Dear Editor (Ontonagon Herald):
It sure would be nice if this entire county had at least ONE medical doctor! My ladyfriend Margaret beat her Stage III throat cancer at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota (involving many 10-hour drives by me), aided by physicians in Hancock. But her therapy entailed a whopping 34 sessions of radiation, and then came the infections, one after another, and she is almost worse off than ever, and suffering constantly — to her great distress and mine.
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We do have some very fine, caring, likable and conscientious nurse-practitioners here, but Aspirus changed its deal with the two doctors we had, Chaltry and Asplundh, and they both retired. There are times when life-and-death matters are at stake and a general practitioner, someone who knows you over the years, would be literally vital.
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I did the pre-med course at Georgetown and found out that back then there was a federal “rural-physician” program so a young M.D. could graduate from medical school debt-free if he/she agreed to serve for six years in an under-served rural community. It would be nice for a young doctor starting out to not have $250,000 in student debt hanging over his/her head.
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From what I hear, some doctor wives find Ontonagon boring and it has no cool shopping, etc. Well, I have lived in 11 states (and in the big cities of Boston, New York, Washington DC, New Orleans and Atlanta) and, honestly, have never been happier than right here with these nice people, their beautiful lake, clean air and four great seasons.
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Shopping? Ehh! I can do without the arrogant, pushy people, racial tension, crime and traffic jams I experienced in those “good-shopping” cities.
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All I can say to the Village fathers and mothers, and they of course know this, is that some good people are going to literally die from our lack of a M.D. here. Can we maybe push harder on this to get in a permanent local doctor, and I mean not just an ER doctor?
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PS I enjoyed the article by Harold Riter (who is always interesting and provides hard facts) on the wild and wooly Ontonagonian of yesteryear, Abner Sherman.
John de Nugent
Ontonagon
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