1. The Post-Bulletin sent a reporter, doubling as a photographer, to Cleveland, Ohio to compare efforts of Cleveland Clinic with those of Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. to solidify positions as destination medical centers. This article is the lead in a package of resulting stories. 2. The idea with this article was to personalize a news-you-can-use piece in such a way that readers might learn about healthy living in the course of reading because of their interest in the Franciscan sisters of Rochester. 3. Rochester is a community of about 106,000 people, including retirees, those unable to work and children. More than 34,000 people work at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Thus, many assume the newspaper will not cover critical or awkward stories. However, it does, as this Pulse on Health column demonstrates. 4. Conversations with the subject of this article, Roger Sprague, led to a realization that he once was a patient at the Rochester State Hospital, which closed during the 1980s. This triggered an effort to highlight the thoughts of patients and staff from that era to let readers decide whether closing the hospital was a good decision. Roger’s story allowed readers to get a glimpse into his life today.
