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Overcast Drawing on their Five Towns ties
St. John’s Hospital staff speaks at Lawrence meeting
Though the hospital is in Far Rockaway, St. John’s Episcopal Hospital has strong ties with the Five Towns as more than a few doctors connected with the facility either grew up, live in or have practices in the area.
Doctors, department heads and the hospital’s chief executive officer were part of the program at the Lawrence Association meeting at the Lawrence Yacht and Country Club on Feb. 15.
Led by St. John’s CEO Nelson Toebbe, the physicians spoke briefly about themselves, their medical career and how they view their service to the community through the hospital.
“It’s not about the building, but seeing the patients,” said Chief of Cardiology Dr. Sergei Sokol. “We are treating just not patients, but family, friends and neighbors. We serve a community.”
“Our Wound Care Center is among the hospital’s many services and our cure rates are in the upper half of 1 percent in the nation,” Toebbe said.
Head of Internal Medicine Dr. Dominic Spero, grew up in Cedarhurst, lives in Lawrence and has his off-site practice on Rockaway Turnpike in Lawrence. “I was born in this hospital,” he said about his longtime ties to St. John’s.
Dr. Albert Stojan, whose practice is in Valley Stream, trained at St. John’s and was serves as the hospital’s chair of Family Practice and director of the residency program. Though Dr. Stojan said St. John’s has an inviting marble lobby and an upscale coffee shop those aren’t the reasons for a hospital visit. “The Starbucks doesn’t treat you the doctors and nurses take care of patients and keep the community healthy,” he said adding that the hospital’s services should be used for what he called “preventive medicine.”
“I hope we have whetted your appetite to learn more about us,” Toebbe said.
Association news
Lawrence Association President Ron Goldman addressed a few points at the meeting, including the group’s follow up letter to Village of Lawrence Mayor Martin Oliner concerning what appears to be the false posting of a village job titled chief executive officer on the Orthodox Union jobs website (Herald Jan. 12-18). “We are asking village officials to investigate,” Goldman said.
He also brought up the lack of civility demonstrated by village board members at the meetings and said that a “strong probability” exists that they could get student
volunteers to tape the meetings for pub-
lic viewing.
After having Sanitary District officials address the Association in November, member Margaret Carpenter has followed up and reported that Commissioner Frank Argento is working with union leadership about increasing recyclable pickups. With more supervisors checking the routes Argento said complaints have decreased and he
sees an improvement in service, according
to Carpenter.
