West Suburban Medical Center Special Section 2014

West Suburban Medical Center 2014

West Suburban’s

next hundred years

This year West Suburban Medical Center celebrates its Centennial. For 100 years, we have proudly cared for the resi-dents of Oak Park and its surrounding communities. We are leaders, innovators, teachers, and most impor-tantly caregivers.

Over the past 100 years, West Suburban Medical Center has expanded and added new medical services, but our mission to provide excellent care has never changed. The following stories provide examples of our coura-geous physicians and staff, dedicated to improving healthcare and staying at the forefront of technology.

As we celebrate our past, we are excited about our future. We look forward to serving you and your fam-ily for the next 100 years.

Thank you for joining our celebration!

Patrick Maloney

Chief Executive OfficerWest Suburban Medical

Center and Westlake Hospital

i n t r o d u c t i o n

C e n t e n n i a l

A doc robot

And his

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This West Suburban Medical Center Centennial piece was produced in partnership with Wednesday Journal Publications.

2 2014 West Suburban Medical Center Centennial

West Suburban Med ica l Center Centenn ia l

B y D E B Q U A N T O C K M C C A R E Y

Contributing Reporter

In June, as Patrick Maloney plant-ed a Burr Oak tree on the grounds of West Suburban Medical Center, the new CEO kicked off

a season of centennial celebrations for the 233-bed, teaching hospital that now is 100 years old.

In the crowd of employees, board members and well-wishers that day was Dr. Kenneth Blair, a veteran West Sub family phy-sician who has spent nearly 40 years on-the-job as a family doc-tor, and medical director and fac-ulty member of the A. L. Burdick Family Medicine Residency Program. Having completed his three year residency back in 1978, Blair is a proud member of its second full class of six graduat-ing residents in what was then a brand new program.

What catalyzed the formation of the hospital-based family medicine training center was that “at the time, they were concerned that the family doctors they had on staff, were aging out…so Al [Dr. Burdick], along with some of the other family doctors, pitched the idea, and the board agreed to sponsor it.”

As a protégé and personal physi-cian of the now retired Dr. Burdick, Blair adds that his forward-thinking colleague has been one of the found-ing fathers of the Family Medicine movement in the United States.

“When I came into this com-munity from Michigan, I under-stood there was a clear interest in having family doctors who would complete the three-year program, then stay and work in this com-munity, and many of us have,” he says. “For me, and some of us in the residency program at the time, we thought that it was important to recognize that peo-ple did not always know where to start, and about 90 percent of the

health care needs that come up can be managed by a well-trained, primary care, family physician.”

Service and a smileIn the summer of 1976, between

her 7th and 8th grade school year, 13-year-old Susie Schultz (nee Lavery), and three of her girlfriends, for fun decided to become volunteer Candy Stripers at West Sub.

Now, as the hospital’s Director of Ambulatory Services and Director for the Center for Cancer Care at West Sub’s River Forest Medical Campus, Schultz says that sum-mer was spent making sandwiches and milkshakes they would deliver every day, along with newspapers, and such, to patients.

“You had this cart, and you went up and down the floors and you brought flowers to patients. So, it was cool, and cool inside, because it was air conditioned,” she says.

Over the decades she has worked there Schultz says, “Oh my god, the change has been phenomenal.”

For example, in the late 1980s twice a week the hospital parked a mobile MRI unit in the adjacent lot that was bigger than a semi-trailer truck. To access it, patients regis-tered in the hospital and walked out the door, and climbed into the mobile medical unit.

“The thing is, they had to plug it in, and I’m not kidding, the out-let was the size of two 96-gallon garbage cans,” she says. “As soon as it was plugged it in, it was like you felt the ground like ‘Hummm.’ So later having that move into the hospital was a big deal.”

Thirty-five years ago, Dr. Vasant Acharya, an OB/GYN, joined the medical staff, at a time when babies were being delivered in the old section of the hospital, and generally speaking, Dad’s were not allowed in.

But sooner than later a new age of birthing was born, and in 1988 the hospital built the Irvin

and Margaret Houck Family Birthing Centre to promote the new family-focused practices, says Acharya, who is currently the chair of the OB Department and president of West Sub’s medical staff.

