43
Heart doctors, patients reunite to show mutual appreciation
BOARDMAN
The annual Renewal Hearts Reunion provides an opportunity for heart surgeons at the St. Elizabeth Heart and Vascular Center to thank patients for their trust and to see them recovered and back to their normal lives.
It also gives patients an opportunity to thank the surgeons who kept them alive.
One patient summed it up in a card to Dr. Jeffrey Fulton: “You truly make a difference in people’s lives. God bless you in your career and the good work you do and the miracles you perform.”
Dr. Fulton said, “I have trouble comprehending the trust they have at such a stressful and vulnerable time. They often agree and sign consent for the surgery in 10 minutes. It’s overwhelming.”
Dr. Fulton and his partner, Dr. Ray D. Crouch, along with their staff of surgeons, physician assistants, nurses, anesthesiologists and others hosted the sixth annual event Thursday at Antone’s Banquet Centre in Boardman.
“We see them as patients in the hospital. At the reunion we get to see them recovered and doing well. Caring for our patients is a privilege, and the best reward we can receive is for them to live healthy, happy, productive lives following their surgeries. With this reunion, we celebrate that,” Dr. Fulton said, who attended his fourth reunion Thursday.
“I had a very favorable impression,” said Dr. Crouch after attending his first Renewal Hearts Reunion.
“One of the joys of practice is seeing patients out of the hospital and feeling well. Their improvement is what continues to motivate me,” he said.
Dr. Crouch lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, Joanne, who is a registered nurse and a homemaker. They have three daughters, Emily, Allison and Tess.
Dr. Fulton, of Poland, said he was always geared toward medicine and pushed by his family to set and reach certain goals in life and be the best he could be. The medical profession is held to high standards, and he said he likes the stimulation the challenge of heart surgery provides and the immediate satisfaction of seeing a problem and fixing it.
It is also a noble profession of service and taking care of people in their time of need. There is nothing more important in life than health and physicians can be part of preserving that health, said Dr. Fulton, whose wife, Tina, is an attorney who has been a full-time mother since the last of their three sons, Luke, Jack and Cole, was born.
Some 200 people attended the reunion, 80 of whom were patients who underwent heart surgery at St. Elizabeth Health Center in the past year.
Lal Teckchandani of Poland, one of those grateful patients, told his story at the reunion.
Born in India, he had had no heart issues despite his father, grandfather and four uncles having died of heart disease.
“I have never smoked, hardly ever ate red meat and am not overweight,” he said.
Teckchandani. 60, grew up in New Delhi, came to the United States in 1974 to attend the University of Hawaii where received a masters degree in mechanical engineering and then the University of Chicago to get a master in business administration.
In December 2010 while shoveling snow he said he had a “little sharp pain” in his chest but didn’t think much of it because the pain went away when he quit shoveling. Then he took his mother to the airport and while running to get in line, he collapsed.
“I have no recollection of what happened. I was out no more than 10 seconds. I was admitted to the hospital but there was no heart damage. I felt capable enough to be able to drive,” he said.
However his family doctor referred him to St. Elizabeth Health Center where a blockage in a main artery was discovered. Teckchandani was scheduled for a stent procedure. But surgeons decided instead he needed open-heart surgery and the next day, Dec. 17, 2010, he had single by-pass open heart surgery.
“The thing you are impressed with is the good treatment. You are first in line for everything at the Heart and Vascular Center,” said Teckchandani, part owner of Hamlin Steel Products in Akron. He and his wife, Shobha, have three adult children, a daughter, Sheena Teckchandani, and twin sons, Zubin and Ryan.
Teckchandani, back to work five weeks after his surgery, had nothing but good things to say about his experience at St. Elizabeth.
“I have spent a lot of time at the Cleveland Clinic for other reasons, but the care I received at St. Elizabeth compares favorably with that at the Cleveland Clinic,” he said.
He said the only way his life has changed since the open heart surgery is that he joined a health club and is able to do more things than when he was 20.
Since the Renewed Hearts Reunion was introduced in 2007, more than 500 heart-surgery patients have taken part.