Doctors get their day at Wayne Memorial
By Bonnie Edwards
Published in News on March 31, 2006 1:47 PM
Patients and their families and hospital employees toasted the doctors with sparkling white grape juice when they came in to work Thursday and treated them to strawberries and chocolate.
After all, it was their day.
Wayne Memorial Hospital public relations director Amy Cain said Doctor's Day allows staff and patients the chance to recognize the work of the physicians who often devote much more time than is required to keep Wayne County healthy.
More than 145 doctors work with patients and staff at the hospital.
When some of them retire, Ms. Cain said, it will take two people to replace each one of them, especially the doctors who work on the intensive care unit.
ICU has about 50 of the hospital's employees and 14 of the hospital's 300 beds.
In addition to the usual small gifts of appreciation, doctors this year received small notes from the staff and patients thanking them for the work they do, which were gathered at the first-time reception.
For Melanie Briggs, the nurse supervisor on the ICU unit, her thanks went to Drs. Dalton Dove and Phillip Mayo. She said it is rare for a rural hospital to have one doctor with this specialty, let alone two.
And in this case, these doctors also do critical care medicine, and they are also pulmonologists.
But best of all, Ms. Briggs said, they care about their patients and the people they work with.
"They take care of probably 90 percent of the population up here. They're great, very supportive of the nursing staff and management, and they are very approachable."
ICU has many new nurses and students, and Ms. Briggs said the doctors are good about letting them watch and teaching them.
One of the notes to Mayo reads: "He shares his knowledge willingly, never a hesitation."
They're good with the families, too, she said.
"They talk to some families two and three times a day," she said. "You don't see that in some of the bigger teaching hospitals. At those, you never know who you'll see every day. But they do here."