SVH Foundation funds new hospital beds
Sonoma
Valley Hospital Foundation kicked off the beginning of a $360,000 campaign to
replace all of the hospital’s antiquated beds with the installment of the first
17 beds and 27 new mattresses into the Skilled Nursing Facility. In addition to the minimum 45 new beds
needed, fundraising goals altogether include helping the hospital to acquire 51
new mattresses, 24 mattress pumps, and a few new gurneys.
Dramatic scene videotaped in SVH ICU
Sonoma Valley High School student Doris Martinez lay in a
“coma” last Saturday in Sonoma Valley Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, while
classmate Jenna Wirick directed (left to right) video instructor Peter Hansen,
SVH nurse Sam Chelsey and SVH hospitalist Dr. Mark Berenson in a crucial scene
for her video class film. Classmate Maddy Parisi (not in photo) plays the part
of a grieving best friend. She and her crew are looking forward to seeing the story on the big screen in the Sebastiani Theater in the film festival.
A team with Luke Lasley, director, and actors John Witbroadt and Rebecca Stone shot a brief scene afterward.
Hansen said the students are “ignited” with the excitement of their productions, and expressed his appreciation to the hospital saying, “This Hospital scene elevates their movies significantly and motivates them to a higher standard.”
Sonoma
Valley Hospital Foundation Presents
Gift to ER and Funds Incontinence Testing Equipment
Sonoma
Valley Hospital Foundation presented checks totaling $17,300 to the hospital
for its Emergency Department this week.
ER Director Dr. Robbie Cohen was on hand at the foundation’s March 1 board
meeting, where SVHF chair Carolyn Stone presented Dr. Cohen with the good news. The funds will help to underwrite
emergency department losses.
Also
receiving a gift on behalf of the Perioperative Services department at the
hospital was Dr. Paul Amara.
Thanks to foundation funding, Dr. Amara and his team can now make use of
the latest technology in urodynamic diagnostics, making the testing for urinary
incontinence disorders faster and more comfortable. Dr. Amara stated, “The new equipment will allow precise and
reliable evaluation to help determine appropriate medical or surgical
therapy. This is good medicine, as
it allows a thorough assessment regarding the various causes of
incontinence. One can then tailor
therapy, which may include medicine, physical therapy, or minimally invasive surgery.” The foundation’s funding for the
equipment totaled $13,825.
To
support the foundation in its goal this year to replace all of the hospital’s
antiquated beds (some from the 1960’s), the Sonoma Valley Vintners and Growers
Association was able to contribute $15,000 from the proceeds of the 2009
Harvest Wine Auction. The comfort
and efficiency of the 45 new beds and their accompanying pressure relief
mattresses also provided by the foundation, will aid healing and support
caregiver safety, as well. Phase
one of the new beds project is the installation of the first 17 beds into the
Skilled Nursing Facility. To
contribute to this important program, please make your tax-deductible donation
to SVH Foundation, 347 Andrieux Street, Sonoma, CA, 95476, or contact Mary
Caletges for more details at 707-935-5070 or caletgesm@svh.com.
Mark
your calendar for the foundation’s annual springtime fundraiser benefiting
women’s health, Celebration of Women at Sonoma Golf Club. This year, Celebration takes place Friday,
May 14 at 11:30 a.m. The SVH
Foundation’s Pulse Awards will be presented to Julie Atwood, Helen Fernandez,
and Rose Mary Schmidt. Reservations
are $100/person.
Contact: Mary Caletges
Tel:
707-935-5070
Fax:
707-935-5071
Dr. Brian Sebastian adds another singing doctor to his chorus
Imagine you’re a performer, a classical singer, experiencing increasing hearing loss in one ear and you go to a doctor and he says, “No problem, you still have the other ear.” Such was the non-empathic bedside manner that set the tone for the career of Suzannah Bozzone, M.D., who has recently joined the family practice of Dr. Brian Sebastian, in Sonoma.
She was at the time a pre-med student at Davidson College, in North Carolina, and had suffered a skull fracture. “I’d been unconscious for four days. And I lost my hearing. I went to this doctor in Charlotte and he said, “A lot of people lose their hearing, but it’ll come back.’” But it did not. When she went back to him, he dismissed her concern. He had no idea that she was a musician or what loss of hearing in one ear would mean to the young singer. She was crushed.
“So I thought, if you’re going to go into a healing profession and want to treat people, you need to know where they’re coming from.”
