Medical world salutes its best at Doctors of Distinction
Dr. Darcy Lowell said doctors have the opportunity to see the bigger picture in medicine in her keynote speech at the second annual Fairfield County Doctors of Distinction award ceremony recently at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum in Norwalk.
Accounting firm Citrin Cooperman and the Fairfield County Business co-sponsored the packed-house event that drew 125 attendees, many of them physicians. Other sponsors included Quinnipiac University”™s Frank H. Netter School of Medicine, Mercedes-Benz of Greenwich, The Bristal, Danziger & Markhoff LLP, and Orthopaedic & Neurosurgery Specialists. The Darien and Wilton chambers of commerce were partners for the event.
Lowell, who won the Community Service Award last year, took action when she realized many of the children she treated at Bridgeport Hospital came from troubled families.
- From left, Doctors of Distinction honorees Drs. Sohel Islam, Albert Burke, Joseph Feurstein, Mark Vitale, Steven Heffer, Robert Herzlinger, and medical student Phillip Jordan at the award ceremony in Norwalk at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum. Photo by Bill Fallon
“We had our blinders on and we couldn”™t see the environments, and we couldn”™t see the broader context in which they were growing and developing,” Lowell said. “I said we could do things differently.”
She founded Child First, an intensive home-visiting intervention program for the most vulnerable children and families, which is now being replicated around the state.
Six doctors and one student who share Lowell”™s passion, determination and vision in their own fields were honored at the awards ceremony, which salutes “those who go beyond the diagnosis.”
John P. Bryan, Citrin Cooperman partner and co-leader of the firm”™s health care practice, said he was honored to celebrate the human side of medicine.
“We were happy to again be a part of the event to recognize physicians whose work has made significant contributions to the community,” Bryan said. “Their stories are moving and inspiring.”
Dr. Sohel Islam, who was born in Bangladesh, said he uses the success he found in America to help others in Third World countries. He practices within the Western Connecticut Health Network and specializes in plastic surgery and hand surgery. Islam accepted the Humanitarian Award for his annual trips to Central America, where he provides surgical care to those who need it most.
“People around the world just want the same thing for their kids; they want opportunity and a better life, and that”™s really what we”™re trying to provide for most of these kids,” Islam said.
Dr. Albert V. Burke, a retired doctor, accepted the Leadership in Medical Advocacy Award. Burke was the department chairman and chief of the medical staff at Norwalk Hospital, where he planned and developed the Whittingham Cancer Center. He was a physician for Norwalk”™s police for 36 years and today serves as a volunteer physician for the AmeriCares Free Clinics. He thanked his wife of 56 years for her support.
“Anything I”™ve accomplished along the way, she certainly has played a big role,” Burke said.
Dr. Joseph Feurstein is the director of Integrative Medicine at Stamford Hospital. He received the Excellence in Medical Research Award for his studies of an eating plan proven to lower blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol and weight in human patients. He published the second study of 100 patients last month and has a book coming out next year.
“All this is really trying to get an understanding of owning your food, understanding what to eat and how that has a huge impact on your health,” Feurstein said, thanking the room and his wife.
Dr. Mark Vitale, an orthopedic surgeon at Orthopaedic & Neurosurgery Specialists, also won the Excellence in Medical Research Award. Vitale attributed his entry into the field to his role model, his father, an orthopedic surgeon, and to his lifelong curiosity. He has published some 40 papers and regularly presents his work at meetings locally and globally.
“I”™m just basically motivated by trying to not accept what people tell me as the best way to take care of people, but trying to figure out things on my own and with my colleagues,” Vitale said. “It”™s a great honor to be recognized for that today.”
Dr. Steven Heffer received the Community Service Award for his role as medical director and owner of AFC/Doctors Express Urgent Care in Bridgeport. He said this was an effort to better serve patients, who often were not going to the doctor. He plans to open a second facility in Fairfield by the end of this year.
“I felt that I could deliver my vision of medicine to this population,” Heffer said. “We”™ve made a lot of amazing diagnoses just in the first 14 months of operation.”
- Dr. Darcy Lowell
Dr. Robert Herzlinger, has been practicing neonatology and pediatrics for nearly 40 years. He started the Newborn Intensive Care Unit at Bridgeport Hospital, now the Bridgeport Campus of Yale-New Haven Children”™s Hospital, where he has been the medical director since 1975. Herzlinger accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award.
“To see these infants grow up is really a tremendous reward,” Herzlinger said.
Dr. Bruce Koeppen, founding dean of the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University, said the doctors give back to the community in many ways, acting as role models for his students.
“You epitomize what we want our students to be,” Koeppen said.
One of those students, Phillip E. Jordan, in his second year at Netter, won the only non-doctor award for most promising medical student. He said he is passionate about engaging with patients, helping them beyond the diagnosis and treatment.
“It goes a long way to empower the patient,” he said. “The way I interact with my patients is going to … really change how they identify with what they”™re going through.”
Carolyn Macica, a Ph.D. and professor at Quinnipiac University, said once she interviewed Jordan to get into the school, “I knew that I was sitting across from the future Dr. Phil … the most promising medical student.”
She said she wouldn”™t be surprised if Jordan himself returns to the award ceremony in a few years as a doctor of distinction.