“It was built as family centered birthing, mean-ing a female patient would labor, deliver, recover and postpar-tum in the same room, which was a new and great experience at that time,” says Acharya.

More change came with the addition of two designated Alternative Birthing Center suites, which included free-standing birthing tubs, and a new staff of midwives that were part of West Sub’s 6th floor maternity wing.

All in the familyOn Feb. 17, 1914, the West

Suburban Medical Center School for Nurses was established to maintain a hospital-based train-ing center for people interested in entering the field of nursing.

In 1956, Ardythe Tiesenga (nee Noorlag) became one of its gradu-ates, and is now an active member of the West Suburban Nursing School Alumni Association. The nursing school has since changed ownership and location.

“When I first walked in, there were 350 nursing students crammed into that nursing school, and in the annex build-ing, which was across the street, where the parking lot is now,” says Tiesenga, the mother and wife of two current West Sub sur-geons. “The nursing school was one of the top rated schools, and it was affiliated with Wheaton College, so at the time, one-half of the nurses there went on to the mission field around the world.”

She married her sweetheart, Dr. Marvin Francis Tiesenga, in August 1955. A month later he became an Army doctor, leaving his new wife to carry on at home as a working nurse at West Sub.

“As student nurses, we ran the

hospital, and there was a head nurse on each floor who supervised us in our duties,” says Tiesenga.

Her son, Dr. Frederick M. Tiesenga, she says, began work-ing at West Sub in 1983, as a nurses’ aide and “transporter” while he was attending college.

A staff member since 1996, he is West Sub’s chair of surgery and now director of Robotic Minimally Invasive Surgery. His Dad was also the chair of surgery for 35 years, and is now retired.

“This hospital has always been a pioneering hospital, and my Dad [who joined the staff as a general surgeon in 1961] did the first laproscopic operation here in 1988, which has really been the biggest ground breaking change in general surgery, because prior to that it was all open, where they would make big cuts on your belly. Then, if you fast forward to 2012, I did the first robot-assisted surgery in this hospital.”

And, he adds, in 2013, West Suburban Medical Center became Illinois’ first nationally recognized Epicenter for Robotic General Surgery, as well as one of 12 such medical procedure and teaching sites nationwide.

“This means we have done a great number of robotic cases here now, and have trained sur-geons how to do it from all over the country and world, which is another exciting moment for West Sub,” says Frederick Tiesenga.

From water births to robotic surgery, West Sub has always been a leader

100 years: Pioneering community medicine

West Suburban Medical Center Centennial 2014 3


1911 The West Suburban Hospital Association

was formed by a group of Oak Park and Austin physicians who saw the need for an additional hospital.

1914 West Suburban Hospital opened

as a 90 bed facility on February 17. In its first year, 1,696 patients were cared for and 198 babies were born.In the same year, the West Suburban College of Nursing was also established as a hospital-based diploma school of nursing.

1922 Actress Betty White – yes, The

Golden Girls Betty White -- was born at West Suburban Hospital on January 17, 1922.

1924 The hospital

extended westward along Ontario Street, constructing a nursing residence and an employee dormitory, which was completed in 1925.

1928 West Suburban Hospital’s $3

million expansion resulted in a 9-story building addition, housing 327 beds. Also, in 1928, a Hospital Management article described West Suburban Hospital as a “modern and magnificent shelter for ailing humanity with its highly specialized services and organized educational facilities.”

1942During WWII, a contingent of

West Suburban Hospital staff, 15 physicians and 32 nurses, deployed in August to the South Pacific as U.S. Army Evacuation Hospital Unit #25. The crew reached its final destination in October.

1946 Following the war, the greatest

number of babies were delivered at West Suburban Hospital in September of 1946 with a total of 336.

1949 The first board certified

anesthesiologist joined West Suburban Hospital and the School of Nursing affiliated with Wheaton College to offer a Bachelor of Science degree.

1958 The north section

addition of West Suburban Hospital was completed,

bringing the capacity to 400 beds.

1961By the numbers: West Suburban

Hospital had 400 beds, 55 bassinets, 177 members of the medical staff, 800 employees and was treating 15,000 medical, surgical, and obstetrical patients annually as well as 12,000 emergency cases per year.

1964The 100,000th baby was born at

West Suburban Hospital on Friday, March 13, 1964.

