Health Care Heroes 2008

Every day, a Minnesota health-care professional saves a life or eases a patient’s pain. Every day, a researcher advances our knowledge of a debilitating disease or passes a milestone in the development of a treatment or a life-enhancing device. Every day, the lives of strangers are made better by those professionals, and the definition of what it means to be a hero is expanded.

What does it take to be a hero? Ask the recipient of a life-saving implant, or the parent of a youngster being treated for a previously untreatable illness, or the elderly patient comforted by a caring hospital staff. They’ll tell you that it takes both less and more than one might think. They’ll tell you that heroism doesn’t require strength or speed or stamina or willingness to risk danger. That it doesn’t demand bravery in battle.

But it takes a lot. It takes study, focus, compassion, and commitment to achieving results. It takes an enormous expenditure of time and dedicated effort. In health care, it takes empathy and imagination—the ability to put oneself in the place of the afflicted—and a determination to deliver improvement.

This month, Twin Cities Business and Medica join for the second time to honor eight of Minnesota’s outstanding contributors to the quality of health care in our state.

The honorees were screened from dozens of nominees, divided into professional categories, and selected by a panel of thoughtful and informed judges who admire their efforts and recognize the significance of their accomplishments.

Turn the page. See what the honorees have done and continue to do. You will be impressed by every one of the judges’ choices. You will see why they deserve to be called heroes.

—Jay Novak, publisher and editor, Twin Cities Business.