For 12-27-92 
Boycott Baseball? Ok, Fine -- But You Go First 
It Doesn't Seem So Long Ago That Kirby Puckett Created A Fuss By Becoming The 
First Baseball Player To Collect A $3 Million Salary.

What About 
Those Raises?

By CHRISTINA BINKLEY; Times Leader Staff Writer
 Monday, December 21, 1992 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Page: 





WILKES-BARRE -- The best Christmas gift Charlie Perry's mother may get this
year is a flimsy photograph of her son ensconced in a white knee-length lab
coat at the McKinney Clinic. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 It may give her a shock. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And like any mother would, she'll probably smile wide. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Charlie Perry wears that lab coat because his life was touched by people at
the tiny McKinney Clinic on Jackson Street. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Perry first entered the "health-care-for-the-homeless" clinic, which shares
its roof with St. Vincent de Paul's Kitchen, in August 1991. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Some folks in Sunbury had just given him a one-way bus ticket. It could
take him 50 miles in any direction. Perry got off in Wilkes-Barre. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 In his own words, "I was homeless. I'm in recovery now from alcohol. Drugs,
too. When I first came here, I was real sick. Depressed, too. Nurse Bernadine
(Baluta) got me into detox. When I got out of detox, I started volunteering
here. This is my way of giving back." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Bernadine Baluta is the glue that holds the McKinney clinic together. She's
got big dreams and broad shoulders. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The clinic, run by the Rural Health Corporation of Northeastern
Pennsylvania, gives free and low-cost medical, dental and mental health care
to those who need it -- right now about 20,000 patients, officials say. They
also give a caring touch, clean underwear, a used bicycle ... whatever it
takes to get people like Perry back on their feet. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Looking to the future, the clinic now takes medical residents with the
Family Practice Residency Program into their fold for a few weeks, allowing
them to experience the clinic's brand of medicine. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 That brand is the future of medicine, according to Dr. Peter Lauzonis, 28. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Lauzonis, from Buffalo, N.Y., is the second resident to treat McKinney
patients. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "It makes me feel good," he says. "Here, these people are real
appreciative. It really motivates you." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 That's just what Mary Zack wants to hear. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "We're hoping that some of them like our kind of medicine well enough to
come and join us," says Zack, Rural Health's planning and development
director. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 She says attracting doctors to community medicine can be tough. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "We're sort of trying to grow our own," Zack says. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 So when medical student Gerald Mondlak says he'd one day like to practice
in rural Pennsylvania because "you can really help people," Zack makes a
pitch. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "This is not a glamorous practice," she says, "but it's a good practice for
people interested in helping people." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Zack is sowing seeds early in Mondlak's case. Accompanying Lauzonis as an
"extern," the Pittston native has a semester of medical school and years of
residency ahead. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 But progressing an inch at a time is the way you make a McKinney Clinic
work. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 It's how they change the lives of people like Gary Haas. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "You can't buy this kind of medicine," says the former McKinney patient.
"I'm alive today. I really shouldn't be, technically." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Two years ago, Haas lived on the street like Perry. Health troubles brought
him to McKinney. Now he's married, his son will soon visit him from the west
coast, and Haas volunteers at the clinic several days a week. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "Fair's fair," Haas says.

Dec. 20, 1992 Mckinney Clinic For Page 3a 
Clinic Makes A Difference 
For The Area's Homeless 
Progressive Programs Like 
Letting Medical Residents Treat The Homeless Help The 
Mckinney Clinic Change Lives

Dec. 20, 1992 Mckinney Clinic For Page 3a Clinic Makes A Difference For The Area's Homeless Progressive Programs Like Letting Medical Residents Treat The Homeless Help The Mckinney Clinic Change Lives