Recognizing people who put the ‘care’ in health care
RECOGNIZING PEOPLE WHO PUT THE ‘CARE’ IN HEALTH CARE
Chattanooga is home to Tennessee’s biggest health insurer, the world’s biggest disability insurer, a half dozen nursing and medical colleges and three healthy, competitive hospital systems with differing investor-owned, nonprofit and government ownership models.
Collectively, more than 25,000 persons in Chattanooga work in some means of delivering, insuring and supporting health care.
But health care is far more than just a major employer in town. For most of us at some point in our lives, health care becomes very personal and those who deliver and
support it essential to our well being.
So for the past three years, Edge magazine, in partnership with the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Medical Society and BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, has recognized those who put the “care” in health care.
From nearly 200 nominations received from the public about health care providers, administrators and volunteers who have made health care better in Chattanooga, a panel of judges comprised of top leaders from the medical society and each of Chattanooga’s three major hospital systems picked this year’s Champions of Health Care.
Across an array of volunteer and professional jobs, the nine award winners have tackled major community health problems, starting programs to tackle obesity and smoking, adding physical therapy training in Chattanooga, and bringing needed medical services to those without health insurance. Others are recognized for new approaches, strong leadership and simple acts of kindness during their lifetimes of achievement and service.
In our third year of the awards, we have quickly discovered the rich talent and commitment from those who work every day to keep us healthy.
This year’s Champions of Health Care, who will be honored at an awards luncheon Wednesday, are:
Carrying on the family legacy of health care started by his father, Dr. Walter Boehm, Dr. Peter Boehm Sr. is one of Chattanooga’s most experienced neurosurgeons.
For decades, Dr. Peter Boehm Sr. has brought a consistent calm to highstakes operations involving the brain and spine in Chattanooga.
Five years ago, Dr. Boehm, one of the city’s most experienced neurosurgeons, retired from Chattanooga Neurosurgery and Spine Group. Yet even though he isn’t on-call on nights and weekends anymore, his schedule is still packed with surgeries.
The 70-year-old scrubs in as a first assistant most days of the week, especially when his son, Dr. Peter Boehm Jr., is the primary neurosurgeon working. Those who work beside him say Dr. Boehm is a soothing and comforting presence in life-or-death situations when choices are critical.
“Not only does he think about the patient first, he thinks about the team working with him,” said Donna Henderson, a certified surgical technologist at Erlanger Hospital who has worked with Dr. Boehm in countless surgeries over the years.
Dr. Boehm says he keeps working because he loves the work and the people the work serves.
“A lot of this is the satisfaction of dealing with people and getting to know them and getting them better,” he said. “The thought that you have to be cold and calculated to deal with some of the bad results, that is foolish. I get to know families well and suffer with them… It has been a satisfying, fun life and it continues. I don’t know what I would do if I retire.”
Dr. Boehm’s father, Dr. Walter E. Boehm, was one of Chattanooga’s first neurosurgeons. In 1947, Dr. Walter E. Boehm founded the Neurosurgical Group of Chattanooga and in 1963 founded the Walter E. Boehm Birth Defect Center — where Dr. Boehm later worked as president and co-medical director for 35 years. The Center, a non-profit located at Children’s Hospital at Erlanger, provides care to children born with neural tube defects such as spina bifida and hydrocephalus.
Dr. Boehm’s brother, Dr. Walter M. Boehm, also became a leading, area neurosurgeon and headed the Birth Defect Center their father started. The two worked side by side until his brother passed away in 2013.