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Alumni Association Home > May-June 2009   Print View Letters 5/6/2009 3:30 PM Letters Honoring Veterans and Donors I want to commend Minnesota magazine for the wonderful article “Honoring Service and Sacrifice” [March–April]. As the state commander of the Disabled American Veterans, Department of Minnesota—and an invited member of the stadium design committee charged with planning the Veterans Tribute—I want to sincerely thank University of Minnesota President Bob Bruininks and retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Dennis Schulstad for their determined and successful efforts to invite, engage with, and solicit the input of statewide veterans organization leadership in designing and planning for the Veterans Tribute. I also thank the generous donors who have contributed to the Veterans Tribute. The major donors are certainly heroes in my mind, and I would like to ask that my fellow U of M alumni join me in contributing to the stadium Veterans Tribute. Let us continue to honor Minnesota veterans as did our veterans and statewide communities in the past, with Memorial Stadium being dedicated in honor of our brave WWI veterans. Dean Ascheman (B.S. ’76) Rosemount, Minnesota What Ails Health Care What does it tell us regarding our attitudes toward the current medical delivery hodgepodge when a journalism professor has to point out what we woefully, or willfully, neglect [“Sick about Health Care,” March–April]? The wealthiest nation in the history of the world cannot, or will not, provide sufficient and adequate health care to all its citizens. Although we should credit Professor Schwitzer for telling us what we need to hear, we should also note that his remarks include a psychological marketing bias. He refers to making well-informed “consumer decisions” regarding health care. And, herein lies a problem: When did human health become just another commodity? I do not know the dollar value of an arm, or a kidney, or the life of an elderly person who can no longer tend to her daily needs with dignity. It’s not health and science reportage of questionable validity that is the problem. It is a problem of ethics that we no longer choose to accept, or even acknowledge. When will adequate, affordable health care become a right rather than a privilege? Duaine R. Jackola (M.S. ’84, Ph.D. ’89) Bloomington, Minnesota What Patients Really Need I applaud your fine editorial commentary in the March–April edition calling for “healthy skepticism” in health care journalism [and citing] U of M journalism professor Gary Schwitzer’s 10 criteria for judging the credibility of a health care story [Editor’s Note]. We at the Minnesota Physician-Patient Alliance (MPPA) believe that patients and their families, not health plans or the government, are the proper health care “deciders” in all but emergency situations. MPPA’s mission is to encourage quality consumer (public) education and collaborative doctor/clinician-patient alliances. Because patients and their families are the truly crucial stakeholders in health care decision-making, they need to have good information and advice about what helps patients and what is likely to do them harm. Optimal professional care demands attention to the nuances of individual patients. That is why patients and their families need help in making health care choices and counsel in their selection of insurance (and medication) coverages. We are grateful for and will support the diligent work of health care journalists who adhere to Gary Schwitzer’s “healthy skepticism” principles. Lee H. Beecher (M.D. ’65) President, Minnesota Physician-Patient Alliance Maple Grove, Minnesota Expand MS Research I enjoyed reading about Susan Hagstrum in the January–February issue [“A Tough Act to Follow”]. I’d like to share my perspective as both a member of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society–Minnesota Chapter Board of Trustees and a person with multiple sclerosis (MS). I am pleased to say there are significant resources being poured into finding a cure for MS. As a driving force of MS research, the National MS Society devotes nearly $50 million each year to support more than 440 projects and fund training fellowships focused on prevention, treatment, and cure for this disease that affects nearly 10,000 people in Minnesota and western Wisconsin. The University of Minnesota is already home to a top-notch Multiple Sclerosis Center, recognized as an affiliated clinic of the National MS Society. I applaud Hagstrum’s vision to expand this MS center—resources and talent in the Medical School, School of Public Health, Institute for Translational Research, and others—to make the University the perfect home for a collaborative and comprehensive MS research center to serve Minnesota and the region. Let’s not only cheer on Susan, but join her efforts to advocate for people with MS and join the movement to create a world free of the disease. Martha Cincoski (M.D. ’94) Woodbury, Minnesota A Wangensteen Memory I thoroughly enjoyed Tim Brady’s piece on Dr. Owen Wangensteen’s time at the University and his immense contributions to medicine [“Gut Instincts,” March–April]. As an undergraduate in the early 1950s, I worked as a page in the biomedical library, fetching the books and articles requested by the medical faculty. Professors filled out call slips a few at a time and handed them to us at the front desk. For O.H.W., the staff kept instead an array of previously filled out call slips on file at the front desk. He would come in, select a number of slips, and we pages would pile the volumes on a cart and deliver them to his table in the reading room. He was accommodated in this exceptional service because he was such a voracious reader and because he was O.H.W. One day, I precipitated a minor crisis without knowing it. I broke protocol by telling Dr. Wangensteen that the journal he requested took up two and a half shelves, and I asked if would follow me back into the stacks to point out the particular volume he needed. He did, most graciously. I was told afterward by senior staff that he had ceased going into the stacks himself some years earlier. Library lore had it that he vowed never to go back into the stacks himself. They could be brought to him. David S. Wilson (B.S. ’53, M.A. ’64, Ph.D. ’68) Chico, California What’s a Wangensteen? When I was wounded in France in 1944, I was flown back to a hospital in England and soon learned about penicillin, empyema, and Wangensteen. The employment of a Wangensteen was necessary for the treatment of my chest and lung wound. The bottles of this simple but ingenious device were reversed, top to bottom as needed, on a round the clock basis. At the end of the war, I returned home and entered the University of Minnesota in January 1946. It was then I learned how “The Wangensteen” got its name. Mortimer Sheffloe (B.S. ’50) Georgetown, Texas Correction A photo caption on page 49 in the March–April issue misidentified a building as Coffman Union. The building is Smith Hall. The editors regret the error. To submit a letter, go to www.alumni.umn.edu/opinion or write to Letter to the Editor, Minnesota Magazine, McNamara Alumni Center, 200 Oak. St. SE, Suite 200, Minneapolis, MN 55455. Guidelines are at the Web address above.

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