Heroes in Health Care winners honored

Dr. A.P.S. Sidhu

Fresno Mayor Alan Autry wiped away tears during the Business Street “Heroes in Healthcare Awards Gala” as he spoke about Dr. A.P.S. Sidhu’s devoted care to the mayor’s mother before she died earlier this year.

Dr. Sidhu, medical director for Community Medical Centers’ Skilled Nursing Unit and president of Fresno Long Term Care Medical Group, Inc., was given a lifetime achievement award at the April 26 celebration.

Mary Burke, R.N.

Business Street, a monthly business news publication covering the central San Joaquin Valley, also honored several other Community programs, clinicians and staff. Mary Burke a longtime Community labor and delivery nurse won in the nurse category and the Community’s Level 1 trauma team topped the innovation category.

Also nominated and receiving thank-you plaques were television show MedWatch in the organization category; Dr. Judy Champaign of Community Medical Imaging in the physician category; and Bruce Kinder, Community’s vice president of academic affairs, for his role as project manager for the transition of University Medical Center’s acute care services to Community Regional Medical Center.

Autry said Dr. Sidhu should be given 10 lifetime achievement awards for his passionate advocacy for seniors, his conscientious care, and how he never gives up hope. “He gives the same love when no one’s looking to whoever God brings across his path,” Autry said.

Autry said while society often holds up athletes and rock stars as heroes, the true heroes are people who quietly go to work every day and make a difference in people’s lives – often a life and death difference. “You all are just merchants of love,” he told the award nominees.

Sidhu received several standing ovations during his speech in which he thanked his family and the staff at the several nursing homes where he is medical director and then talked about California’s health care crisis.

 “Look at people on $800 (social security) who can’t afford health care, who will cut their pills in half because they can’t afford their prescription, who won’t go to the doctor or to the hospital because they only have a little money in their bank account,” he said, vowing to keep advocating for the best, affordable medical care possible. He called senior citizens “treasures of society.”

Dr. Jim Davis

Dr. Jim Davis, chief of trauma, and physician assistants Naydi Salaverri-Ellis and Tammi Groom accepted the trauma team’s award. The honor was given for stepping swiftly into the void created when Children’s Hospital of Central California’s Level II trauma designation was suspended. Within hours of the announcement, trauma and emergency room clinicians, then at UMC, organized a leading-edge pediatric team and began receiving the Valley’s smallest patients needing the most critical care.

Dr. Davis said the Level 1 trauma team, which has moved from UMC to Community Regional, includes a top-notch administrator such as Kinder as well as nurses, assistants, technicians and radiologists who mesh in a crisis and all work together to save lives. He left the stage reminding, “Please buckle up and wear a helmet.”

Nurse Mary Burke also thanked her family and colleagues in accepting her award. For three decades Burke has helped women bring life into the world in the most natural and peaceful way possible. But she has left her most indelible mark by finding a tangible way for parents to remember the babies they lose through “memory boxes” that contain the stamp of a tiny foot print, a lock of hair, baby clothes and a condolence card signed by hospital staff.

 “Being a part of the miracle of birth is really a privilege,” said Burke, adding that she considered it one of the most important jobs in health care. “The health care of women and children really determines the health care of us all.”

This story was reported by Erin Kennedy. She can be reached at ekennedy@communitymedical.org.

Friday, April 27, 2007