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Ohio-recognized Canfield doctor aims to heal ‘human side’ of care
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One of the hobbies of Dr. Thomas E. Albani Jr. is sailing. The doctor, who established the Midlothian Free Health Clinic in 2008, was honored Saturday as Family Physician of the Year at a ceremony in Columbus. He has a solo practice at 6715 Tippecanoe Road, Canfield.
CANFIELD
Dr. Thomas E. Albani Jr. thinks the United States is in danger of losing the “human side” of health care, and he is trying to reverse the trend.
“It’s more important than ever to take a stand for preservation of the physician-patient relationship,” said Dr. Thomas E. Albani Jr., 2011 recipient of the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians’ Family Physician of the Year Award.
Dr. Albani was to receive the award Saturday during the OAFP 2011 dinner in Columbus.
He said his fear of physicians’ losing the “human side” of medicine is based on the ever-increasing time and resources required by all medical personnel to process the burgeoning deluge of government and insurance-industry regulations and paperwork.
Over the years, legislators essentially have teamed up with the insurance industry to effectively carve out the caring and compassion from medicine in the name of cost containment, Dr. Albani said.
He said the Family Physician of the Year Award is a great personal honor, but he also sees it as a platform to deliver important messages about the practice of medicine and to show that doctors want to help their patients and their communities.
This was the driving force behind his decision in 2008 to help establish the Midlothian Free Health Clinic located at Bethlehem Lutheran Church, 388 E. Midlothian Blvd.
“There are many poor in our community in need of health care. Who better than a doctor to help fill this void?” he said.
The clinic provides free primary care to adults age 18 to 65 with no health insurance or who are not eligible for health-care assistance.
The Midlothian Free Health Clinic is making a difference in people’s lives and in the quality of their lives, said Dr. Albani, who is the clinic’s medical director and donates time to see patients two Thursdays a month.
People from every walk of life volunteer to help make the clinic work, he said.
“It’s neighbor helping neighbor. I believe that every person can help make our community better,” Dr. Albani said. “Hopefully, people can look to the clinic as a concrete example of how effectively we can work together as a community for the benefit of our neighbors in need. No act of Congress is required. I believe with all my heart each one of us can make a difference.”
He said receiving the Family Physician of the Year Award also provides an opportunity to show the Youngstown community in a positive light.
Dr. Albani and his wife, the former Karen Elizabeth Darko, were raised in Hubbard but lived in other communities before coming back to the Youngstown area in 1990.
He sees a benefit in seeing how things are done elsewhere and then coming back to put them into practice here.
In fact, the Midlothian Free Care Health Clinic is not Dr. Albani’s first experience with indigent health care.
He was director of the East Dayton Health Center in Dayton in the 1980s. Dr. Albani and his colleague, Dr. Ted Wymyslo, now director of the Ohio Department of Health, built what was a walk-in clinic in Dayton in 1984, with about 3,000 visits a year, into a primary-care health center providing inpatient and outpatient care with some 15,000 patient visits by 1989.
The Midlothian Free Health Clinic receives no public funds but does accept donations. It is staffed entirely by volunteers.
When a patient needs an operation or treatment not offered at the clinic, colleagues provide the needed care at no cost, Dr. Albani said.
Dr. Albani is president of the Mahoning County Medical Society and chairman of the Primary Care Department at St. Elizabeth Boardman Health Center. He recently received the Humility of Mary Health Partners’ Mahoning Valley Leadership In Health Award.
Dr. Albani has been practicing family medicine for 27 years and has a solo practice at 6715 Tippecanoe Road, Building E, Suite 101, Canfield.
He is a volunteer faculty member for the family medicine residency program at St. Elizabeth Health Center and an assistant clinical professor at Northeast Ohio Medical University, formerly known as Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy, in Rootstown.
In their letter nominating Dr. Albani to be the Family Physician of the Year, Tom and Georgia Backus, who are his patients, wrote: “He lives an ‘on call’ life. His care for families day and night is a part of his professional and personal makeup. During the holiday season, he comforts families who have lost a loved one that year in his care by sending a poinsettia honoring their life and bringing comfort to the family.”