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Creative Design for Healthcare Reform is dedicated to my maternal grandmother, Maggie. Grandma Maggie was the principal care giver for my sister and me during the very early years when our parents were working. The picture to the left was taken during the summer of 1947, at the side of her small house in St. Francis, Wisconsin. She would have been pushing sixty years old. This photo shows Grandma Maggie holding my sister, Kathleen. I am holding a slice of my birthday cake. We were celebrating my fifth birthday.
Grandma Maggie had diabetes, a disease that eventually killed her. My witnessing her slow deterioration and death from this disease may be one of the reasons I studied medicine and became a physician. I had lost all grandparents and several other close relatives by disease or medical folly by the time I was fifteen. This sort of family history is not unusual for those of us who pursue a medical career.
I started chapter six with the short vignette seen below. This story relates my childhood memories growing up on the south side of Milwaukee. It may explain some of the reasons for my interest in proper medical management of diabetes mellitus. It provides an introduction to the chapter about Population and Disease State Management.
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