Dr. Brian Miller received a 2011 National Alliance on Mental Illness Exemplary Psychiatrist Award.

Elsie Odom has a stranger in her closet. But the two are well-acquainted. Odom, now 70, was a lesbian for many years before she learned what she calls "the truth."

On any given afternoon, you can find George Harrison wandering around Ninth and Broad streets between his two restaurants, The Boll Weevil Cafe and Beamie's at the River.

Perry Sheffield realized her mistake when she got to Madagascar to help with an outreach project. Though she knew French, only a third of the people on the African island spoke it.

Viagra became a wildly popular impotence treatment almost by accident, when researchers testing a heart drug noticed it produced unusual side effects in men.

Diane Swain shares a problem with hundreds of parents in the area: What to do with her 12-year-old after school.

A grant that might have led to health care coverage for the uninsured in Richmond and Columbia counties won't be coming, but University Hospital and Medical College of Georgia say the plan isn't dead.

As a hospital nurse, Maria Plagwitz suspected there was a problem with providing health care for the uninsured. After a back injury, losing her job and missing rent and car payments, she knew for sure. "I guessed there was a problem but I'd never really seen it firsthand until it happened to me," said Ms. Plagwitz, 44, who now relies on the St. Vincent dePaul Health Center for care. Augusta health care providers are aiming to help the uninsured if they can secure a grant through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's "Communities in Charge" program.

The definition of an at-risk child varies depending on whom you ask. "Some say they are children who are at risk for substance abuse or educational failure," said Kevin Grigsby, a social worker and professor of psychiatry and health behavior at the Medical College of Georgia. Georgians for Children, an Atlanta-based child advocacy group, says meeting three of four characteristics for poverty puts children at risk for a disadvantaged life.

Rena Bronson of Macon comes home from work and makes a pot of coffee before sneaking off to the bathroom to feed her habit. She pulls out a plastic baggie full of hard, crumbling white chunks and then pops a piece in her mouth. "I eat dirt with the door closed," she said, laughing and a little embarrassed because she is a nurse at the Bibb County Health Department. "I just call it eating dirt. That's what I do. Every day that God sends that's what I do. Technically, I guess I'm supposed to be crazy for eating this stuff?"