Each year, FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital, Montgomery Memorial Hospital and Richmond Memorial Hospital name a Physician or Physicians of the Year, medical professionals who exemplify FirstHealth’s core purpose, “to care for people.” Physicians who were recognized for 2006 are Sushma Patel, M.D., of Moore Regional; Elizabeth Claudius, M.D., and Pat Claudius, M.D., of Montgomery Memorial; and Robert Parris, M.D., Cecile Robes, D.O., and Zeidan Zeidan, M.D., of Richmond Memorial.

Sushma Patel, M.D.
FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital

By Erica Stacy

Traveling to Orlando, Fla., could be compared to stepping into the pages of a modern-day fairy tale. For young children, the magic of the imagination is captivating. Costumed characters, brilliant scenery and spectacular shows stimulate and entice at every corner. Sometimes, the wind may even blow a bit of pixie dust toward unsuspecting adults.

Just ask Sushma Patel, M.D.

When Dr. Patel answered her cell phone during a family vacation in Orlando, she didn’t know what to expect. “I had forwarded the home phone to my cell number before we left North Carolina in case someone needed to reach us,” she says. “We were enjoying a family day at Sea World when it rang.”

News from home
“I called to notify Dr. Patel that our selection committee had met to discuss all of the potential 2006 Physician of the Year nominees and to ask if she was willing to accept the honor,” says Cheryl Batchelor, executive director of Clinical Operations at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital.

“I was pleased to find out I had been nominated,” says Dr. Patel, “but when Cheryl told me I was the recipient, I actually asked her if she was sure. It was a complete surprise.”

A radiation oncologist, Dr. Patel has been associated with FirstHealth since 2003. “Most of my patients are dealing with cancer,” she says. “It is a privilege to help them and to provide them with options to manage their pain or battle their disease. It’s hard to think of my career as work. My co-workers are also friends. We work side by side to help people. It’s a good way to spend a day.”

Although Dr. Patel is petite in stature, her impact on patients and staff is enormous. “We are excited to present our award to Dr. Patel,” says Linda Wallace, vice president of Patient Care Services and Chief Nursing Officer at Moore Regional Hospital. “She is a true colleague with our clinical staff. Her openness in working together is truly valued. She works with members of our staff to help them grow and learn. She truly meets the criteria for our Physician of the Year.”

“Dr. Patel realizes that healing involves hospital’s administrative director of Pharmacy/Oncology Service Line. “Her skills reach beyond clinical expertise. Her patients are well educated and feel cared for. To understand holistic medicine, you simply need to watch her for a day. She’s the whole package.”

Clinical staff members included the following comments in
their nominations:

• “The patients love her mostly because of her friendly, outgoing manner and the fact that she treats them like family.”
• “Working side by side with Dr. Patel is a privilege and a joy. She exemplifies the profession.”
• “Dr. Patel will spend endless time with patients and their families to help them understand treatments and pain management plans. She even comes in on her days off to discuss patient concerns.”

A native of Philadelphia, Dr. Patel is the eldest of six children. “I guess you could say I’ve been helping care for people my entire life,” she says.

As a child and young adult, she was strongly influenced by her parents. “My father came to the United States from India with nothing but his education and built a successful medical practice and raised a loving family,” she says. “Both of my parents took the time to make certain that all of their children were educated and got the support they needed.”

A radiation oncologist, Sushma Patel, M.D., has been associated with FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital since 2003. One of the clinical employees who nominated her for the hospital’s 2006 Physician of the Year award noted the “endless time” she spends with patients and their families.

As soon as she was old enough to work, Dr. Patel helped in her father’s office—answering phones, scheduling appointments and filing charts. “A successful medical practice involves more than quality health care,” she says. “Working for my father helped me appreciate how all of the components work together for the good of the patient.”

Dr. Patel’s father died unexpectedly in 1999. “It was hard,” she says. “We didn’t have the opportunity to say good-bye. Experiencing that has helped me be a better physician. I try to help my terminal patients cope with their feelings. Through their diagnosis, they actually have a chance to reach out to their families in a way that many people never experience. It may sound strange, but knowing you can say goodbye can actually be a comfort for the patient and the family.”

A graduate of the residency program at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, Dr. Patel began her career at Memorial Mission St. Joseph’s Hospital in Asheville. She later transferred to a practice in Cincinnati before relocating to Pinehurst in 2003.

“While I was in Asheville, I worked with Jeff Acker,” she says. “He contacted me about a potential opening at FirstHealth. There was also a position available for my husband. We visited and decided it was a perfect fit.” (Dr. Acker is a radiation oncologist at Moore Regional and medical director of the hospital’s Community Hospital Comprehensive Cancer Center.)