1965 The Intensive Care Unit opened.

The hospital phone number at that time was EUclid 3-6200 and AUstin 7-8100.

1971Family Medicine Residency Program

is founded by Dr. A.L. Burdick- the second such program in the state of Illinois (by a few months!)

1977 In October, pastoral services

is established as a hospital department, and in December the Northwest Parking lot opens.

1979The Internal Medicine

Residency program was established.

1980 New parking garage built.

1982Hospital changes name to West

Suburban Hospital Medical Center and the Professional Office Building Opens (1 Erie Court) in August.

1985 New hospital chapel dedicated.

1988Irvin and Margaret Houck

Family Birthing Centre Opens: When the new unit opened in 1988, it was the first state-approved maternity unit to

offer birthing suites that were fully equipped for labor, delivery, recovery, postpartum, and newborn care.

1995The former “boat shaped”

Wausau Insurance Building at 7411 Lake Street. in River Forest was converted into the River Forest Campus Medical building for outpatient services.

1997The River Forest Medical

Center’s “Building C,” the Center For Cancer Care, was established with outpatient chemotherapy services, located on the first floor.

2000West Suburban Center for

Breast Care and Women’s

Health opens at Lake and Williams Street in River Forest.

2009 $24 million new Emergency

Room facility opens.

2013Opened the Wound Care and

Hyperbaric Medicine Center.

2014Designated first robotic surgery

training epicenter in the state of Illinois.

2014Today, owned by Tenet Healthcare

Corporation, West Suburban Medical Center is a 233-bed teaching hospital that is accredited by The Joint Commission. With over 300 physicians in an array of specialties, it offers advanced inpatient, outpatient and surgical services, including orthopedics, gastroenterology, oncology, cardiology, obstetrics, family medicine, bariatric services, rehabilitative medicine and behavioral health. It is also a full-service teaching hospital which is designated as an epicenter for robotic training.

What a century it has been

1997

1982

WWII

1921



Straight talk from two family docsB y D E B Q U A N T O C K

M C C A R E YContributing Reporter

Since 1971, when West Suburban Medical Center debuted the sec-ond family medicine residency program in Illinois, it has been a pioneering leader in the field.

Today, nearly a quarter of all physician office visits in the U.S. are made to a family medicine doctor, and now with the imple-mentation of The Affordable Care Act, it is anticipated that the demand for more family physi-cians will only increase as more Americans make their way back to form a relationship with a family doctor.

Working for nearly 40 years in that medi-cal profession are two local MDs who are also 1978 grads and on the faculty of West Sub’s A. L. Burdick Family Medicine Residency Program — Dr. Kenneth M. Blair and Dr. Stephen Humowiecki, who after spending 39 years affiliated with West Sub retired at the end of June.

We recently stopped by to check up on the state of family medi-cine in Oak Park, River Forest and Austin.

What does being a family physician mean?

Humowiecki: Family medicine is about treating the whole person, and caring for the entire family. Grandparents, parents and children. It encom-passes treating the body, mind and spirit, and focuses on both treatment of illnesses and dis-eases, as well as prevention, via immunizations and periodic physicals and that kind of thing.

How has the profession of family

medicine changed, or has it?

Humowiecki: I grew up on Marcus Welby, the old TV show. That was the image when I went to medical school and residency, and I think the Oak Park, River Forest, Forest Park, Berwyn and West Side community has been particularly strong as a patient base since the 1970s, really, because of the family medicine residents from West Suburban’s program who have liked the area and set up shop here, because the purpose of the residency pro-gram was to keep more doctors

local, and it has suc-ceeded greatly.

Blair: Most primary care physicians today are being pushed into the position of being in an office practice, and so many people leave a hospital set-ting, and may not go into a hospital to do much medicine. That is an evolution, I think.

How will the imple-mentation of the Affordable Care Act change things?

Humowiecki: There certainly will be an increased need now for family physicians, and in coming years because family medi-cine is the area where if a family or a single mom, for example, now has insurance coverage, where she didn’t before, and

is seeking out a family physi-cian for her would make a lot of sense.

How has the hospital’s family

medicine residency program come of age?

