Small-town radio (#1310)

Topics/tags: Miscellaneous

As I’ve sat in Michelle’s room at Grinnell Regional Medical Center (GRMC) [1], I’ve found my mind turning to many different things. One of them is KGRN, our formal local radio station. That’s not to say that there’s not still a KGRN; a radio station with that call sign and the same frequency still exists. However, the mega-corporation that bought it some time ago recently axed all the local coverage, the things that made it a local radio station.

But that’s not what’s been occupying my mind. I’ve been thinking about what local radio was like when we first came here. And local radio in a rural community is not like radio in a big city.

I recall someone telling me a story when I first interviewed at Grinnell. Someone couldn’t find their teenage son. So they called KGRN. And KGRN announced it on the radio. Soon, people were calling in with reports on where they’d seen the son, and people could easily trace where he’d been. As I recall, everything was fine. But the message was clear: People know who you are in a small town. (Or a small city, since Grinnell is a city.)

One of the things that surprised Michelle most about KGRN when we first arrived was that they would read the hospital census on the radio each morning. That way, people could know which of their friends might need a visit or why that friend might not have shown up for an event. Maybe it even provided an implicit suggestion to bring food to the family.

I don’t quite know how things worked. Did GRMC fax the info to KGRN? Did someone call it in? In any case, KGRN got the information and shared it with the community. I’m pretty sure that patients could ask to have their names removed from the announcements, but no one ever did.

HIPAA? Shmippa.

Some of the nurses I’ve talked to said that we used to have a sign on each door in the hospital to tell everyone who was in each room. That way, when you came visiting, it was easy to find the person you were looking for. And perhaps you’d see another friend’s name along the way, too. An excuse for another visit, a chance to share fellowship.

In any case, after a few years, the we announce everyone in the hospital moved to we announce the names of anyone who requests it to we don’t announce names. And now, We don’t announce anything local.

The transition away from announcing the hospital census appropriate. People deserve privacy. Not everyone wants their health news broadcast to anyone who can hear the local radio station. And there are clearly some very problematic situations at play, such as when a stalker or abusive partner is involved. The default should be privacy not publicity.

Nonetheless, it’s nice to be able to think back to a time not so long ago when people knew each other well enough and trusted each other well enough to share information about their hospital stays on a radio station. Would that we had a world in which doing so was safe and natural.

[1] It has a new name, something like Unity Point - Grinnell Regional Medical Center, but I think of it as GRMC.

Version 1.0 of 2024-10-03.