Film Premiere: Walking Into the Unknown

One of my first reporting assignments in the Northwoods was for a profile of Dr. Arne Vainio for New World Finn.

Dr. Vainio, half Ojibwe and half Finnish, is one very interesting guy. Besides being a husband, father, and a family physician, he writes about healthcare (you can read his articles at News from Indian Country), and has converted his own car engine to run on used French fry oil - which he gathers from local restaurants and processes in his garage.

As a physician, Dr. Vainio was frustrated that the hardest patients to reach were people who never came into his clinic - middle-aged Native American men. In other words - him. As he approached his 50th birthday, Dr. Vainio decided to face his fears of being on the other end of the stethoscope and become a patient in the doctor's office. To share his journey and inspire those hard-to-reach patients to take care of their own health, he brought along a film camera.

The result is the documentary "Walking Into the Unknown", which traces his journey through the healthcare system as he gains a deeper understanding of himself and the health risks he faces - including the cultural risks such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, suicide, and alcoholism.

The film will premiere this Monday, March 23, at the University of Minnesota-Duluth's Marshall Performing Arts Center at 7:00 p.m. The premiere is free and open to the public.