Blair: The residency has evolved. Now there are multiple

sites, which are called continuity sites, so family medicine was the first medicine to say that a lot of what we do is outside the hospi-tal. So, you need a model office, a family residency center. Ours is named A. L. Burdick Family Medicine Center, but we do have three continuity medicine sites, where the physicians are in a community health center, which is now part of the PCC [Parent Child Center – Community Wellness Centers], which I have been on its board since it began. So now, this residency program trains a large number of fam-ily doctors whose interest is working with the underserved, which are people who have fewer resources, and have fewer opportunities to get longitudinal primary care. So, we train our residents to do that. That is an enormous change. Another interesting thing about family medicine now is how it is defi-nitely attracting more women at this time. Although women have always been strongly involved in this program from the start.

Humowiecki: I think that West Sub’s program was the 21st fam-ily practice residency that was established in the United States. Dr. Al Burdick was respected by his peers all around the country, and it has continued to be high quality. The faculty is excellent,

and one cannot say too much about it. Good family doctors really become part of the fami-lies. So, we are trained to take care of 90 percent of problems. The other 10 percent is where they need to be referred to a spe-cialist.

In the complex age of locating a board certified health care pro-vider, what is your advice?

Humowiecki: Well, it’s easy enough for them to call the medi-cal staff office of West Suburban to find a list of family physicians who are in practice in the area, indicating which ones, which are probably most of them, are grad-uates of their program. There are lots. I think there will always be an emphasis on the doctor-patient relationship, because it’s very powerful.

Blair: Now, when I see some of these people who I have history with, I can get a lot of informa-tion by just seeing their face. Family medicine has always been oriented toward relation-ship building, and prevention, so there is a greater focus on wellness…but we do have a much better educated population of “patient consumers” who are saying I would much rather avoid a sickness, then be treated for it.

“Family medicine is about treat-

ing the whole person, and

caring for the entire family. Grandparents, parents and children. ”

dr. Steven

Humowieki

DAVID PIERINI/Staff Photographer

Dr. Kenneth M. Blair.



Your baby, your way at West Sub

B y D E B Q U A N T O C K M C C A R E YContributing Reporter

About 13 years ago, Laura Maychruk of River Forest began teaming with Gayle Riedmann, a certified nurse midwife, to birth the first of her four children in a tub filled with warm water in an Alternative Birthing Centre suite located in the Irvin and Margaret Houck Family Birthing Centre of West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park.

“Well, the water birth option was new back then, so when I got there to deliver my son, I decided to try it, and I liked it so much that with my fourth child I thought I can’t do anything unless I am in the water. After that experience, I just didn’t want to give birth in the air,” jokes Maychruk, the owner of the Buzz Café in Oak Park.

Three years earlier is when Riedmann, owner of West Suburban Midwife Associates, one of two groups of midwives who work with patients to deliv-er at West Sub, began pushing the concept of water births, and eventually it sunk in.

At first, though, Robbin Uchison, now the centre’s nurse manager, wasn’t sold on the idea, and at the first water birth with Riedmann she remembers asking the nurse midwife “if we have to use a snorkel and wear a bathing suit, instead of just wearing sur-gical scrubs to deliver a baby in water,” says Uchison.

After that, she became a sup-porter of water birthing, as has her hospital, in that now the Centre has two suites with tubs and other birthing assists, plus 12 private labor, delivery and recov-ery rooms, and 20 private postpar-tum rooms where new Moms go skin-to-skin with their babies and learn how to nurse them.

Filling the tubRiedmann, who has delivered

babies at West Sub for 16 years, says laboring and birthing in a tub of warm water helps naturally manage pain, avoid incidents of vaginal lacerations, and, of course, offers buoyancy, for starters.

“I think it is that when you get into the tub, the water is deep enough to take weight off of your back, if you are having any back pain, and it’s relaxing, warm and enveloping – it’s a comfortable, tight space where I can do what I need to do,” says Maychruk.

However, the option of water birth with a midwife, says Uchison, is only feasible for women experiencing a low-risk pregnancy. She adds that related to the hospital’s family medicine and internal medicine residency programs, West Sub enjoys academic medical center level care for patients, including partnerships with Northwestern Memorial’s prenatal center for high–risk pregnancies, and the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, in an effort to assist babies with advanced care needs. West Sub is also one of two hospitals in the metro Chicago area where patients can deliver in the tub, as other places with birthing tubs allow patients to labor, but not deliver in them, says Dr. Vasant Acharya, chair of the obstetrics department and president of the medical staff.

