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Tuesday, May 13
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 Mark Harvey, MD |
Dr. Mark HarveyEnjoys Patients-Everyone's Patients
Originally published in Chicago Hospital News, March 2006
By Alma Phillips
Mark Harvey, MD, enjoys his patients. In fact, he enjoys everyone’s patients. In his private practice on the south side of Chicago, where he was born and raised, he spends much of each day in nursing homes and hospitals, where he’s likely to stop to chat with anyone who looks like he or she needs some cheering up, whether or not the person is his patient.
“Providing services is what I do,” he explains. “Sometimes it’s more of a social encounter than a billable medical visit. It sort of comes naturally; I enjoy lifting spirits, supporting people through times of need and loss.”
Over the years Dr. Harvey referred his patients to hospice when appropriate. He served on the board of directors of a local hospice. And he noticed, over and over again in a half-dozen nursing homes in Chicagoland Central, a hospice nurse named Pat Anderson.
“She was always empathetic and caring,” he remembers. “We’d discuss quality of care, pain control. She made me appreciate that comfort, honor and dignity were as important to patients going through the stages of dying as they are to anyone else. We had some real good encounters,” he recalls fondly.
The feeling was mutual. Anderson, a VITAS case manager, and the other VITAS staff admired Dr. Harvey for his compassion and respect for residents who called the nursing homes “home.”
“He takes the time to talk to any residents,” says one.
“He’s totally available seven days a week,” says another. “He’s a very busy attending physician, but never too busy to see his patients. He attends family conferences at the nursing homes and has a wonderful way of explaining things in language that helps them understand.”
So when a position opened 18 months ago for a nursing home physician in VITAS’ Chicagoland Central program, Dr. Harvey looked into it. Today, he’s delighted to be part of the VITAS team.
“That teamwork was part of my appreciation for VITAS,” he says. “I’d see the social worker, the chaplain, the CNAs all working to keep terminally ill residents in their home. Health care is a team operation. The physician may lead the decision-making, but I respect the opinions of the nurses, CNAs, social worker and chaplain as much as I hope they respect mine. I try to be the one to support and educate, but I have to say, I pick up knowledge by working alongside these people.”
Alma Phillips, general manager of VITAS Innovative Hospice Care® of Chicagoland Central, can be reached at 800-93VITAS.
100 South Biscayne Blvd, Suite 1500 Miami, FL
33131 (305) 374-4143 |
