Shedding Light on the Plight of Pediatric Care Patients

I read your article on the lack of adequate care for children in California (“Who Will Give That Special Care,” March 13), and I have to thank you for focusing on a topic that has been a very real heartache and headache for many families in California with young children who need pediatric specialists. People blessed with kids who don’t need pediatric specialists can’t understand the plight of those who do. Articles like yours give credibility and objectivity to such important issues in our communities.

--LISHA S. ZINDRICK

Thousand Oaks

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It’s great to see that there is so much publicity being generated about colorectal cancer and preventive screening tests (“Colorectal Cancer Is Focus of Long Overdue Attention,” March 13). Though the article says that most people avoid being tested because it’s so invasive, I believe that the prospect of going through a colonoscopy without sedation, screaming and crying on the table, is a bigger factor. That’s what many of my friends and family have had to endure at the hands of unskilled technicians through their HMOs. Unlike Katie Couric, not all of us can afford skilled medical procedures. I’m not looking forward to the day I might need a colonoscopy, and I’m only 20.

--KENDRA NELSON

Cardiff