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Letters


I taught at Augsburg College in Minneapolis from the fall of 1960 through the spring of 1962, while I finished my doctorate in experimental psychology at the University of Minnesota, across the Mississippi River from Augsburg. Paul Batalden was one of my students, and we developed a nice friendship—something I always tried to do with exceptional students. Paul was indeed an exceptional student, one of several I enjoyed at Augsburg.

Sadly, I lost track of him and most of the others. I happened to see his mother's obituary in the Duluth paper and saw that Paul was a doctor in New Hampshire. I asked my daughter to see if she could contact him; she was not able to make a connection then, but that's why she gave me your magazine with the story about him and his work.

After eight more years of college teaching and administration at the University of Minnesota at Duluth, I became a management consultant in Grand Rapids, Mich. I worked largely with manufacturing organizations in the automotive industry and became familiar with the principles involved in the microsystems approach applied by Deming to auto companies and now by Paul Batalden to health care.

I am proud to have been his teacher, if only for a short time.

Kenneth De Young
Sparta, Mich.

It ain't broke at DHMC
For over three years, my husband and I have made many visits to DHMC with our 43-year-old disabled daughter. She has seen a number of your doctors for some of the many problems caused by the rare disease she has, mucolipidosis III. Throughout her life we've visited many hospitals, so it is natural for us to make comparisons. We have all been more than pleased with the quality of care at DHMC, as well as with the positive and caring attitude we have seen in everyone in its employ. In fact, we've joked that we wish all facilities had the same happy pills they must pass out at DHMC every morning!

This Summer feature on microsystems elicited a macro response from readers.

Now comes the Summer issue of Dartmouth Medicine, with an article explaining what we have experienced! "What System?" by Doug McInnis enlightened us. The DHMC system works very well indeed!

Besides passing the system on to other facilities, how about letting state and federal agencies know your secret? We can just imagine how much less stressful all our lives would be if every system operated like DHMC.

I always look forward to picking up the latest issue of Dartmouth Medicine, filled with interesting articles. I'd love to get it at home, so please add me to your mailing list.

Denise Crompton
Gilford, N.H.

Hive of intellectual activity
Some years ago, my wife and I visited relatives in Hanover and admired the Dartmouth campus—but without fully realizing the intellectual activity behind its elegant walls. I recently had an opportunity to read Dartmouth Medicine and was impressed by the high standard of research being conducted there.

I am a retired orthopaedic surgeon, having given up the last of my medical activities last year. My father was also a doctor, having graduated from medical school in 1905. Between us, we were in practice for a century. My father's early transport was by pony and trap; he saw his first automobile, a steam-driven vehicle, in 1908. When he began his career, there

were only a handful of remedies with any impact on disease and almost all of them, except the newly discovered aspirin, were of herbal origin.

Your Summer issue highlights some of the amazing developments that have taken place since then. New therapies and surgical procedures have created universal problems of cost control. Dr. Paul Batalden's clinical microsystem concept is an interesting attempt to tackle this problem. But as some diseases come under control, new ones, like AIDS, have emerged—a process excellently reviewed in Laura Carter's article. A possible advance in the treatment of prion disorders is described, as well as a new approach to Parkinson's disease. I wonder what the next century will bring.

My other interest is early bird painters, particularly John James Audubon. I believe your library is fortunate to have an original set of his Birds of America. Edinburgh is, as I write, in the midst of an annual festival that attracts a host of visitors from all over the world. One of the exhibitions this year is "Audubon's Adventures in Edinburgh." I wonder how many of your readers know that he spent nearly three years in Edinburgh during a series of visits between 1826 and 1839? During that time, the first of his engravings were made and his Ornithological Biography was written, with the assistance of Edinburgh natural historian William MacGillivray. Audubon acknowledged that without the support he received here, his work "might like an uncherished plant, have died."

John Chalmers, M.D.
Edinburgh, Scotland

Not only does Dartmouth College own a set of Audubon's engravings, but DHMC's corridors and waiting areas are graced with 47 framed Audubon originals; they were a gift upon the 1991 move to the Lebanon, N.H., campus from the late Laurance and Mary Rockefeller.

Diagnostic acumen
Thank you for "Anatomy of an epidemic" [Summer 2006], about the 25th


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