UT honors providers of emergency medical care

Dr. Jeffrey Gold, left, chancellor and executive vice president for biosciences and health affairs and dean of the University of Toledo's Health Sciences Campus, the former Medical College of Ohio, helps Joseph H. Zerbey IV, president and general manager of The Blade, unveil the plaques.

In the heart of its emergency department, the University of Toledo Medical Center unveiled its Emergency Medicine Wall of Honor on Friday. The wall recognizes prehospital care providers, emergency nurses, and emergency physicians for their service in northwestern Ohio and southeastern Michigan.

"Not only have they worked in the trenches, but they've done something to advance the field of emergency medicine or of emergency nursing," said Paul Rega, a professor of public health and emergency medicine at UTMC, the former Medical College of Ohio Hospital.

The wall, sponsored by The Blade, now holds three plaques, each engraved with the name, position, achievements, and a picture of the honoree. Currently recognized are Frank Foss, founder of the emergency medicine residency program at Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center, Dorothy (Dottie) Gladys Hussain, an emergency room nurse at UT, and Timothy Shiltz, an emergency medical technician with the Toledo Fire Department.

Next week, after a luncheon ceremony Tuesday to formally honor this year's group of inductees, three new plaques will be added. They are dedicated to Chief Donald McConnaughy, the chief of paramedics and fire chief in Maumee, Barbara Hogan, an emergency room nurse at Mercy St. Vincent, and John Howard, an emergency physician at UT Medical Center.

"It's definitely quite an honor to be selected," said Chief McConnaughy, who was not present at Friday's unveiling but plans to attend Tuesday's ceremony. He started MASCAP Inc., which produces training manuals for disaster medicine, focusing on biological and chemical terrorism scenarios. He said he believes he is being honored for that achievement.

Chief McConnaughy and Dr. Rega are longtime colleagues -- they co-founded MASCAP -- but Dr. Rega emphasized that the decision of whom to honor on the wall was based on input from the broader emergency medicine community.

He said a steering committee, including representatives from ProMedica, St. Luke's Hospital, and area emergency departments solicited and vetted nominations from the local emergency care providers.

Each year, three more care providers will receive recognition and join their predecessors on the wall. Jeffrey Gold, chancellor and executive vice president for biosciences and health affairs and dean of the UT Health Sciences Campus, the former Medical College of Ohio, said the honor is overdue. "We're so focused on quality, affordability, and availability of health care," he said in his speech, "it's time to take a minute to focus on emergency care."

Contact Jessica Shor at: jshor@theblade.com or 419-724-6516.