A note I print in its entirety from Ediss Gandelman, our director of community benefits.Hi Paul,
Our BIDMC staff gave so much this week, and today they continued to keep on giving.
Several months ago we were approached by the American GI Association, the Department of Public Health and the American Cancer Society to join with them in replicating a free colonoscopy screening event that was so successful in Texas. Tom Lamont (PL note: our chief of GI) quickly put out an email to the GI physicians and got an overwhelming response from docs willing to donate their time to do procedures on a Saturday in March (today). But as I learned in trying to organize the event, the docs account for probably 25% of the effort—when I called together all the departments who would be need to be involved, I learned that we had a cast of thousands—okay, not thousands but at least 30! AND EVERYONE MADE THE GENEROUS DONATION OF TIME AND TALENT!
Pictured in this photo are many of my treasured colleagues who participated today including:
Our GI specialists—Drs. Douglas Horst and Alan Moss.
Nurse Manager: Janet Lewis.
The nurses: Laureen Smith, Judy Oakes, Robin Dunn, Cheryl Smith, MaryAnne Hickey, Kerri Grief, Chris Hunt, Marie Paul (actually left early to take her sign language course so she can better serve our patients).
Nurse/Med Tech: Sokha Hou.
The receptionist: Tinea Simpson.
Interpreters: Grace Peters and Winmolwan Reed.
Corporate communications: Zineb Marchoudi (who is not in the photo as she took the photo).
Administrators: Eileen Joyce, Sara O’Connor and Ediss Gandelman.
Our 9 patients who benefited from the free colonoscopy procedures were all uninsured or underinsured patients from our affiliated partner, the Joseph M. Smith Community Health Center. So, in the picture are the JMSCHC staff who were responsible for recruiting the patients, making sure they were educated and prepped properly for the procedure, and ensuring that any and all barriers were removed: Nancy Gilday, RN and Alejandro Alvarez, case manager.
Behind all these smiling faces also are many others from BIDMC, without whom this effort would not have been successful including:
Judy Jensen and Gina McCormick from Pathology and the “slicers and dicers” who will prepare the specimens from today’s procedures.
Dan Bazinet from Security.
Mark Leonard from Housekeeping.
Beth O’Toole, Mary Feeley, Martina Comisky, and Kristin McKenney from our fiscal department.
And last but not least, our senior managers who supported the effort—Jayne Sheehan, Alice Lee and Diana Richardson.
PHEW…I hope I didn’t leave anyone out and apologize if I did! But it certainly takes a village to do a free colonoscopy! AND the bonus was getting to see Doug Horst tango with Judy Oakes!!!
A mitzvah, don’t you think?
Ediss
3 comments:
That's a great mitzvah. Do you also sponsor free surgeries similar to Kaiser SF?
Sponsor? I'm not sure what that means. We just provide them when someone can't pay.
Kudos to Ediss and all of her colleagues at BIDMC for organizing to provide this very important screening service to these people. But I cannot wait until we have coverage for everyone in the US so that people who need CRC and other essential preventive care won't have to rely on the generosity of caring individuals like these to get the care that they need.
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