“There are patients who do want certain things like pain management with an epidural, and so they do very well in the other part of the birthing cen-ter, where they can get that, and so on,” says Acharya. “When [women who desire to birth with a midwife] deliver in a hospital

environment like ours, where there is minimal medical inter-ference, we still monitor the mom, and we monitor the baby, so we make it much safer for both of them in a controlled environ-ment. Again, if a patient chooses to work with a midwife, there is minimum interference [by us] with the labor process.”

However, she says, if a medical emergency during labor or birth-ing occurs, obstetricians are on site 24/7.

For Maychruk, all four of her births at West Sub went swim-mingly.

“All my kids were at whatever birth they were alive for,” say Maychruk. “For George’s birth, I invited all my close women friends who were all clapping and crying, and I was crying with happiness.”

Over the years what a woman wants can be surprising, such as when Uchison walked into a birthing suite and found a hired harpist plucking away, while the mom was laboring in a soothing scented bubble bath, enjoying her serenade.

Riedmann recalls a time when a woman, who was an Orthodox

Jew and delivering her fifth child, decided to do it in a free-standing birthing tub, with her assist.

“Her husband was on the other side of the wall, in the entryway, because it was against his tradi-tion to see the birth, but he was allowed to hear it,” Riedmann says. “As the baby was being born, his wife, who delivered fully clothed in the water, and when she said Misha, it’s a boy, it’s a boy… he just sobbed and sobbed for joy.”

Water births to epidurals, West Sub meets mom’s needs

“I think it is that when you get into the tub, the water is deep enough to take weight off of your back, if you are having any back pain, and it’s

relaxing, warm and envel-oping – it’s a comfortable,

tight space where I can do what I need to do,”

Laura MaychrukWest Sub mom and Buzz Cafe owner

Photo/Kevin McCarey

REUNION: Laura Maychruk (center) delivered all four of her kids in the big tub at West Sub. Gayle Riedmann (left), a midwife, and Robbin Uchison, the West Sub nurse manager in the birthing centre, were at her side.



West Sub docs love their robotsB y D E B Q U A N T O C K

M C C A R E YContributing Reporter

When Diana Concannon, 48, began experiencing pain in her pelvis she worried it might be related to cancer. So the moth-er of two made an appointment with her primary care physician for a check in, and soon enough she was undergoing a diagnostic ultrasound that showed fibrous tumors in her uterus and a large cyst on her left ovary.

Needing now to see a spe-cialist, Concannon made an appointment with Dr. Monique Brotman, one of four robotically-trained gynecologists here who perform complicated general sur-gery procedures with the assis-tance of the $2 million da Vinci Robotic Surgical System at West Suburban Medical Center.

“I was scared at first about the tumors, but Dr. Brotman did the test prior to the surgery, and called me with the good news that they were benign prior to the having them taken out,” says the Elmwood Park resident.

Concannon says her surgery was quick and the hospital stay was short.

“If Diana had come to me two-and-a-half-years ago, I would have performed her hysterectomy as an open surgical procedure. She would have stayed three to four days in the hospital and spent six to eight weeks recuperating at home” says Brotman. “Since being trained initially in robotic surgery and having undergone advanced robotic training, I can offer a minimally invasive proce-dure to patients who normally would have only had the option for a traditional open surgery. This translates to less pain for patients and a much shorter recovery time. Diana was home within 24 hours, and was watching a 4th of July parade two days later.

To date, West Sub urologist, Dr. Alan Sadah, the co-director of the Robotic Minimally Invasive Surgery department, says “the majority of the robotic procedures

done globally and in the USA are done by the urologists and gyne-cologists, doing prostatectomy, partial and complete nephrecto-my by the urologist and hysterec-tomy by the gynecologist,” he said in a written response.

Brotman says she uses the robotic technology to perform 75 to 80 percent of her gynecolog-ic surgeries, adding, “The preci-sion of the instrumentation has dramatically improved the face of surgery.”

“The technology is amazing,” says Brotman.

the future of medicineThe first robotic surgery at

West Sub was performed on Sept. 4, 2012, by Dr. Frederick

Tiesenga, chair of surgery and director of the robotic sur-gery team.

