Building Better Health Care
The Shipley Center promises healthy horizons for heart and lung patients in Southwest Florida
The new Shipley Center for Cardiothoracic Surgery Innovation, Education & Research promises to bring revolutionary medical advancement to Southwest Florida when it opens its doors.
It’s not often you hear of snowballing in Florida, but that’s exactly what led to the rapid inception of The Shipley Center for Cardiothoracic Surgery Innovation, Education & Research—the greatest revolutionary medical advancement to hit Southwest Florida. Unknowingly, Dr. Paul DiGiorgi initially got the ball rolling in a hotel room one brisk October evening during a business trip to Washington, D.C., in 2014. He happened to be on the phone with members of the Lee Memorial Health System Foundation while jotting down ideas of what he envisioned for the future of cardiothoracic surgery.
DiGiorgi and three well-established colleagues, Randall Buss, M.D., George M. Comas, M.D, and Brian Hummel, M.D., recently joined Lee Physician Group after years of collaboration with the health system that has played a vital role in its award-winning cardiac program. The team has extensive experience, performing more than 800 heart surgeries and 400 lung surgeries a year.
Samira Beckwith is one of the 800 last year. “For nearly two years I experienced shortness of breath, chest pain,” says Beckwith. Yet the Fort Myers resident never slowed down. She is president and CEO of Hope Healthcare Services. In addition to growing the organization for more than 20 years to a point of national recognition for excellence,
she has served on the boards of numerous national and state professional organizations and is the vice chair of the National Coalition for Cancer Survivors.
In her early 20s, Beckwith endured five surgeries, radiation and chemo to conquer cancer. “Treatment in the ’70s was much different than now. It was not well refined and targeted, so people who were treated often have additional problems later in life,” she explains. “My heart valve was seriously impaired and required surgery.”
Beckwith underwent transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) in October. “Because of my past treatment they were concerned about doing the procedure any other way,” she says.
TAVR is an alternative to open heart surgery that uses a catheter to access the heart through an artery. Until TAVR, patients ineligible for traditional open heart surgery had no effective, long-term treatment option and typically did not survive two years. The HealthPark cardiothoracic team is well known for their minimally invasive techniques, and were the first in Florida to perform TAVR outside of clinical trials.
Earning a number of distinctions, the surgeries, procedures and techniques they perform are extraordinary, and are the same done at larger institutions with comparable outcomes. Having such a highly regarded team of experts provide these services within our community spares families the added stress and expense of traveling to find this level of care.
“There was an interest from some of our patients to be philanthropically involved with us; and as I was coming up with a vision for what our department should be doing over the next 20 years, this whole center of innovation was born. I was basically on the phone with [the Foundation] and emailing back and forth from the hotel in between meetings, and it just grew from there,” DiGiorgi recalls of that October night in D.C.
DiGiorgi believes plans are moving forward so rapidly because everyone is hungry for an idea like this. “That’s what I think is going to guarantee the success of it, not my enthusiasm per se, but the fact that everyone around me has the same enthusiasm.”
That enthusiasm, fueled by mutual interests in education and medical research, has garnered generous support from The Shipley Foundation, headed by Sanibel resident Richard C. Shipley—the center’s namesake.
“People use the word ‘donate’ too often. I view it as investing, because you’re still looking for results. It’s local, you’ve really got some outstanding surgeons, and Lee Memorial Health System has great leadership that, I think, is quite effective at what they do; so the probability of results is much higher,” explains Shipley. “Plus I love the passion that they have.”
DiGiorgi’s intentions are for the Shipley Center to expand upon the health system’s current cardiac care expertise by establishing an innovation hub focused on patient care optimization, research and learning opportunities for surgical teams worldwide.
HealthPark Medical Center has already welcomed more than 100 visiting surgical teams and has hosted national meetings of cardiothoracic experts both nationally and internationally.