Even at its worst, the pandemic has brought out the best in Richmond’s health care community. Much attention has justifiably gone to doctors and nurses on the front line, but the crisis has brought out stepped-up responses across the industry. We asked participants in our Top Docs survey to name some of the unsung heroes of the past year. Here is a sampling of their responses.
Esther Dowdy
Acing the Test
Taking on new duties in a crisis with aplomb
“The nurse makes the doctor,” Dr. Joseph Andriano says. A real-world example of this maxim for him has been working alongside Esther Dowdy in occupational health at Chippenham Hospital for over 14 years. “She’s always unflappable,” Andriano says. “She picks up additional duties wherever she can help and always pitches in with a positive attitude.” Through managing COVID-19 tests at Chippenham Hospital, Dowdy became the regular contact for many front-line workers in Richmond, including police and firefighters. According to Jeff Caldwell, associate vice president of communications with HCA, Dowdy has “often tested 10-15 people each afternoon in addition to her regular occupational health nursing duties.” —Tom Jakob
Hope for the Homeless
Dr. Patricia Cook organizes care for those without a permanent residence
In January 2020, Dr. Patricia Cook became chief medical officer at the health and homeless services provider Daily Planet, and she says she never could have imagined that one of her first duties would be to create a COVID-19 relief response. A building on West Grace Street has been transformed into a COVID assessment center that Cook says has tested more than 9,000 people, treating the positive cases. Daily Planet has partnered with the Greater Richmond Continuum of Care and Homeward to create shelter spaces for those who are home insecure or homeless. “You’ve probably seen some of the news where the homeless population has grown,” Cook says, “but faster than that, the ability to get those folks into shelters has grown over the past year because we were able to use some of the CARES Act funding and work alongside our colleagues to provide different options for shelter like hotel rooms and noncongregate shelters.” Cook serves as the gatekeeper for the isolation shelters. When someone calls from a local hospital system or clinic with patients who have tested positive for COVID and are in need of a quarantine space, they’ll call Cook, who will then find an isolation hotel room for their recovery. Additional COVID services offered by Daily Planet include vaccinations. Cook hopes that one result of the pandemic is that people will take notice of the inequities in health care and work to change them. “People need a place to be when they’re not well, and they need a place to be when they’re well, and maybe this will push us closer to that, I hope.” —Nicole Cohen
Members of VCU Health's team of medical interpreters
Spreading the Word
Interpreter services get the message across
Research has shown that the pandemic disproportionately affects people of color, particularly those in Spanish-speaking communities. This makes providing medical interpreter services more essential than ever — something VCU Health has worked toward achieving. “It’s important for Richmond to have hospitals with professional language interpreters,” says Evan Lee-Ferrand, medical interpreter supervisor for VCU Health. This also means utilizing technology in creative ways for communication purposes. Because of the isolated nature of quarantine, VCU Health leadership supported language services by building new avenues to connect patients to their clinical team, as well as their loved ones, in ways that had not been created before, Lee-Ferrand says. —TJ
Keeping It Clean
Environmental services crews personify teamwork
In the pandemic, there are heroes aplenty, but few have been praised so consistently as environmental services teams, who are responsible for keeping all spaces in a hospital clean and sanitary. “While people don’t always think about EVS as front-line medical workers, our team was honored to stand side by side with the VCU Medical Center clinical team to win this war against COVID,” says Lynn Goodloe, who works with environmental services at VCU. These individuals, often responsible for dealing with the messiest aspects of hospitals, ensure a clean, comfortable and safe environment. “Without the responsiveness of all of our team members — especially our EVS team members — the toll on our community and organization could have been staggering,” Goodloe says. —TJ
Sustenance for the Harried
A doctor’s daughter organizes food drives
Grub-for-Scrubs began when Dr. Muktak Mathur came home from working a long day at St. Mary’s Hospital during the pandemic. “I would see him going without a hot, nutritious meal through the day,” says Dr. Mathur’s daughter Aradhyaa, 14. “I wanted to do something to help the health-care workers and the local businesses. So I made Grub-for-Scrubs.” Dr. Mathur says he is proud of the community coming together to recognize the sacrifices made by health-care workers, and he is proud of his daughter’s achievements. “We delivered hot, nutritious meals sourced from local independent businesses, and delivered it to the front-line health-care workers, which included hospitals, free-standing EMS stations, police stations, fire stations, and more,” Aradhyaa says. —TJ
Digital Doctor
Dr. Tiffany Kimbrough uses social media to alleviate parents’ COVID fears
The medical director of the VCU Health mother-infant unit and assistant professor at VCU School of Medicine, Dr. Tiffany Kimbrough is focused on relaying accurate, lifesaving information. “There is and has been so much misinformation as of last year, so we’re trying to break down some of the science in a way that’s easy to understand and accessible,” Kimbrough says. The result was partnering with VCU Health to create informative social media content, even documenting her own COVID vaccination experience. “[I wanted] to try to be a familiar face that was breaking down some of that fear and helping provide evidence-based information, because I do think that vaccines are an important tool for us to get back to normal,” she says. —NC
Always Be Kind
A pediatric home health care nurse gives to families in need
For Crystal Holbrook-Gazoni, taking care of kids and families is second nature. She’s a pediatric home health care nurse with Thrive Skilled Pediatric Care and a school nurse at St. Christopher’s School. Even before the pandemic, she has gathered donations including food, clothing and toys. But this past year prompted her to do more. She arranged for food trucks to feed displaced families, donated needed items and even paid the hotel bill of a family who was about to be evicted. Her husband, Dr. Paulo Gazoni, is medical director at BetterMed Urgent Care, and he says of his wife, “She gives without expecting anything in return.” Seeing so many families in need, Crystal says, “Always be kind to people because you just never know when you might be in that situation.” [Read an extended version of this profile.] —NC
Fighting the Good Fight
Dr. Vincent Nardone tackles both COVID and the opioid epidemic
To say that Dr. Vincent “Vinny” Nardone is busy is an understatement. The medical director of Foundation Medical Group assisted in establishing a COVID testing center that opened in February. This past year, he’s treated patients battling addiction at the same time they’re navigating COVID. “It certainly has been challenging in seeing patients that have been doing so well … and then they lose their job due to the pandemic or a family member gets sick, and just struggling with that kind of the bottom falling out from them again has been tough to watch,” Nardone says. He has taken steps to make himself and the clinic accessible, even providing his personal cell phone number to patients so they know he’s always a phone call away. —NC
Dr. Dianne Sinnatamby
On Task
An infectious disease expert goes into overdrive during COVID-19
Few medical terms are as intimidating as “infectious diseases,” but that doesn’t stop Dr. Dianne Sinnatamby at Bon Secours Memorial Regional Medical Center (MRMC) from providing focused care for each of her patients, pandemic or no pandemic. “I really love what I do, and I look at it as a challenge,” she says. “It’s so rewarding to see a patient get better and go home.” Sinnatamby is the only full-time infectious diseases specialist at MRMC. “It is a big workload,” she says, “but because we have such a great team at MRMC … I didn’t think of it as [though] I’m here with all these [competing] interests. I didn’t feel it, I just enjoyed doing it.” —TJ
