News From the Bonham Household

This is the contents of an email we recently received from David with some news to make us all proud.  Congratulations Gabe, Shuli, Gretchen, and David!

 

Hi all,

We have been in the news a bit this year.

First, our son Gabe, who is autistic, was recognized as an exceptionally successful young man at his workplace at 3M here in St. Paul. This spring he was featured in a conference on autism in the workplace (along with Temple Grandin, who is a star in the autism community).
Here is a photo and caption from a newspaper article about the event.

(Pioneer Press: Ginger Pinson) Gabe
Bonham, 29, right, an employee at 3M in the skin and wound care division was hired by 3M about seven months ago. Bonham is autistic and says he owes his success to the hard work of his parents, Gretchen and David Bonham, MD, left.  The three attended the Temple Grandin lecture at 3M on Thursday. Grandin, a famous author and animal behavior expert was the keynote speaker at the Autism and Employment Forum held at 3M headquarters in St. Paul on Thursday, February 17. Grandin, who is autistic herself encouraged an audience of about 900 to look beyond the social awkwardness of autism and look at all the many talents that prospective employees could bring to the table. (Pioneer Press: Ginger Pinson) (Ginger Pinson)

Then our daughter Shuli took on the governor and legislature of the state of Maine. They were trying to cut the funding for the Portland Clinic for the Homeless, and she is their medical director (her first job right out of training). By the way, she prevailed!  Here is a TV news video clip about that struggle from this spring:

http://www.wcsh6.com/news/article/159082/2/MaineCare-changes-could-close-homeless-clinic

And now, I was just on a public television program about end of life care.  I have been working with a group here in the twin cities promoting having facilitated discussions between patients and their families and medical providers become part of routine health care.  The program is called "Honoring Choices Minnesota", and all of the hospitals and health care groups in the metro have signed on! Our public television station heard about us and has put together this nice documentary. The following link is to the second segment that just came out.

http://www.mnvideovault.org/index.php?id=22805&select_index=0&popup=yes

After that, Gretchen told us that in order to stay up with us, she was going to go on "So you think you can dance"!

Love
David