Miami, Florida, August 2, 2007--A no-nonsense but kind and loving nurse, a doctor who loves to cook for his colleagues, and an executive assistant who brings new meaning to the word “assist” were honored nationally at the prestigious VITAS Innovative Hospice Care® National Employee Recognition Awards.

VITAS, the nation’s leading hospice provider with 8,640 employees, each year recognizes those who best serve their patients, families and fellow employees. Barbara Dewhurst, RN, of Miami Springs, Domingo Gomez, MD, of Miami, and Executive Assistant Lorena Ortiz, of Miami, were among this year’s 25 honorees.

Dewhurst, affectionately known as the “General” for her strict adherence to policy and procedure and her strong advocacy of patients’ needs, received the Caregiver of the Year Award. A 1960 graduate of the University Of Miami School Of Nursing, she worked in long term care for most of her career. Finding retirement boring, she joined VITAS in August of 2001. Among her accomplishments at VITAS were learning Spanish so she could communicate better with her Hispanic patients and sharing ideas on how to improve end-of-life care with an Israeli hospice delegation visiting South Florida.

Gomez received the Founder’s Award for Outstanding Service in the physician category. “My work allows me to give hope to those who have been told that medical science can do nothing more to help them,” says the Cuban-born physician, who has been with VITAS since 1980. “I can do something for them: I can relieve their pain and make them feel better as they prepare for the most difficult transition in life.” Gomez also supports and nurtures his co-workers by bringing his own home-cooked dishes to weekly team meetings.

Ortiz received the VITAS Award for Administrative Staff. As executive assistant for Clinical Development and Bioethics at VITAS’ Miami headquarters, she juggles requests and phone calls from multiple departments with aplomb. Within a month of joining VITAS in September 2005, the computer-savvy Ortiz revamped a once-arcane database system, capturing and compiling data from as many as six different reports and consolidating it into one user-friendly format.

As the best of the best, these three VITAS employees were among 25 national winners honored at a weekend celebration at a beachfront hotel in South Florida.