UUPer and Physician Jeanine Morelli takes the blood pressure of a patient receiving care at Elsie Owens North Brookhaven Health Center in Coram

UUP is proud to represent thousands of health care professionals. That number includes hundreds of physicians who work at SUNY’s hospitals, health science centers and the College of Optometry. In addition to their union membership, these health care experts share a commitment to do much more than treat patients and teach students.

For them, the bottom line isn’t about finances, but about delivering top-quality health care. That’s why they work in a public health care venue.

They care for those in their community who lack health insurance. They provide excellent care regardless of a patient’s ability to pay. They see patients in neighborhood clinics, where residents often receive life-saving care.

And, perhaps most importantly, they pass along their tradition of caring to the next generation of caregivers — their students.

The UUP members you’ll be reading about are committed to doing more, exemplifying a deep dedication to their patients and communities.

UUPers, physicians reach out to the impoverished

Safeguarding the health of their communities is one of the most important missions for physicians represented by UUP who practice medicine at SUNY’s four health science centers.

“One of the primary tenets of becoming a doctor is to protect the health of your community,” said Paul Cunningham, a professor and chair of the surgery department — one of the largest departments at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse — for the past five years. “That mission speaks to my specialties, like trauma care and obesity surgery, conditions with socio-economic connotations that tend to affect underrepresented groups.”

“Keeping our community well is one of the things we do in family medicine,” explained Miriam Vincent, chair of the family medicine department at Brooklyn HSC since 2001. “We try to diagnose a disease early, which not only saves money but also allows for a better quality of life. It’s a win-win.”

Access to top-quality health care regardless of a patient’s ability to pay is one of the hallmarks of SUNY’s public hospitals and related health care facilities.

“The majority of our patients are individuals with limited or no resources at all,” said Yoly Gonzalez, an assistant professor of oral diagnostic sciences at Buffalo HSC’s School of Dentistry. “Some of them drive for more than two hours to get to our facility.”

“Of the adult patients we see, 40 percent have no health insurance and do not qualify for Medicaid,” said Jeanine Morelli, a physician at Stony Brook HSC, who works at the Elsie Owens North Brookhaven Health Center in Coram.

A Sense Of Gratitude

The uninsured and underinsured openly display their gratitude for the care and attention they receive from the SUNY health science centers.

“Something that they really appreciate is the fact that we take the time to explain and educate them with regard to their particular problem,” said Gonzalez, who’s been a Buffalo HSC faculty member since 1994 after emigrating from her native Venezuela. “Expressions of their appreciation run from thank you cards to letters sent to our dean’s office in recognition of our work. For me, the most gratifying are the times when they say ‘Thank you, doctor’ and give me a hug.”

“A patient told me recently that I was more important to her and her family than I could ever know, and that she had told her extended family in Peru about me,” said Morelli of Stony Brook HSC.

“They realize we offer unique services that aren’t provided elsewhere, like our burn unit and pediatric surgery,” Upstate’s Cunningham said. “A significant portion of these patients, who come from as far away as Canada and Pennsylvania, are impoverished.”

Mutual satisfaction

This sense of satisfaction is not a one-way street. The UUPers who provide care derive a great deal of fulfillment.

“I get professional satisfaction because I’m able to use my knowledge to help and improve oral health and the quality of life associated with it,” Gonzalez reflected.

“If you can improve the overall health of your community, it pays dividends by raising the bar for the entire community,” Cunningham said.

Morelli draws a distinction between what she does now and her prior experience with a private practice in Cincinnati and as an academic in Louisiana.

“Now I have a sense of providing a service to my community and that has given me a great sense of job satisfaction,” she said.

These doctors do more than give to their respective communities. They strive to instill within their students that same sense of giving.

“We not only teach knowledge and skill, but also an attitude,” said Vincent, whose passion for her community hasn’t wavered since being a student herself at Brooklyn HSC in 1981. “What we practice here is longitudinal, comprehensive patient centered care. We try to make all of our patients feel welcome and safe.”

Cunningham thinks his students already possess this sense of giving.

“Students come on board with a strong sense of altruism. We do our part to reinforce it,” he said.

Gonzalez has initiated two community outreach programs to assess dental needs, conduct oral cancer screenings and link patients to dental services.

“There is no doubt that because we have taken the initiative to be present in our community, our students learn about the importance of this connection,” she said.

UUP’s vital role

The doctors credit UUP for the role it plays in allowing them to protect their communities.

Vincent credits the union’s professional development grants with providing a source of funds so her staff can increase their knowledge and do research that benefits their patients.

The doctors are cognizant of what UUP has done to maintain public health facilities within SUNY.

“There is no doubt that maintaining the public status of our institutions has a direct impact on the care of the indigent people in our community,” Gonzalez said. “The gap of health care is constantly widening and in many cases, we are the only resource for people without health insurance, or for those with very limited resources.”

The devotion displayed by Gonzalez, Cunningham, Vincent and Morelli are by no means unique within UUP. Rather, they clearly exemplify a strong commitment of caring and compassion that exists among the ranks of physicians and other health care professionals represented by UUP.

* Donald Feldstein