Category: Health care
Alfred Abuhamad’s interest in obstetrics started in his medical school years. He became intrigued by maternal pregnancy complications and fetal development.
He worked with hospital partners in Hampton Roads to develop a comprehensive maternal and neonatal transport program that facilitates transfer of a woman with pregnancy complications to a tertiary hospital for acute care .
As director of nursing services at River Pointe Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center in Virginia Beach, Laurie Champagne Cross has led the center to pass important credential inspections by the Veterans Administration and to become a part of a project on ulcer elimination to be published in a book on best practices in hospitals and nursing homes.
This isn't what she thought she'd be doing when she started college.
William Gene Myers, or "Uncle Bill" as he's known to many, wanted to go into aviation when he joined the Air Force at 18.
"I didn't want to be a firefighter at first," Myers said. "But they wanted me to be a firefighter."
Myers joined the fire service in the military, starting his nearly 40-year career in emergency response and currently works as fire chief for the U.S. Coast Guard Air Station in Elizabeth City.
The debate over health care continues to rage on Capitol Hill, but in the meantime there are people without insurance visiting emergency rooms across the country for non-emergency medical care. Pam Phillips, vice president of mission for Bon Secours Hampton Roads, has figured out a system that seems to be working to help those without access to care.
Welcome
Inside Business presents the Health Care Hero Awards to honor those who epitomize the word "hero" in the delivery of health care to the community. Through these awards we seek to salute excellence, encourage innovation, offer examples of best practices for others to emulate, raise awareness in the community, enhance the quality of health care and, of course, recognize deserving individuals and organizations within the industry.
Emergency rooms are busy places, especially at night. While doctors and nurses move quickly, sometimes frantically, to care for patients and save lives, there's someone at the center of it all making sure specialists are paged, that doctors are called, the phones are answered. That is Felix Soto, administrative associate in the emergency room at Sentara Leigh Hospital.
Soto is like an office manager - if your office was an emergency room filled to capacity with sick patients, family members, doctors and nurses.
Laughter isn't something you'd expect to find around an oncology unit, but that's often the case in the medical oncology unit at Sentara Obici Hospital where Mary Catherine "Cathy" Gray is clinical manager.
"Laughter is such a huge component of healing," Gray said. "We do everything that we can to bring laughter into the medical setting."
Gray and her team are planning a cowboy day in February where nurses dress up as cowboys and sing to the patients.
Dr. Cynthia Kelly, a pediatric allergist with Children's Specialty Group, has helped many children cope with asthma. A former patient, Jessie Nunn III, remembered her care fondly when nominating her for a Health Care Hero award.
"When I first became her patient, I could barely breathe, which was really scary," Nunn said. "She encouraged me not to give up even when I felt it was hopeless. If a medication didn't provide the results I needed, she always had an alternative."
Dr. Juan Montero came to the U.S. in 1966 as a young doctor from the Philippines. He was excited to be here.
"We were welcomed by America," he said. "We were the luckiest bunch of physicians in the world because we came from different cultures, many from developing and Third World countries."
Mary Ellen Oravetz praises Dr. Glen Moore as her hero and with "literally saving" her life.
Oravetz was living on borrowed time. At 400 pounds, she began to experience severe leg pains. Fearing amputation, she consulted with a vascular surgeon who referred her to Moore, a general and bariatric surgeon at Tidewater Surgical Specialists. The referral changed her life forever. Not only was her leg saved, she gained a new chance at life, which now consists of belly-dancing lessons, flying on airplanes, sitting in movie theaters and buying shoes at a department store.