Bozzone went on to continue singing, despite the handicap, and to graduate Phi Beta Kappa from Davidson and go on to the University of Tennessee to earn her medical degree. From there, she went to Colorado Family Medicine Program as chief resident, and in 2009, they honored her with the 2009 Family Medicine Award for Scholarship. During the course of her training, she worked intensely with immigrant and under-served populations, both in the Spanish community in Nashville, and in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
She continues working with diverse cultures here in Sonoma, dividing her time between Dr. Sebastian’s family practice and the Sonoma Valley Community Health Center. “I like learning about other cultures,” she says. “It’s so important to understand somebody’s culture and know where they’re coming from.” Understanding the other is, to her, a constant refrain. “It happens so frequently that you go to a doctor, and they don’t have time to know who you are.” She, however, spends a lot of time with her patients. “Until you find out what they understand and what they know, you’re not going to get anywhere.”
For example, she explains, in some cultures, bigness is good. So a parent might say, of her roly-poly child, “She doesn’t eat a thing!” But the result, down the road, may be obesity and diabetes. “So we have to adjust the perception of what we mean about health.”
The Sonoma Valley community is refreshing to her, for the health-oriented attitudes she finds here. “I have gotten a lot of patients who are interested in natural approach to things. Which I really like.” Here, people don’t so much just want to get a pill and go home fixed. They seem to be looking for more involvement in their health. “People will ask, ‘what else can I do in my life?’ It’s so refreshing to have someone motivated to actually go back to the basics. If you can go back to the basics, you can get rid of a lot of problems.”
And what are the basics, to this person who looks a picture of perfect health? “I’m a yoga fanatic. Yoga and fish oil,” she laughs. “Oh, and Vitamin D!”
Dr. Mala Singh joins Dr. Brian Sebastian’s Family Practice
Family practitioner, osteopath, classical Indian dancer, tennis player, wife and mother, Dr. Mala Singh brings to Sonoma and Dr. Brian Sebastian’s family practice a passion for life, a dedication to health and an effervescent optimism. “I want to accept patients from all walks of life,” she says, “regardless of age, and focus on preventive care. I believe in quality of life.” To her, that means annual exams, lifestyle modification, healthy eating and exercise. Her goal for her patients is simple: “While you are living, you should be healthy. You should enjoy life.”
Her approach, which is the characteristic of osteopathic medicine, is to consider the “whole person.” So, if, say, you go in with an illness, she will treat the condition with traditional western medical techniques and she will also look at whatever lifestyle issues, such as diet or work-related stress, may be contributing to the condition. As an osteopathic physician, whose training differs from traditional medicine only in that osteopathic medicine involves the whole body-mind-spirit continuum, she is able to apply a range of physical techniques to encourage the whole body to work together in healing.
As she describes her work, one begins to feel some of the determination behind her zest for life. First of all, having been schooled as a child both in New York and India, she brings an international breadth to her practice. She also understands the joys and challenges of both stay-at-home motherhood and combining family and career.
During the early years of her marriage, in Michigan, as the wife of a tennis pro and mother of two small children, she stayed at home. Then, one day, when her children were in elementary school, her mother visited from India and encouraged her to follow her dream of becoming a physician. She went back to school. She completed her B.S. in Microbiology in 1995 at the University of Michigan by going to school during the days and cooking and helping her kids with their homework at night. “We all studied together at the kitchen table after dinner,” she said, “while my husband went out to teach.”
Applying to medical school at age 38 is not the norm, and it took two years for Singh to be accepted by Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine. “I graduated from medical school the same week my daughter graduated from high school,” she said, with a radiant smile.
After completing the necessary three-year residency at the Garden City hospital in conjunction with Michigan State University she graduated in 2006. She decided to move her family to California and worked for three years in Rancho Mirage in her own family practice sponsored by the Eisenhower Medical Center. She is Board certified in Family Practice and now she is looking forward to serving the community of Sonoma as part of Dr. Sebastian’s family practice.
On Saturday, 21-year veteran volunteer Polly Breckinridge helped "newby" Frank Cherms, a 14-month volunteer and chair of the Candy Sales Committee, serve up sweets to customers Helen Thompson, Activities Director for the Skilled Nursing Facility, and visitor Robert Johnston. All claimed not to eat sweets, but the sales proceeded anyway. As of Saturday morning, the committee had about broken even, Cherms said.
The lobby sales started at Christmas, 1992. All candy sales, with the exception of one product from Rock Mountain Candy, are See's candy, sold at See's retail prices. Funds used from the sales go to provide grants to non-medical staff for the following: 1) job-related meetings and training–$12,000 was in this year's budget for this purpose; 2) medical equipment as requested by the hospital administration – about $20,000 per year; and 3) waiting room furniture. This year, $6,000 from the third category was given to the Birthplace for their family waiting room.
Cherms said the hospital is seeing a decline in funds possibly because of competition from other venders in Sonoma.
