Cynthia Taggart

KELLOGG – Vince Rinaldi doesn't plan to land in the hospital any time soon, but Shoshone Medical Center is his choice for care, if the need arises. "I'd go there in a heartbeat," says the director of the Silver Valley Economic Development Corp. in Wallace. "It's very good, a welcome change."

Eric Seaman panicked when he examined his son Tanner's leg after the boy hurt himself playing soccer near his Coeur d'Alene home three years ago. Tanner was 7 then, and his right leg was noticeably shorter than his left.

The homeless children at the Saturday afternoon soup kitchen tugged at Kyle Rutley's heart, so he decided to go golfing. Believe it or not, social workers who help the homeless and hungry wish people would follow Rutley's example.

A cure for cancer is still wishful thinking, but Inland Northwest residents have access to the next best thing. "This is as close to the magic bullet phenomenon as we can get," said Dr. Arne Michalson, a radiologist and director of nuclear medicine at Kootenai Medical Center in Coeur d'Alene, as he studied a three-dimensional image of a patient's esophagus on his computer screen. "What we're trying to do is find, characterize and treat problems earlier with less radiation, less overall cost, less morbidity."

Viola is such a small Idaho town that you'd expect everyone to know everyone. Still, Gurdon H. Barter is a town mystery.

The reinforcements have arrived. An assault of medical bills is one battle plenty of Americans are flocking to help Medal of Honor recipient Vernon Baker fight. From Gov. Dirk Kempthorne to other Medal of Honor winners and legislators from other states, people and money poured into St. Maries last weekend, filling the town's one bed and breakfast and one motel, to shower the World War II veteran and his wife, Heidy Baker, with support.

Boundary County residents soon will see much more of the North Idaho Partners in Health mobile clinic than they have in the past three years, but the clinic on wheels will cut most of its visits to Shoshone, Kootenai and Benewah counties. The new schedule is part of a plan to keep the clinic running after the federal grant that launched it in 2002 runs out next month. North Idaho's three federally funded community health clinics will share responsibility for the mobile clinic. The Panhandle Health District manages it now.

The patients who arrive at the Dirne Community Health Clinic moaning and clutching their jaws in pain frustrate Dr. Leanne Rousseau. "We probably see 10 to 12 people a month with screaming dental pain," says Rousseau, medical director at the clinic, which treats the area's uninsured. "And that doesn't count the low-level problems. It's appalling."

HAYDEN LAKE – A medical exercise bike may return to Sandra Dorosh what she most wants in life: use of her body. Dorosh, 55, sits in a wheelchair in her Hayden Lake home now, but two years ago she celebrated March's sun by swinging her golf clubs after working all day on her feet as a denturist. A swimming pool accident in July 2003 left her a quadriplegic, breathing with the help of a ventilator.

COEUR d'ALENE – Skill steeped in 30 years of experience tantalized Carmen Brochu. The vice president of patient care for Kootenai Medical Center saw an abundance of potential in the retiring nurses who tearfully hugged her and their careers goodbye. Brochu knew when her time to retire arrived, her need to nurture people grasping for better health wasn't going to disappear like an extinguished flame.

COEUR d'ALENE – Drug abuse has created a generation of children with so many layers of problems that social agencies barely can scratch the surface, and foster and adoptive parents are finding themselves in over their heads. "We had at least 10 failed adoptions last year," said Sheilah Stone-Dorame, administrative director at Children's Village in Coeur d'Alene.

The fingernails tipped off Jan Young. Something was wrong. The woman in the wheelchair was well into her 80s, frail and confused. She was in a nursing home for 24-hour care, yet her dirty fingernails suggested that care was less than ideal.

Hospitals across the nation are closing programs and laying off staff in a constant struggle to pay bills. Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane just eliminated 56 jobs as it ended three children's care services. Sacred Heart Medical Center laid off 162 employees last summer and is offering early retirement and separation incentives to employees now to downsize more. But Kootenai Medical Center in Coeur d'Alene is expanding, basking in the glow of staff approval and working with a budget in the black for the 20th consecutive year. What is KMC's secret? State and national health officials and veteran KMC workers say it's community growth and sound leadership in chief executive officer Joe Morris.

For more than two years, Habitat for Humanity volunteers have waited for enough money to turn weedy land in Post Falls into a cozy new neighborhood for a dozen working-poor families. They'll have to wait a little longer.

Donations of thousands of dollars and a flight home to Virginia in a private jet stunned George, Bev and Jason Resto and left them in grateful tears after the weekend. "We were touched by an angel," George Resto said Monday.

George and Bev Resto taught their three children to protect themselves, particularly on the ice where their two boys played championship hockey. So the Restos didn't worry last month when their youngest boy, Jason, 18, left their Ashburn, Va., home to play hockey for the Kootenai Colts in Coeur d'Alene. The Junior B team, one step below the Spokane Chiefs, offered Jason top-notch training and exposure to college recruiters and National Hockey League scouts.