On Valentine’s Day, some people got chocolate, others received flowers. But the DPR Construction workers building PAMF’s new Sunnyvale Center got a heartwarming surprise when a group of students from St. Martin’s Elementary School (next door to the site) delivered a creative collection of handmade Valentines for the crew.
“It was totally unexpected and was just a beautiful moment,” said Joseph Yau, DPR project manager. “Our team did a little storytelling about the PAMF project, and every student went away with a lollipop.”
“Wow!” – that’s the most common word patients and visitors utter as they enter Palo Alto Medical Foundation’s Mountain View Center. At the center of the lobby is a spectacular 15-foot glass sculpture by renowned artist Dale Chihuly. Made up of 442 individual hand-blown glass elements, the sculpture is an electrifying potpourri of colorful Persian-style flowers in shades of yellow, blue and red hanging in two parts from the 54-foot high atrium.
Pictured from l to r: left to right: George Mendoza, SMSC; Mark Riley, PAMF Santa Cruz; Jordan Turetsky, Healthy Kids; Rama Khalsa, Santa Cruz Health Services Agency/Healthy Kids.
For the last six years, doctors and staff at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Santa Cruz and Sutter Maternity & Surgery Center (SMSC) have participated in an annual golf tournament to raise money for Healthy Kids of Santa Cruz County, a local organization that improves the health and well-being of low-income Santa Cruz County children by providing them with health insurance. This fall, the tournament raised $6,500, which our doctors and staff donated directly to Healthy Kids of Santa Cruz County. Since 2004, Healthy Kids has enrolled over 17,000 local children into coverage programs.
George Mendoza, an anesthesia technologist at SMSC, and the driving force and organizer of this fundraising effort, explained, “The event is not only an opportunity to get to know many of our colleagues, it also raises money for an excellent cause.”
Carla Gomez, PAMF Healthy Breast Program Coordinator, reaching out to community at Safeway stores in Santa Cruz
Carla Gomez, PAMF’s Healthy Breast Campaign coordinator in Santa Cruz, is working at a table set up at various Safeway store locations throughout Santa Cruz this month (October) to let people know about our Healthy Breast Program and resources.
This PAMF Healthy Breast Program reaches out to uninsured women to educate them on the importance of breast cancer screenings, and to connect them to resources that are available. Since its inception this past February, we have reached out to more than 3,400 individuals and have provided follow up treatment for 32 women, 5 of whom had surgical removal including 1 breast cancer diagnosis.
More than 900 PAMF employees, doctors, their families and friends enjoyed watching the San Jose Giants take on the High Desert Mavericks on Saturday, August 20 during PAMF’s annual summertime event.
For Josie Dayrit, a patient services representative in the Mountain View Center’s Family Medicine Department, PAMF Day with the SJ Giants is a special highlight – she has sung the national anthem before the game for the last five years.
“It’s always a great experience singing the anthem,” says Dayrit. “I enjoy getting together with family and co-workers and meeting employees from other sites. I just have a ball! I’m blessed to work for such a great organization.”
Watch the video of Dayrit singing the anthem, as filmed by one of her co-workers:
PAMF's Nancy Hidaka and Community Services Agency volunteer
Thanks to the Palo Alto Medical Foundation’s Second Annual Summer Food Drive, several local families won’t go hungry this summer. This year’s food drive ran from June 1 to 30, and employees, doctors and patients contributed a total of 1,530 pounds of food (worth almost $2,300) to help feed local low-income kids and their families.
Want to see what’s it like being a paddler? Check out this video from last year’s race!
Cheer for our Peninsula Coastal Dragons team!
Come show your support for the PCR Dragons by attending the free race day event with your family and friends. The Dragon Boat Festival is Saturday, September 17, from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Treasure Island in San Francisco. It’s always a fun event and a beautiful San Francisco Bay setting - we hope to see you there cheering for our team!
To learn more about the San Francisco Dragon Boat event, visit www.sfdragonboat.com.
My work as an oncology rehabilitation specialist at PAMF has allowed me to become a part of patient’s lives as they navigate the complicated journey through cancer treatment. I work with patients from their time of diagnosis, through surgery, chemotherapy and radiation and beyond. Our department within the Cancer Care Center addresses important issues such as pain, musculoskeletal and neurological side effects of treatment and surgery, fatigue, and swelling. Our main objective is to work as a team with patients and their families to improve their quality of life and return patients to their pain free prior level of function.
There is no substitute for human blood. Much of today’s medical care depends on a steady supply of blood from healthy donors. Every three seconds, someone needs a blood transfusion. Whether it’s a premature infant, a child being treated for cancer, a father injured in a serious car accident, or an elderly woman needing heart surgery, everyday, hundreds of people in our communities need blood.
Welcome! This blog is designed as a forum for engaging patients, their families and the community in conversations about health care, and to help promote health education and wellness with articles and tips from our doctors and staff from different departments. We welcome your comments and insight, however, please remember that this blog does not address specific patient medical issues or provide personalized medical advice. If you have a specific medical question, please contact your doctor directly.Thank you for visiting our blog.