In October 2013, Tiesenga says the medical center became a designated national robotic epi-center for general surgery train-ing, making it one of only 12 such robotic epicenters for general surgery in the nation.

“The epicenter designation also means that West Suburban is now a nationally recognized teaching center specifically for robotic general surgery, [in that] the epicenter refers to the sur-geon, which is me, and the hospi-tal, West Sub,” says Tiesenga.

Currently, at West Sub, eight staff surgeons are trained to uti-lize the da Vinci robot for gen-eral surgery procedures in their operating room, often with other doctors and nurses observing the robotic procedures.

“The robotic teaching epicen-ter has really put West Suburban Medical Center on the map nationally, and not only is West Suburban being recognized for

its great robotics program, but now for its operating room, too, because of the great efficiency that the robot has enabled the sur-geons to realize in the operating room,” says Tiesenga. “Typically operating rooms are very slow when they add a robot, because it is so complex. But West Suburban has been able to put their best people in the room, and make the operations move very effi-ciently, so much so that we have had other robotic programs out there come in to observe how we are able to do it, which I think is a big thing for our OR to achieve.”

Tiesenga uses the robot to per-form single site, gallbladder sur-geries, where he can achieve a scarless surgery.

“We go in through the belly but-ton, and have much better visual-ization because we use something called ‘Fire Fly,’” he says. “Fire Fly is a radio-nuclear dye that is injected into the blood. It causes the ducts to glow. So, in the anat-omy, for a surgeon, it acts as kind of a GPS to follow when you are operating, and with the robot, we can do these operations more accurately, with better vision.”

Likewise, Dr. Sadah notes that robotic surgery is a good option for many of his patients.

Depending on a surgeon’s subspecialty, Sadah says, “Procedures that have tradition-ally been performed, for example, with the laparoscope, invented in the late 1980s and started in early 1990s, such as gallbladder surgery, appendix, hysterectomy, etc., now, while they don’t have to be done robotically, they can be done using the robot...with a similar outcome as laparoscopic technique in terms of pain, cos-metic outcome and recovery.”

Meanwhile, post hysterectomy, Concannon says she is healing nicely.

“Me having a robotically-assisted surgery is an option Dr. Brotman and I discussed togeth-er, and all I can say is that it was quick and less painful because the incision was smaller,” says Concannon.

Chosen as ‘epicenter’ for teaching docs how to use technology

Photos/Kevin McCarey

Dr. Alan Sadah and Dr. Monique Brotman.



At West Sub’s River Forest campus a focus on wellness

B y D E B Q U A N T O C K M C C A R E Y

Contributing Reporter

West Suburban Medical Center has had a strong but evolving presence in River Forest for 20 years. What started as an ambu-latory care site has grown into more specialized care programs – cancer and breast health – along with a strong community well-ness focus.

Twice a week anyone age 50-plus can head to 7411 W. Lake St. to tone themselves up by participating in Building Back Balance, the hospital’s free exer-cise class. Exercise physiologist Paul Radzki teaches people how to prevent falls and regain their balance in hour-long classes held at both 8:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.

“Every class is different, and there are a lot of stretching exer-cises for people with arthritis issues,” he says. “Every other Tuesday we work with light weights, 2 or 3 lbs., or resistance bands so people can gain strength, flexibility and keep moving.”

Likewise, 2 different days a week Free Yoga, Free Spirit classes are humming along for everyone on Mondays at 9 a.m. and Fridays at noon, thanks to its founder, Mary Jo Tsokolas, direc-tor of the Breast and Imaging Center on the River Forest cam-pus.

“Everyone is welcome,” says Tsokolas. “We had a woman who I’m guessing was 28 and preg-nant, and I have a lady there who is 87 years old.”

The hospital’s twice a year Manicures and Mammograms event debuted in River Forest in April 2013, to take the edge off scheduling and having a mam-mogram, she says.

“We book a full day from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. of mammograms -- the patient pays for it [the mammo-gram] but what they get is that we

turn our entire breast center into a spa,” she says.

Tskolas says it is designed so women can stay at “the spa” as long as they want.

“We have PureReign volun-teers, who have this special salt that they use for circulation and they have infrared chairs, so they set up our whole conference room in a spa like atmosphere.”

