New PCI setup is inflexible, bad for C.R.

Reversing the decision to close Second Avenue (at the request of the Physicians' Clinic of Iowa for its medical mall facility) could and should still happen.

Here is the reason.

The values behind the two worldviews of a skyway doctor vs. a sprawl doctor are too different for them to compromise themselves into the degree of cooperation required for the landlord responsibilities of owning a new mall with many medical retail shops and laboratories.

The current PCI building that is connected to Mercy Medical Center with a skyway is owned by Mercy, and PCI doctors rent space there. The hospital is the landlord and this clinic space is not rented exclusively to PCI doctors. This flexibility in clinic space is good for all concerned in several ways.

The new monopolizing medical mall is not going to have this valuable flexibility. It would be helpful to our community for skyway doctors to split from sprawl doctors right now, before the skyway doctors become permanently complicit in closing of Second Avenue for a sprawling two-story clinic.

It would be helpful for the civic health of our community for the

skyway doctors to split away from the sprawl doctors before their patients, besides being sick, have to feel sad about

going to see a skyway

doctor in a sprawling clinic.

Clark Rieke

Cedar Rapids