Recently, I heard about two employees who worked together to organize the unit and workflow in their unit for the betterment of them, their colleagues, and their patients.

In the post anesthesia care unit (PACU) at Union Square, Luvia Anderson and Marjorie Phillips brainstormed together on simple but powerful changes that would benefit their work and the work of their team.

They assessed the large equipment in the area and moved some of the lesser-used items like cribs to isolated spaces away from patients. This action alone created more room for patient beds. They also added bins to organize the paper flowing in and out of the unit so that at any moment a staff member would know exactly what to do with the medical record or form. For the nurses’ station, they removed a chair to make more room and got a remote control for the buzzer so that they and other team members wouldn’t need to interrupt work to let someone in. The process for assigning beds was previously a verbal process without tracking, and Luvia and Marjorie created a patient flow chart that maintains a record of bed assignments for the unit.

I’m so impressed by their creativity and action. Small changes add up, and I learn so much from our colleagues every day. Thank you for sharing your ideas, for taking initiative to make things better, and I hope you will keep them coming.

Here is my proclamation for National Doctors’ Day… these words are from the heart and I will share them with you each year on this special day…

March 30 is National Doctors’ Day. This date was designated a national holiday in the United States in 1990. In that spirit, I would like to offer a few thoughts on our MSBI physician community.

Over two thousand doctors are part of our MSBI family. They represent employed and voluntary faculty, primary and specialty care, inpatient and ambulatory care, hospital and community-based care, and collectively they cover a vast geography. These physicians include our exceptional residents and fellows. And our physician community also includes many retired doctors who are still vital parts of our family.

Our doctors are innovators, collaborators, colleagues, and friends. They are champions for excellence. They are our teachers and team members.

Our doctors put in long hours and go the extra mile every single day to ensure that our patients receive the care and caring that they need and deserve.

Our doctors struggle with us through the thick and the thin of our downtown transformation and hold us accountable for never losing sight of our core missions.

I am profoundly humbled by the strength, depth, and breadth of our extraordinary physician community and consider myself blessed to be your colleague.

With admiration and respect, happy National Doctors’ Day.

And now for a special treat. You can click on the video below to learn why some of our colleagues became doctors and what they find most rewarding about their work.

March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, and I am delighted to report that we have a newly rebuilt and rapidly growing colon and rectal surgery program at MSBI.

Last July, we welcomed Sanghyun Alexander Kim, MD to the MSBI and downtown campus as our Division Chief.  He was previously at Mount Sinai Hospital where he completed his training and spent 15 years providing care as a part of the Faculty Practice while also training residents and fellows.

Both Mount Sinai and Beth Israel have had a long history of leadership and innovation in digestive health. The first people to describe Crohn’s disease were Dr. Burrill Crohn at Mount Sinai, and Dr. Leon Ginzburg who began at Mount Sinai and then served at Beth Israel as Chief of Surgery from 1947-1969.

Dr. Kim and his team are now seeing ambulatory patients at Union Square and operating on more complicated cases at Petrie. These patients have all sorts of conditions including Crohn’s disease, colon and anorectal cancer, diverticular diseases, and other digestive disorders.

Just last week, we welcomed a new colorectal surgery physician assistant, Hayden Hopkins. We are also in the process of recruiting another surgeon who will likely join us in July.

Members of our colon and rectal surgery team: Tina Vercueil, medical assistant; Claire Song, medical assistant; Hayden Hopkins, PA; Danielle Scribani, PA; Sanghyun Alexander Kim, MD; Junghee Benitez, medical assistant.

We are lucky to have Dr. Kim and this stellar team serving the MSBI community.