“We are lucky to have her,” Husted says. “Dr. Patel is a gift to the Cancer Center. She is respectful to staff and patients. She is the kind of physician that everyone wants to work with.”

Dr. Patel’s husband, Dan Difrischia, M.D., serves patients through Moore Regional’s Hospitalist Service program—providing care to individuals who are admitted to the hospital. The family, which includes two children, ages 5 and 2, resides in Pinehurst.

When she isn’t working or caring for her children, Dr. Patel enjoys playing golf, shopping, and spending time with friends and extended family.

Robert C. Parris, M.D.; Cecile Robes, D.O.; Zeidan F. Zeidan, M.D.

Robert C. Parris, M.D.;
Cecile Robes, D.O.;
Zeidan F. Zeidan, M.D.
FirstHealth Richmond Memorial Hospital

By Dick Broom

As its Physicians of the Year for 2006, FirstHealth Richmond Memorial Hospital has chosen three members of the medical staff who demonstrate on a daily basis that being an outstanding doctor takes more than medical knowledge and technical skill. It takes genuine compassion and the kinds of people skills that are crucial to success in almost any line of work.

Zeidan F. Zeidan, M.D., who received the hospital’s Surgical Physician of the Year honor, believes that having fun is also part of being a good doctor.

“I don’t mean fun as in joking,” he says. “I mean joy. Medicine isn’t an easy job, so if you don’t enjoy it, you’d better leave it.”

Two others who enjoy medicine too much to leave it are Robert C. Parris, M.D., the hospital’s Medical Physician of the Year; and Cecile Robes, D.O., the Administrative Physician of the Year.

Dr. Parris is a board certified cardiologist with Sandhills Cardiology in Rockingham. Dr. Robes is a board certified family physician with the FirstHealth Family Care Center–Richmond Family Medicine in Rockingham and currently serves as chief of the medical staff at Richmond Memorial. Dr. Zeidan, of Richmond Surgical Clinic in Rockingham, is board certified in general surgery.

Early this year, Richmond Memorial asked employees and physicians to nominate a medical doctor, a surgeon and a physician in a position of leadership for Physician of the Year recognition. The staff and physicians then voted on the nominees.

Comments written by those who nominated Dr. Parris included: “He takes wonderful care of his patients,” and “He takes time to teach the staff and makes them feel a part of the team.”

Dr. Parris says he tries to treat all of his patients the same way he would treat a member of his own family.

“I try to see the patient not just as a body with a disease but as an individual who comes from a family that loves and cares about them,” he says. “To me, it’s a serious responsibility to be entrusted with the care of such a person.”

As for working with nurses and other members of the hospital staff, Dr. Parris says, the keys are communication and mutual respect.

“If nurses feel that you just want the patient cared for and you don’t care about anything else, then you don’t get very far,” he says. “You have to let them know that you see them as being just as important as you are in terms of treating the patient and effecting a cure. Once you have established that sort of camaraderie, then you get along and get things done.”

A native of Jamaica, Dr. Parris earned his medical degree at the University of the West Indies. He received his residency training there and at Harlem Hospital Center in New York.

Two members of the Richmond Memorial staff who nominated Dr. Zeidan for the Surgical Physician of the Year award wrote: “He has a good bedside manner with patients and families,” and “He supports the staff and keeps them informed.”

Dr. Zeidan says his father, who was an ophthalmologist and general surgeon in Egypt, taught him that “50 percent of a patient’s cure is the way the physician talks to them and deals with them.”

Like Dr. Parris, he says hospital patients get the best care when physicians and nurses work as a team.

“It’s a big, big advantage,” he says. “If you are nice to the staff, they will go out of their way to help you.”

Dr. Zeidan was named Richmond County Physician of the Year in 2002. He earned his medical degree from Al-Azhar University in Egypt and received his residency training there, as well as at the University of Cairo and York Hospital in Pennsylvania.

Dr. Robes is “very compassionate and has an excellent bedside manner,” according to one person who nominated her for the Administrative Physician of the Year award. Another wrote: “She is always willing to go the extra mile and take on tough decisions.”

No doubt some of those decisions are in her role as chief of staff and member of Richmond Memorial’s Board of Trustees.

Dr. Robes feels it is important that physicians not only provide excellent patient care but also that they help make the hospital as a whole as good as it can be.

“We don’t practice in a vacuum,” she says. “If you are interested in what’s going on and if you want changes, then you have to get involved and contribute.”

This is the second year in a row that her fellow physicians and the staff at Richmond Memorial have recognized Dr. Robes. She was named the hospital’s Medical Physician of the Year last year.

