Reaching Out Beyond Ourselves

Note:  Through the dedication and professionalism of our employees, Platte Valley Medical Center is now recognized as having some of the highest standards of care of any hospital in the State. Although not always recognized,  however, many of our staff are very creative and use their abilities not only to support our hospital, but also in reaching out to others beyond the walls of our institution.  We hope this column “Reaching Out Beyond Ourselves” will encourage and inspire you as you read about members of our PVMC family and all they do in support of others.

A Trip To Remember

Sept 2013:

As my husband and I (Dr. Jennifer Lehman, Hospitalist) made our Nine hour journey over washed out dirt roads deep in the Himalayas to unite with the group that we would call our family for the next month, we had no idea what was in store for us.  We had spent three extra days flying standby through all of China to Kathmandu due to Mother Nature’s farcical typhoon in Hong Kong.  Little did we know we would spend another 20 of 25 days contending with her holy water blessings propped up in wet tents, with no electricity, dry clothes or showers, minus the constancy of rain.

Our mission; a pilgrimage to the deepest places in the Himalayas to provide medical care to the people most cut off from civilization with our only resources being those we and the donkeys could carry.  If you can imagine 36 North Americans, 60 Nepalis and close to 70 donkeys and horses trekking through trails that at times were no more than a foot wide, then you can understand the enormity of the task at hand.

Our patients were some of the poorest people in the world, most of which had never seen a doctor in their entire lives.  The art of teaching basic dental hygiene and showing them what a toothbrush was, was something foreign to them.  But they embraced their North American teachers with open arms and over 700 Nepalis are now walking around with brightly colored toothbrushes in hand, joints injected to help them endure in the rice fields, and children de-wormed of harmful parasites.  And we, the teachers, have grown in humility and respect for that which we learned from our spiritual, enduring students.  I believe that oftentimes what we give in our outreach to the world pales in comparison to what we receive in doing it and the universal responsibility of humanity comes down ultimately, to a responsibility to ourselves not to “squander our lives” (Famous Buddhist Dharma).   Thank you Kathleen Bogacz (ICU/SDU Nurse from PVMC) and Roshi Joan Halifax (Upaya Zen leader of the trip) for truly reflecting this and being our guides during this journey.  Thank you also to PVMC for supplying the much needed medicines for these people.

Dr. Jennifer Lehman

Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.                                                                                          The Dalai Lama

The Waiting Line for the Clinic

Nurse Kat and our Dentist Howard extracting a bean from a young girls ear, we’re not exactly sure how it got there but it had sprouted!

Kathleen receiving Katas from the village people in a tribute of thanks

For the second time in two years, PVMC has been named one of the nation’s Top Performers On Key Quality Measures® by The Joint Commission, the leading accreditor of health care organizations in America. To celebrate, John Hicks, Harold Dupper, and Kurt Gensert from Administration brought the favored “spring fling” cake to staff last month.

PVMC is one of only 20 hospitals in Colorado and 1,099 hospitals in the United States earning this distinction. Inclusion on the list is based on accountability measure data reported to The Joint Commission during the previous calendar year. In 2011, PVMC was one of only five Top Performers in Colorado.

Recognized for exemplary performance, PVMC achieved excellent thresholds for heart attack, pneumonia, and surgical care. To be named a top performer, all measures must have a performance rate of 95% or better.

Congratulations to everyone for their outstanding efforts to become one of the nation’s best!

Congratulations to Chris and Marisa Schmidt on the birth of their baby girl and Platte Valley Medical Center’s New Year’s baby, Tatum Schmidt.  She was born on January 2 at 1:14 a.m. and weighed five pounds, 14 oz and was 19¼ inches long.

Marina Galasso, has been an employee at PVMC since 2008.  Not only has she served us well in our Medical Imaging Department, but through her gifts and talents she is reaching out to others as well … especially children.  You see Marina is an author of children’s books. In fact she has just recently completed her second book entitled, “I See …”

Marina says, “I started my first children’s book when I was 16. The poem I wrote was inspired by Peter Pan and Never Never Land. My second book was inspired by my hope of making a positive influence on young children; that we can all make a difference in the world. Every small act, even smiling can be contagious and can create a ripple effect.”

“I wrote, illustrated and self published both books myself. All illustrations are hand drawn by me and then the color is added by cutting and pasting tiny pieces of magazine into a mosaic picture.  Each picture takes about three hours. My first book took me five years to complete and my second book took me three years. I hope to make one more so there are three books in the series.”

 Marina Galasso

From those of us who have her books and the children who are enjoying and benefiting from them … a very big “thank you” to Marina!