The Patient Care at Greystone

Greystone hallway

I thought the 2014 spring issue of Rutgers Magazine was the best! Most of the articles were one page in length and so very readable and interesting, even if one didn’t know the person or event that was featured. I especially liked the one about Greystone Park State Hospital, “Desolation Row” (Spring 2014) and will share it with my brothers. Our mother, Marion Drew Wood Beltram NJC’31, worked at Greystone in the 1930s. She had been a physical education major, and I guess you’d say she was what would now be called a “recreation therapist,” providing interactional activities for the patients as well as motivating them physically. Believe me, our mom had interesting tales to tell about her career there! Thank you so much for bringing back those memories.
Judy Wood Wussler DC’60

Noble Service

Thank you once again for an excellent magazine. I was especially interested in the article about Captain Michelle Cifelli SHRP’07 and her service in Afghanistan with the Army National Guard, “Service and Sacrifice” (Spring 2014). My colleagues and I at the Hackensack, New Jersey, Community-Based Outpatient Clinic, New Jersey Healthcare System, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, sent packages to the 31st Combat Support Hospital deployed in Balad, Iraq. I had read that nurses at Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, New Jersey, were sending packages to an Army field hospital deployed in Iraq. We started sending them packages regularly. I was exchanging emails regularly with the unit’s commanding officer, Colonel Stephen Hetz. This was one of the most meaningful things I’ve done.
Ray Graglia LC’76, SCILS’84

Speaking for Two

I’m a California state-certified interpreter in Spanish, and I have been working in the medical-legal field since 1982. I read the article about the research on children interpreting for their parents, “Gained in the Translation” (Spring 2014), often in medical situations. California law requires experienced interpreters in, for instance, workmen’s compensation cases and any medical-legal situation. Interpreting requires a broad vocabulary in two languages. An interpreter needs to know many different words for each thing or abstraction in two languages.

Your article would have been more accurately titled “Lost in Translation.” The research quoted pointed out that the child interpreting for his or her parent often changes the meaning of the communication between a doctor and patient in order to maintain harmony, and shows one of the reasons why California doesn’t allow it, and why any doctor should avoid, for legal protection, such situations. A child doesn’t have the vocabulary to convey the medical terminology involved; the patient doesn’t get the correct information from the doctor; and he or she can’t make the correct diagnosis.
Mary F. Donnelly Johnson SCILS’72

New Jersey’s Own

I read with great pleasure the winter issue of Rutgers Magazine. As an alumnus, it was obvious to me that great effort and work went into the design and formatting of this issue. The articles were clever and insightful. I especially enjoyed the story about actor Jimmy Palumbo, “Best Supporting Actor” (Winter 2014); I am a former longtime resident of that state. I was also pulled into the article about Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh and her plight as a female scholar living in Iran, “Safe Haven” (Winter 2014).
Sally N. Katz UCNB’75, GSNB’77,’79

The winter 2014 issue of Rutgers Magazine was, overall, very impressive. However, I wish you had chosen a different cover photo. I realize that you wanted to highlight the article on alumnus Jimmy Palumbo, but I am getting tired of seeing New Jerseyans portrayed as sausage sandwich-eating goombahs. If Rutgers can’t lead the way to show the world that New Jersey is so much more than a bunch of mobsters and mafiosos, who can?
Mary E. Scrupski DC’82, NLAW’88