To Our Health
Health care remains one of the great differentiators in this country. Between the well and the sick, the affluent and the poor, and strangely, between cities, often with little obvious reason. I am struck as I age, and more and more people I know are afflicted with serious medical conditions, how different outcomes and options are from place to place.
I grew up in a medically aware family. That’s a polite way of saying someone in our household spent an unhealthy amount of time preoccupied with disease processes and in doctors’ offices. I could tell you which hospitals in the Chicago area were worthy of your medical angst and which were glorified “butcher shops.” You pick up a lot when parental discussions float through the heating vents.
One of the things that I realized early on was that some places didn’t have the world-class medical care that was available where I lived. Florida was such a place, back in the day. When my 80-year-old granddad developed a challenging pneumonia in the late 1980s, the family medevaced him out of Sarasota. We have elderly relatives in Denver, a shining boomtown roughly the same size as MSP and serving a vast geographic part of the west. But Denver doesn’t have a single medical center or teaching hospital you might know by name. Finally, Asheville, North Carolina—a popular spot for retirees—recently had its sole hospital cited by the feds for substandard care after being sold to HCA Healthcare (a frequent corporate player in for-profit health care controversies).
Sure, if you live in one of the top five or 10 biggest metro areas, odds are you have an MD Anderson, a Sloan Kettering, a Johns Hopkins, a UCLA Medical Center. But after that, it’s idiosyncratic, and little thought about until you need it.
I don’t know why William Worrall Mayo moved to Rochester, but it worked out OK for Minnesota. But that was luck. Given Mayo Clinic’s proximity, it would seem to follow that the rest of the health care scene in MSP might resemble Denver. Instead, we have a teaching hospital at the University of Minnesota whose care, if not its hospital rooms, is among the nation’s best. There’s no reason why, after Mayo and the U were established, that Abbott Northwestern should be arguably the best non-academic hospital between Chicago and Seattle, but I can make a case.
I rarely write boosterish columns patting us collectively on the back for just being us, but the emphasis this region has made on growing and maintaining a top 10 health care ecosystem in a top 20 market is worthy of attention and continued “grinding,” as the kids say. From Medical Alley to the Destination Medical Center, health care may not attract the post-college creative class from the coasts, but it is an enduring annuity that pays off in economic impact and the caliber of scientific excellence in the state.
From Medical Alley to the Destination Medical Center, health care may not attract the post-college creative class from the coasts, but it is an enduring annuity that pays off in economic impact and the caliber of scientific excellence in the state.
When a family member was diagnosed with two cancers in the same year—one quite rare—they made a trip to Mayo, but were fortunate enough to find comparable care at the U, 10 minutes from home. When someone I’m close to developed an eating disorder and required inpatient treatment, it was 10 minutes away, at HealthPartners’ Melrose Center. When someone else in my circle needed intensive outpatient mental health care, locally based Prairie Care came through at an exceptionally high standard. And most importantly, none of those folks had to endure weeks- or months-long waits for care because of shortages or rationing.
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As our owner Vance Opperman pointed out in his column this issue, health care is not a birthright—but it is a hallmark of this region and a reason it works and thrives. Mayo is an exceptional resource, but it is also 90 minutes from town, and the idea that we would let the U fall behind should simply be a nonstarter. Excellence is not optional in this arms race, and you can’t take a generation off. The best doctors and researchers go to the best institutions, which secures their future.
This is not to imply Minnesota’s health care ecosystem has figured out the nagging problems that dog American wellness: cost, equity, and access. We need far more mental health infrastructure and care. And the creeping arm of for-profit health care seems to be of questionable social value.
We’ve not figured out how to win sports championships, insulate ourselves from winter, or cook pasta al dente, but within the system that we’ve got, Minnesota, and the Twin Cities in particular, occupies an enviable niche. As you read the stories in this special issue, keep in mind: It was more than luck.
