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Teens get the job done
Norcross High School senior Christopher Wang is volunteering for his second summer at Emory St. Joseph Hospital (ESJH) through the VolunTeen program. In addition to assisting the robotics OR staff, transporting patients and helping in the nursing units, Christopher also plays the viola weekly for visitors and patients. Wang is a 3-year member of the Atlanta Youth Symphony Orchestra and he is regularly found playing soothing music for cancer patients and easing their anxiety while they undergo chemotherapy. Christopher is planning to go to med school, but would also like to study music therapy, as he has seen firsthand the benefit for patients.
Sisters Agnes, Belinda and Bernadine Kumi (ages 17 and 15-year-old twins) are also VolunTeens. Students at Blessed Trinity School, the Kumis assist in various units around ESJH. Three years ago, their mom was involved in a serious car accident. Their school, community and church pitched in to help the girls, since they are a single parent family. Grateful for all of the assistance, the sisters wanted to give back to the community, so they founded the non-profit GABB. This acronym has two meanings: the names of all the sisters…8-yr.-old Gladys, Agnes, Bernadine and Belinda. It also stands for "Give and Be Blessed." So far, the Kumi sisters have delivered nearly 2,000 teddy bears to kids at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. The bears are donated or purchased by the sisters.
The Medical Center Auxiliary at Northeast Georgia Health Systems recently honored more than 100 teen volunteers with an appreciation dinner. The teen volunteers donated over 4,200 hours of service to Northeast Georgia Medical Center's (NGMC) hospitals in Gainesville, Braselton and Barrow in the 2018 fiscal year – equivalent to a value of $104,759."Our teen volunteers eagerly shared their valuable time and compassionate acts of service at each of the hospital campuses – NGMC Gainesville, Braselton and for the first summer at the Barrow Campus, which has been a great new addition to the program," said Christopher Bray, president and chief development officer of The Medical Center Foundation. "We are fortunate to have so many great young people in this program who put the needs of others before their own and are willing to serve our organization at whatever capacity needed."
Capes, dogs, swimming and hashtags!
Cape Day is back for its fifth year, honoring the superhero patients at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta who battle illnesses and injuries every day. To support the cause, you can purchase a cape at choa.org/CapeDayATL and wear it on Friday, Oct. 19. Be sure to share your photos using the #CapeDayATL hashtag.
Canines For Kids is a unique, animal-assisted therapy program that launched at CHOA in 2009 as the first of its kind. Today, the program employs 16 full-time service dogs who assist throughout the system, working with a designated team to help minimize the stress of the hospital environment, reduce anxiety, provide distraction from illness and hospitalization, motivate patients and support their social, physical and emotional need. “Keep Pup” with the dogs and their paw-some adventures by following @therapydogsofchoa on Instagram.
Swim Across America has grown from a single event in Nantucket, MA, to 18 open-water benefit swims across the country and 100 annual pool swims. Atlanta's event – one of Swim Across America's largest and most successful Swims – is celebrating its sixth year. The swim happens September 22, featuring more than 600 registered swimmers (including U.S. Swim Olympians and Paralympians) and will benefit the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. To sign up to swim or to learn more, visit SwimAcrossAmerica.com/Atlanta. To donate, simply text "SAA" to 24587.
Well done
With a career that has spanned 40 years, Gainesville pediatrician Everett Roseberry, MD is retiring. Roseberry completed his position as chief resident at Egleston/Emory University and joined the Northeast Georgia Pediatric Group in Gainesville with Drs. Newman, Morris and Langston in 1978. He remembers, "When I first started, office visits were $15." In the ensuing years, much has changed but not his reasons for becoming a pediatrician. Roseberry said that when he was deciding the type of medicine he wanted to practice, he was drawn to opportunities to take care of patients over a long period of time, instead of the more problem-based or episodic encounters found in specialties such as surgery. "I still have people who stop me out in the community to tell me about their kids," he recalls. "One person told me recently that I had seen her, her mother and her grandmother, and that Dr. Langston had seen her great grandmother. It's humbling and tremendously gratifying to be trusted over that long period of time."Roseberry is also a founding member of the Longstreet Clinic and served as its President from 2004-2006.
At its annual summer meeting, the Georgia Hospital Association (GHA) presented its W. Daniel Barker Leadership Award to Philip R. Wolfe, FACHE, president and CEO of Gwinnett Medical Center (GMC) in Lawrenceville and Duluth. Wolfe was chosen for this honor based on his leadership of Gwinnett Medical center and his dedication to improving care in the community as well as his work helping to alleviate the workforce shortage. Some of his achievements include orchestrating an agreement between GMC and Gwinnett County Public Schools to provide sports medicine services. The agreement includes 19 traditional high schools and approximately 19,000 student athletes.
He also established residency programs at GMC as a way to alleviate the workforce shortage and keep medical graduates in Georgia. This year, the hospital graduated its first full class of family and internal medicine residents.
