November 2018

The foundation would like to welcome our newest

Barstow-Reed Society donors and acknowledge recent gifts.

Mr. and Mrs. John W. Madigan$25,000

Mr. and Mrs. Frank J. Zappala, Jr.

$25,000

Mr. and Mrs. William Purington

Barbara “Bobbie” Spilman and Robert Parenti

$50,000

Jeanine Webster and Mel Nobel

John and Linda Loewenberg$25,000

Mr. Donald R. Crow and Mrs. Teresa Roberts

Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth R. Crow

Visiting Nurse Association of Florida

Contact our Foundation office for information on gift strategies that can help you

support Martin Health System and provide significant benefits

to you and your family. Call 772-223-4921

or visit our website at giftplanning.martinhealth.org

What is YOUR legacy?

Jack Forde, Barbara Warner, Bill LambertMichael Cristoforo, Amy Moniz, Steve Beres, Jim Bowdish

Ron Quinlan, Betsy Herold, Elizabeth Fedele

Frank and Maureen Zappalla with Rob Lord

Horace and Bunny Webb

Society Legacy

On September 20, we held our very first Legacy Society luncheon to honor the special people who have included Martin Health in their estate plans.

Though the Legacy Society itself is not new — we accepted our first legacy gift in 1990 — the event at the Willoughby Golf Club was the first of its kind to celebrate the philanthropic spirit of those who bequeath their estates and life income gifts to Martin Health System.

We are forever grateful to all of our Legacy Society donors for their important decision to include us in their future plans.

Their generosity and forward thinking enables Martin Health to do great things now and into the future. We pledge to share broadly with all our donors the power of these legacy gifts and the indelible mark they leave on our community. It is through philanthropy that we are able to provide exceptional health care, hope and compassion to every person, every time.

featured physician

Anthony Liberatore, MDEndocrinology

After completing his residency and fellowship in the Boston area (Tufts Medical Center and Lahey Clinic, specifically), Dr. Anthony Liberatore relocated to the Treasure Coast. He has been with Martin Health System since September; Florida, he says with a smile, has been “a little bit of a change.”

“It’s a nice change,” he hastens to add. “There’s a great unmet need for endocrinologists in this area, especially where we have an increase in two very common conditions: diabetes and thyroid problems.”

Liberatore chose the specialty of endocrinology because it enables him to form meaningful relationships with patients and collaborate with them to solve problems that truly impact their lives.

“With my diabetic patients, I’m like their coach,” he says. “If you have the right coach, the right team, you can really make great progress. I try to help them understand that there’s hope; there’s something they can do to change their disease and improve their life.”

He points to the ubiquitousness of food imagery and fad diets in our culture. “There are many people who are focused on new trendy diets, weight loss and fitness, but you also have the huge fast food industry everywhere, and it’s very hard for people to know what to do. I want my patients to feel educated and empowered about their disease. Hopefully I can help them make progress with whatever they’re battling.”

Doris Williams, at 84 years young, has more energy and focus than someone half her age. The long-time St. Lucie resident lives in a tidy home filled with memories, from the family photos arranged on every wall to paintings and objets d’art that remind her of where she’s been and how she has been blessed.

Of course, her life has also been touched with hardship: A widow for 20 years now, Doris has been waging a decades-long battle with Type II diabetes. The last few years have been especially challenging for her after she had surgery to remove pre-cancerous cysts in her pancreas.

Managing her diabetes, which she’s had since 1985, has gotten more challenging since the surgery. “My sugar goes up, it goes down. It won’t be the same every day, it depends on what you eat and how often you eat and how active you are,” she says.

Her faith has sustained her, she says — that and the expert care she has received from her medical team at Martin Health System. She takes insulin injections four times per day, monitors her sugars with an almost religious fervor, and follows a strict diet.

Megan Asterino-McGeean, Nurse-Certified Diabetes Educator at the Center for Diabetes and Nutrition, says Doris is a model patient and does everything the team tells her to do. Her physician, Dr. Gabriel Guerrero, credits her with taking control of her disease rather than letting it control her.

“She is a very proactive patient,” he says. “She listens, she learns and she does what she needs to do. She is very committed to her own health.”

That commitment can be seen in her multi-tiered plastic cart filled with diabetic supplies, meticulously well organized. From insulin meters to astringent gauze patches to glucometer strips, lancets and educational resources on diabetes, she has all she needs at hand. “I do what the doctor says, I never miss a dose,” she says. “And I am doing good.”

Diabetes Can’t Stop Doris Williams from Living Her Sweetest Life

A state-of-the-art patient blood management program is putting Martin Health System ahead of the game when it comes to meeting the ever-present demand for safe blood and blood products. As of October, Martin Health is the only

system in Florida to be certified by the Joint Commission for having such a program, which uses the patient’s own blood to

minimize trasnfusions and maximize patient outcomes. Research suggests that patients who have experienced fewer transfusions may have less complications, faster recoveries and shorter hospital stays, and the best, safest blood for patients is their own circulating blood. Call 772.223.5945 ext 14058 for more information.

Give Blood, Save (YOUR) Life