeles. 

The conference featured a variety of sessions that served to inspire and empower those in attendance, including 15-minute lightning talks, collaborative fishbowl discussions, and panels with health care policy makers and journalists who cover them. A highlight of the conference was the organization’s 21st Annual Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism, which recognizes the most effective and impactful stories in several mediums. 

Day One – Field Trips to Top Health Care Providers  

On the first day of the conference, journalists could choose to attend one of five field trips intended to spark ideas and facilitate original reporting. The destinations included some of LA’s most iconic health institutions: Cedars Sinai’s Women’s Guild Simulation Center for Advanced Clinical Skills, City of Hope, and the Betty Ford Center. During the field trips, conversations between health care professionals and journalists offered a glimpse into emerging issues, such as AI’s role in surgical procedures and therapy, that could have downstream effects on the next generation of health care providers and patients. 

Conference sessions on day one covered how to combat health misinformation when it’s coming from the top brass and reporting on domestic violence. 

The conference’s 636 attendees included a mix of independent journalists, newsroom staff, and employees of foundations and non-profits. The conference programming offered something for everyone, including sessions on the business side of working as an independent journalist and the basics of health reporting, as well as on health care topics such as home health care for aging populations, drug shortages, and transgender care. 

Days Two and Three – Sessions, Pitches, and More

An appearance by Stephanie Carlton, Deputy Administrator and Chief of Staff for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was a highlight of day two. Journalists submitted questions for the recent Trump administration appointee to answer in a session moderated by Gideon Gil, Managing Editor of STAT. Carlton attempted to clarify the language in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” saying that instead of cutting funding, the administration only sought to manage its growth in the coming years. 

Day two also featured Pitchfest, which, like ASJA’s Client Connections event, introduces freelancers to outlets looking for pitches. More than 20 publications participated, including Scientific American, AARP, and NPR. 

Day three included sessions and the 21st Annual Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism.

After the awards, independent journalist Christine Herman led a Q&A with New York Times bestselling author Mary Roach, whose debut nonfiction book, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, applied humor and honest curiosity to an underexplored subject. The book’s success led Roach to continue writing books, and her latest, Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy, comes out in September. 

Other day-two sessions covered the risks and benefits of weight loss drugs, women’s health research and its funding, and reporting on medical studies and the crucial role DEI plays in medical research. 

Takeaways for Freelance Health Writers

ASJA was well-represented at the conference, with ASJA President Darcy Lewis, immediate past president Emily Paulsen, and other members among the conference attendees. Freelance-focused sessions helped independent writers in attendance gain an edge. Some of the best: 

• Tara S. Haelle, MA, broke down the anatomy of a medical study with easy-to-understand terms, and described litmus tests for deciding if a study merits coverage. 
• ASJA member Charlotte Huff discussed how she turbocharged her career by narrowing her niche to cancer and rural health, which helps her work faster and find stories no one else is covering. 
• Doug Levy demonstrated how he uses Google’s NotebookLM, a generative AI tool, to combine data from various studies and sources to streamline his work.
• Dawn Fallik discussed how she uses fellowships to subsidize her extensive travel for investigative stories. Sonya Collins shared how she lives abroad for extended periods of time each year as a way to find new stories and fuel her travel bug.  

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Rachel Murphy is a freelance writer based in Kansas City, Missouri. She covers health care and finance topics for national outlets, nonprofits, and enterprise clients.