You have cancer. Three simple words that strike fear into the hearts of everyone who hears them uttered.
After an unexpected trip to the emergency room, eight hours of waiting and nearly four hours of emergency surgery later, those were the three little words heard by my best friend last month.
They are a shock to the system. They are instant tears. They are late night phone calls and hundreds of miles traveled in haste to sit by a bedside.
For the patient, their family and friends, it can be the worst moment of their life.
Now, imagine how the doctor feels.
With three simple words, they derail the hopes and dreams of each patient they have sworn an oath to watch over.
The American Cancer Society reports in 2014, there will be an estimated 1,665,540 new cancer cases diagnosed and 585,720 cancer deaths in the United States alone. Cancer remains the second most common cause of death in the U.S., accounting for nearly one of every four fatalities.
Doctors will speak those words more than 1.6 million times this year. For the patient, it’s 10 seconds of pain followed by a lifetime of healing, but for the doctor, it’s a moment of anguish stuck on repeat simply by the very nature of their job.
When we punch the time clock each morning, very few of us take another’s life into our hands in the way a health care professional does. An airplane pilot can make a mistake or I can misquote a person and ruin their livelihood, but neither of us will ever hold a human heart in our hands.
This year’s Salute to Health Care honorees and Health Care Champions know that feeling. As a cardiothoracic surgeon, Dr. David Zolfaghari works on a human heart nearly every day. Breast cancer specialist Dr. John Bumberry has uttered those life-altering words. ER nurses Dawn Day, Lana Martin and Sterling Kromas know what it’s like to spend a shift in the trenches of life and death.
Springfield Business Journal has partnered with the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce for the fourth year to celebrate these professionals dedicated to our community. The chamber’s Salute to Health Care honors two doctors and SBJ’s Health Care Champions this year honors individuals in the categories of clinical psychologist, dental hygienist, ER nurse and optometrist. The Health Care Champions were chosen by a panel of five independent judges and we thank them for their hard work.
The SBJ staff is honored to tell the stories of these champions: People such as optometrist Dr. Knial Piper, who helped develop Jordan Valley Community Health Center’s first mobile eye clinic to serve children in kindergarten through high school, and dental hygienist Stacey Boyce, who has developed such a rapport with her patients after three decades of service that she regularly attends patient birthday parties, baseball games and weddings.
This year’s event is slated for 6:15 p.m. Nov. 20 at the White River Conference Center.
Congratulations to all honorees past and present. It’s thanks to the efforts of qualified professionals such as yourselves that my best friend is on the road to recovery.
And on behalf of the staff at the Springfield chamber and SBJ, we salute you for all you’re doing, all you have done and all you will do in the future.
Springfield Business Journal Features Editor Emily Letterman can be reached at eletterman@sbj.net.[[In-content Ad]]
