Top Docs Knocks
I read your recent article “Top Doctors for Women 2006” (March) with eager anticipation to find listed many of my fine teachers over the years. Yet I was disappointed, even shocked, to find family medicine completely absent from your list of specialties, and no family physicians named amongst your top docs. Family medicine physicians strive to provide preventive care and to coordinate not only specialty care for patients but also health care with life. Family physicians focus on the social, mental, financial, and physical impediments that patients face as they try to maintain good health. No other specialty does this. In fact, many specialists tell me regularly how glad they are that family physicians do what we do—treat the whole patient and the patient’s family. While it is wonderful that the Twin Cities are lucky to have the fantastic specialty physicians we have, our health-care system depends heavily on the many talents of hundreds of family physicians, willing to get to know and treat each patient as a whole person.
Resident, Family Medicine
University of Minnesota
Paging Dr. Runyon
I have become a real fan of Dr. Craig Bowron’s column and I would urge you to compile a book of his past writings. (I have a copy of Damon Runyon’s short stories, and while Craig has never mentioned a “Judy” or any underworld connections, his stories have that same appeal to help pass the time with a smile on your face.) I am not sure what his bedside manner is, but his keyboard-side manner is tops. Keep up the great work you are doing with the magazine. I enjoy the format and your choice of articles.
Thunder Bay, Ontario
Reel Happy
Rachel Hutton’s article on Ali Selim and Sweet Land was a great read and very timely (“Home-Grown Hollywood,” February). I fell in love with Will Weaver’s story “A Gravestone Made of Wheat,” on which Sweet Land is based, when my friend Jim Bakkom, Sweet Land’s set designer and the guy who played the crabby stationmaster in Selim’s film, gave it to me two years ago. I likewise fell in love with the film at the Minneapolis opening last year. Thanks for giving it some well-deserved publicity and for giving readers an idea of how difficult and decidedly unglamorous it is to get high-quality, small-budget film into theaters.
Minnetonka
On Thin Ice with Mom
Just wanted to let you know how much we appreciate the curling article you did in your February edition (“Broomtown”). I’m not a subscriber but a person from our community brought it to me the other day. I have only one comment. First, I should mention that I am the mother of the team’s lead, John Shuster. Although it was a great picture of the “team”—it wasn’t the complete team! And even worse, the caption below the picture didn’t even mention him missing from the picture…. John has been with this team through three national and two world competitions. He’s a nice-looking young man—just ask his mother!
Thank you for including curling in your magazine. We can never get enough coverage of our great sport.
Chisholm
Editor’s note: Curlers are busy people. John Shuster was traveling and unavailable on the weekend that our photographer—who made every effort to get all five members of the U.S. men’s curling team together in one place at one time—shot the group.
No Bronze in Editing
Thank you and your staff for the wonderful article and pictures on our Olympic curling teams in the latest Minnesota Monthly. I found it well-written and informative…except for the quote at the end with “SOB” spelled out. I understand that it has become common language on the street; however, I still expect responsibility in the journalistic community. In my opinion, it detracted from the quality of the article and certainly does not represent the character of the man who was quoted. I, and many others in Bemidji, am disappointed in your judgment.
Bemidji