Dr. Robes earned her degree in osteopathic medicine from Michigan State University. She received her residency training there and at Tempe St. Luke’s Hospital in Arizona.

John Jackson, president of Richmond Memorial, says the task of choosing this year’s Physicians of the Year was both easy and difficult for the hospital’s employees and physicians.

“It was easy because Dr. Parris, Dr. Zeidan and Dr. Robes are clearly outstanding physicians,” he says. “But choosing just three to honor is always difficult, because we have so many outstanding physicians on our medical staff. This community is very fortunate in that regard.”

Elizabeth Claudius, M.D., and
Pat Claudius, M.D.
FirstHealth Montgomery Memorial Hospital

By Dick Broom

They would never brag about it, but between them, Elizabeth Claudius, M.D., and Pat Claudius, M.D., have the knowledge and experience of four physicians in three different specialties.

Both were born, raised and went to medical school in India. After marrying, they practiced together. Dr. Elizabeth Claudius was an obstetrician-gynecologist; Dr. Pat Claudius, a general surgeon.

After several years of practicing obstetrics and gynecology, surgery and general internal medicine, they decided to come to the United States, primarily because of the opportunity to practice a more advanced level of medical care.

“I wanted to learn as much as I could and progress as a doctor,” Dr. Pat Claudius says. “I have always been a person who aimed for high quality.”

“This great country has so much to offer,” Dr. Elizabeth Claudius says. “I think almost everyone who comes to this country does so for one reason: opportunity.”

Dr. Claudius’s two older brothers were already living in the United States when she and her husband arrived, so that made the decision to move here especially easy for her. Both of the Claudiuses were interested in pursuing internal medicine and received their residency training—the second of their careers—at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

Subsequently, both became board certified in internal medicine.

“I enjoy internal medicine, because it covers a vast range of diseases, acute and chronic, and thus large numbers of people of various age groups can be helped,” Dr. Pat Claudius says.

The couple moved to Troy in 1995 to join the medical staff of Montgomery Memorial, and the hospital became part of FirstHealth of the Carolinas in 1996.

This year, Drs. Elizabeth and Pat Claudius were named the hospital’s Physicians of the Year. They were selected by a hospital committee based on nominations from nurses and other members of the patient care staff. Those who nominated the two physicians cited their compassion and commitment to their patients; their pleasant, positive attitudes; their eagerness to teach patients, family members and staff; and their respect for other members of the patient care team.

Dr. Elizabeth Claudius says she enjoys practicing medicine in a small community. “We get to know our patients at a very personal level,” she says. “In our offices, we not only get to meet with their immediate family members, but also with their extended families. I find people are becoming more interested in their own health, and that is encouraging.”

Dr. Pat Claudius says that when he has an opportunity to care for two or three generations of the same family, he comes to feel almost like a member of their family himself. Dr. Elizabeth Claudius enjoys taking care of all of her patients, but women get special attention because of their unique health issues.

Dr. Elizabeth Claudius knew from an early age that she wanted a career in health care. Her mother was a health care worker who worked with a physician to provide postnatal care to women and to children until they were 5 years of age.

“My mother inspired me,” she says. “She was very dedicated to her work, and she drew great satisfaction when she saw her patients doing well. My dad also had a big role in encouraging me to go into the medical field.”

Her parents are both now 89 years of age and have lived in Troy since 1995.

Dr. Pat Claudius decided as a child that he would follow in the footsteps of his father, a prominent small-town physician.

“When I saw my father treating patients and making them better, I became very happy,” he says. “His patients were so grateful to him and admired him. That attracted me to the field of medicine.”

Since coming to Troy more than a decade ago, the Claudiuses have seen Montgomery Memorial Hospital acquire sophisticated technology, expand its patient care services and improve the overall quality of care. Both physicians have high praise for the hospital’s staff.

“The nursing staff is dedicated to providing excellent patient care,” Dr. Elizabeth Claudius says. “The staff works very hard to make sure patients’ needs are met. I appreciate their teamwork, attitude and support.”

Dr. Pat Claudius says that he, too, has great confidence in the nursing staff. He says that he enjoys teaching them about new developments in medicine, and he finds them eager learners.

Dr. Claudius is president of the medical staff at Montgomery Memorial, a position he has held for all but two of the years he has been in Troy. He brought with him a proven aptitude for leadership, having served as chief of surgery and chief of staff at a hospital in India.

“One of the things I really admire about Montgomery Memorial Hospital is that it is constantly striving for excellence,” he says. “The hospital’s president, Kerry Hensley, has been the key to the many successes we have had. At Montgomery Memorial, one finds a modern little hospital in rural surroundings.”