PERSON: Elizabeth Cohen

Medical correspondent

Elizabeth Cohen is senior medical correspondent for CNN’s Health, Medical and Wellness unit, reporting breaking medical news and health consumer reporting on CNN and CNN.com. Her signature digital column the Empowered Patient keeps consumers informed on how to ensure the best medical care for themselves and their families. Her book, THE EMPOWERED PATIENT: How to get the Right Diagnosis, Buy the Cheapest Drugs, Beat Your Insurance Company, and Get the Best Medical Care Every Time, was published in August 2010.

Also in 2010, Cohen provided viewers with on-the-scene accounts of the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and the devastating Haitian earthquake in January. Cohen’s reporting included a whistleblower exclusive with a fisherman’s wife who was among the first to speak out about the health concerns of fishermen now working for BP as clean-up workers. In Haiti, Cohen reported from a makeshift hospital, bringing insights to the injury triage, the complications of transporting critical patients to the U.S., and the lack of medical infrastructure and resources. In 2011, she contributed follow-up reporting on relocated earthquake survivors.

Cohen’s field reporting has also included coverage of the Virginia Tech student shootings, adding clarity to the global response to H1N1 influenza, and from Peru on medical researchers researching female hormone botanicals.

Cohen reported on the aftermath of the destruction of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, contributing to CNN’s Peabody and EMMY® Award-winning coverage through stories about airlifts of premature babies from flooded neonatal intensive care units and reports on displaced cancer patients in desperate need of treatment. She contributed to CNN’s EMMY® Award-winning coverage of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, reporting with sensitivity and professionalism on the rescue and recovery at Ground Zero and the search for missing people in lower Manhattan. She has reported for four primetime specials for CNN.

Cohen received a Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists and a National Headliner Award in 2006 for “A Lesson Before Dying,” a feature on the medical decisions made by a Georgia man at the end of his life. In 2007, Cohen was honored by the Newswomen’s Club of New York and the New York Association of Black Journalists for the feature African-Americans and Bone Marrow Transplants. The Mental Health America Media Awards honored her in 2007 for Perfection Obsession, a feature focusing on a teen’s battle against obsessive-compulsive disorder. In 2008, Cohen received a Gracie Award from American Women in Radio and Television for Where’s Molly?, a feature on a man’s search for his sister nearly 50 years after she was placed in a residential mental health institution.

Before joining CNN in 1991, Elizabeth was associate producer of Green Watch, an environmental television program on WLVI in Boston, a reporter for States News Service in Washington, D.C., and a reporter for the The Times Union newspaper in Albany, N.Y., where she won a Hearst Award.

Cohen is the recipient of the outstanding alumna award from Columbia College in New York City, where she received a bachelor’s degree in history, and the Distinguished Alumni Award at Boston University where she earned a master’s degree in public health.

(CNN)