Salute to Health Care Awards honor three Springfield physicians

Recipients of the 2005 Salute to Health Care Awards are Dr. John W. “Bucky” Buckner, Dr. Judy A. Dasovich and Dr. Walter J. Gaska.

Honorees must meet specific criteria, said Carol Wright, public affairs coordinator for the chamber. First, she said, they must be direct providers of health care services. They also must demonstrate leadership in promoting efforts to improve the health of the Springfield area and must have shown longevity in health care, pioneered a field, brought about a significant change and gone beyond the scope of their job to improve area health.

The three honorees were chosen by a selection committee comprising professionals in health care and community groups, and past award recipients.

Wright said the number of recipients varies from year to year.

“The number is not the important thing,” Wright said. “It’s more on the merits of the individual or the organization.”

Wright said more than 200 people are expected to attend the 2005 Salute to Health Care Awards. The event this year is sponsored by Springfield Business Journal, Community Blood Center of the Ozarks, McKesson Corp. and Ireland & Associates.

Doctor, soldier, surgeon

Dr. Bucky Buckner, a general surgeon with Ferrell-Duncan Clinic, is a former active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force. He joined the Army Reserve after the Sept. 11 attacks and is now in the midst of his second tour as part of a forward surgical team in Iraq.

Buckner is a founding board member of Breast Cancer Foundation of the Ozarks, which nominated him for the Salute to Health Care Award.

“He’s done so much for our organization. He’s done so much for breast cancer patients in general, because he does perform a lot of mastectomies. We just hear so many positive things about him,” said Ellen Hammock, executive director of BCFO, adding that Buckner isn’t likely to return home until sometime after the holidays.

Buckner is still a member of the BCFO Board of Directors, Hammock said, but he also does a lot of other work in the community when he’s not abroad serving the country.

Prior to leaving for Iraq, Buckner served on a newly formed committee charged with developing a hazardous materials team for the Springfield area, and he’s a member of the Roy Blunt Congressional Council, acting as a consultant for Blunt on legislative issues involving health care. Buckner is a member of the executive board of Ferrell-Duncan Clinic and serves on a committee for the Ferrell-Duncan Clinic Foundation, which distributes funds for area health education projects. He’s also active with the Greene County Medical Society and is a member of the Missouri Medical Association.

While his work – both in the office and for community groups – keeps him busy, Buckner also stays very involved with his children’s activities, having coached softball, baseball and basketball teams, serving as the unofficial team doctor. He’s also helped at his children’s schools, providing supplemental supplies for the school nurse, reading books as part of the “Reading and Dads” program and serving as a chaperone for field trips.

“He’s kind of an amazing person,” Hammock said.

Care for those who need it

Dr. Judy Dasovich is the medical director of The Kitchen Clinic, which provides care for the poor and homeless in southwest Missouri.

She’s quick to point out the nature of her work with The Kitchen’s medical clinic.

“Everybody gets confused when they hear that big fancy title. I’m a volunteer physician, plus I’m the volunteer medical director, which means that I do some administrative work and I’m on (The Kitchen) board as representative for the clinic,” said Dasovich, who also works part-time at Missouri State University’s Taylor Health Center.

Dasovich previously maintained a private practice, but she stepped away from that to focus on raising her children.

While her work has changed, one thing that hasn’t is her advocacy for access to health care for all citizens

“I personally feel that we need some sort of national health insurance,” Dasovich said. “I feel very strongly about that. I just want somebody to put (The Kitchen’s) clinic out of business. I just think that there’s no reason for a developed nation to have to have citizens who depend on care from a free clinic.”

The Kitchen Clinic takes patients who have no health insurance, public or private. “For instance, if you have Medicaid, you would not be eligible for care in our clinic,” Dasovich said.

A majority of the clinic’s patients are among the working poor who have no insurance but don’t qualify for Medicaid. Already, she said, The Kitchen Clinic is seeing the effects of cuts made to Missouri’s Medicaid program.

“I saw somebody (already) who lost her Medicaid,” Dasovich said. “A woman with a lot of medical problems on a lot of medications. I frankly don’t know where she would go if there wasn’t someplace like The Kitchen she could go to.”

Local efforts to increase access to care, such as Jordan Valley Health Center, she said, are good, “although for some people, even the minimal fees that are charged there make it a problem.”

Dasovich, an internal medicine physician, has previously gone on medical missions to Haiti.

“The contact I have right now in Haiti has more to do with supporting some nutrition clinics that a public health nurse does,” she said.

While the Salute to Health Care Award is appreciated recognition of Dasovich’s work, she hopes that the recognition also will help spread the word that there are still people out there who need access to affordable health care and insurance.

“The most recent figures of medically uninsured people in this country were 45 million. That’s just gone up to 45.8 million,” she said. “It keeps getting worse and worse and worse.”

Surgeon and community supporter

Dr. Walter Gaska, a practicing plastic and reconstructive surgeon, is president of St. John’s Clinic.

Gaska, who has been practicing medicine for 33 years, leads St. John’s Clinic, which, according to his award nomination form, averages approximately 1.4 million patient visits a year. Gaska did not return phone calls seeking comment for this story.

During his career, Gaska has performed more than 20,000 surgeries, both reconstructive and cosmetic. As a surgeon, he repairs birth defects, treats cancer of the head and performs breast reconstruction. He was one of the early developers of skin expansion surgery for mastectomy patients, and he was invited to teach this discipline to surgeons at Mayo Clinic.

Gaska also was instrumental in initiating the development of the neurosurgery department at St. John’s, and in 2004, he was voted Physician of the Year by his peers at St. John’s.

Gaska’s community work includes serving as a board member of Breast Cancer Foundation of the Ozarks, and he also helped to establish the “Force For Good” within the St. John’s Foundation. “Force For Good raises money for community needs, and has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from St. John’s Clinic physicians, co-workers and friends.

In 2004, 18 St. John’s physicians and administrators graduated from Missouri State University with master’s degrees through a special partnership with St. John’s – and a program conceptualized by Gaska.

He also is active in supporting fine arts, serving as an advising committee member and a longtime supporter of MSU Graphic Arts and Fine Arts Department. To that end, the Walter and Martha Gaska Cultural Exchange Program offers students the opportunity to perform and to study internationally.

Gaska participates in the YMCA Strong Kids Campaign, is a member of the ALS Association-Keith Worthington Chapter, and was a creator of downtown Springfield’s annual International Beerfest, which benefits Springfield Little Theater, The Springfield Ballet, Springfield Regional Opera and the Springfield Symphony.[[In-content Ad]]