The pros from Polished Nails and Day Spa in Oak Park join in too, pro bono, doing manicures, massages and facials for women prior to and after their breast screening.

“We also have a dietician that comes and donates her time,” says Tsokolas, adding that this spring 128 women took part. “Our goal is to do a different month every 6 months because with the follow-ups, we want to make sure every woman gets touched by this and is able to experience this day at the spa.”

Focus on women’s healthIn her hospital’s centennial

year, long-time medical staffer Susie Schultz, director of the Center for Cancer Care, as well as the chief of ambulatory care, looks back on the history in River Forest. In 1995 the 7411 Lake St. building, was the former Wausau

Insurance Building. “Building A” as it now called, was, and still is shaped like a boat, although now two more buildings have been added to the complex as the medi-cal services it offers have grown “so we run a very tight ship,” Schultz jokes.

“The original plan was to move outpatient services from

the main hospital to the River Forest campus, which at the time was only at 7411 Lake,” she says, adding that in those years the building housed a few physicians, the teaching residency programs for internal medicine and family medicine centers, plus physical therapy, the cardiology group, and a cardiac rehab facility.

In 1997, The Center for Cancer Care, “Building B” was built to offer outpatient chemotherapy services, as well as offer a range of other outpatient medical ser-vices.

The Center for Breast Care and Women’s Health, “Building C” debuted in 2000.

At 7411 Lake St., attending to his female patients’ needs is urol-ogist Dr. Alan Sadah, director of urogynecology services, who sees women with urinary problems, such as incontinence.

“There are many types of uri-nary incontinence, [including] stress incontinence (physically induced such as coughing, sneez-ing, laughing or simply getting up or exercising), urgency and urge induced incontinence, or a mixture of the two,” says Sadah, who also treats patients at his office in Elmwood Park. “These nuances of incontinence can be further sorted out through a meticulously conducted work up that also includes urodynamics, physical examination, and pos-sibly a cystoscopy to arrive at the right diagnosis.”

Still, being part of the commu-nity, and the community being part of it, is at the heart of it all, says Sarah Dean, manager of community outreach.

“Educating the public about health and wellness, and for peo-ple to be familiar with a place of care before they need it – so they know the physicians, the staff people and the area – makes this not a strange place they are turn-ing to when they do need health care services,” she says.

“Every class is differ-ent, and there are a lot of stretching exercises for people with arthri-tis issues. Every other Tuesday we work with light weights, 2 or 3

lbs., or resistance bands so people can gain

strength, flexibility and keep moving.”

Paul radzkiExercise physiologist

Celebrating 100 YearsOf Caring For Your Community

Join West Suburban Medical Center to celebrate 100 years of serving its community. Enjoy refreshments, contests,

raffles, giveaways, a photo booth, and fascinating presentations as we explore the history of the village,

the hospital, and medical care. We will have displays on the history of medicine and the latest medical techniques including our state of the art da Vinci® Surgical System.

We also invite all former and current nurses and anyone born at West Suburban to join us for reunion photos.

West Suburban Medical Center • 3 Erie Court, Oak Park • westsuburbanmc.com

J O I N U S

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 279:00 A.M. – 3:00 P.M.

J O I N U S


SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

10:00 A.M.Journey through Time:

History of Oak Park and West Suburban Medical

Center

11:00 A.M.The History and Future of Modern Surgery:

From Open Surgery to Minimally-Invasive Robotics

12:00 P.M.A Century of Childbirth: How medicine and the culture of childbirth has evolved in the past 100

years

1:00 P.M.Pioneers in Family

Medicine: One of the First Family Medicine Programs Continues A Tradition of

Comprehensive Care

REUNION PHOTOS

Were you born at WS?Join us at 1:00 p.m. in front of the hospital for a reunion photo of those born at West Suburban Medical Center over the past 100 years.

Were you a WS nurse?Join us at 1:45 p.m. in front of the hospital for a nurses’ reunion photo, followed by

a nurses’ tea in the courtyard.

To register, call 866-938-7256 or go online to westsubmc.com/events

J O I N U S


West Suburban Medical Center Special Section 2014

Documents

Transcript of West Suburban Medical Center Special Section 2014