Hoag

My family and I had the pleasure of visiting Newport Beach last week while on vacation from Canada. The beautiful scenery and the friendliness of your people made for a wonderful stay, and you should be duly proud. You should also be proud to have a health-care facility of such quality as Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian. During our stay in Newport I had an unfortunate fall, resulting in injury. We went to Hoag on the instruction of our health insurer, and from start to finish it was an impressive experience.

NEWPORT BEACH — For Joanne Baker's 50th birthday, she asked for $500,000. It wasn't for her, but for donations to children in South Africa affected by AIDS. What the Hoag Hospital OR charge nurse got in 2001 was $35,000, but that was more than enough to fuel her fledgling nonprofit, Tias Arms, and provide financial support to multiple small organizations in KwaZulu-Natal. The province located on South Africa's eastern coast is not only Baker's birthplace, but also "ground zero" for the country's growing AIDS epidemic, she said.

Richard Dunn In my final column before Hoag Hospital's Dr. Lisa Worsch induces labor on my wife and delivers our first child this weekend, here are 10 wishes for the Toshiba Senior Classic, which also has a pretty big stake at Hoag these days: 1) That Arnold Palmer plays again. Even if the King's scores weren't exactly as low as he would like in his Toshiba Classic debut last year (79-74--153), his appearance was the highlight of the tournament. This year, tournament officials are hopeful Palmer will return to Newport Beach Country Club for Toshiba Classic VII. 2)

A Hoag Hospital doctor will still have to pay an 85-year-old woman's family for failing to notice a blood clot that contributed to her death, an appellate court ruled this week. Dr. Luke Cheung, 49, of Irvine attended to Lois Shafer, of Corona del Mar on Feb. 8, 2009, after she fell in her home and suffered a head injury, according to appellate court documents. Cheung discharged Shafer after reviewing a CT scan of her brain, and sent her home with orders to resume her normal medication, including taking a blood thinner, Coumadin, and have uninterrupted sleep.

In an Irrelevant Week Lowsman Trophy banquet for the ages -- one in which Martha Burke would be extremely happy because women were allowed for the first time, ending a 27-year run of stag parties -- Mr. Irrelevant XXVIII Ryan Hoag, a small-college wide receiver, made a big impression in front of the Heisman Trophy winner and a sellout crowd of 1,200 at the Anaheim Marriott. Oh, sure, Irrelevant Week founder Paul Salata fired off his usual jokes and former USC quarterback and 2002 Heisman winner Carson Palmer shared the spotlight with Mr. Irrelevant.

THOUGHTS FROM THE SCENE: Before I even arrived at Julie and Phil Dohrman's Huntington Beach home, I knew their story. Phil had suffered traumatic head injuries in a car accident and Julie, a nurse at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, had been taking time off work to help her husband through. Nurses at Hoag donated time to Julie so she could keep her job. I knew I wanted to capture a sense of hopefulness for this couple that had been through so much.

Send AROUND TOWN items to the Daily Pilot, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626; by e-mail to lindsay.sandham @latimes.com; by fax to (714) 966-4667; or by calling (714) 966-4625. Include the time, date and location of the event, as well as a contact phone number. TODAY A reception to welcome the new president of Orange Coast College, Robert V. Dees, will be held from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Student Center, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa.

It is always a tragedy when a life is cut short. When it is a life that had already accomplished so much that the future seemed limitless, the tragedy becomes that much more acute. And so it was when the life of Chris Premer came to an unbelievable end on Oct. 1. He was just shy of his 31st birthday when the twin-engine plane he was in crashed after takeoff from the Ontario Airport. Premer was best known to Newport-Mesa as the main spokesman for the Toshiba Senior Classic, firmly now one of the community's biggest fund-raisers.

35, Irvine ... Tournament director of the Toshiba Senior Classic, which has raised more than $4.7 million in the five years Hoag Hospital has acted as the tournament's managing operator and lead charity ... The 2002 golf tournament raised an additional $1 million for charity for the third year in a row, which is a milestone unprecedented on the Senior PGA Tour ...The tournament is the largest single-day fund-raiser in...

48, Newport Canyon ... City Councilman representing Back Bay and airport areas ... Continues to be council member most likely to cast independent votes ... Was alone in opposing a request for $15,000 for city funds for a designated driver program ... Opposed Hoag Hospital's expansion plans because he said specifics of the request violated the decisions made by previous city councils ... Works as a consulting civil engineer...

A hospital operating room is not the usual place you'd associate with mood lighting and ambient sound. "It's like a resort," Ellen Chitjian said of Hoag Hospital's new Allan and Sara Fainbarg Electrophysiology Cath Suite, which is equipped with two 55-inch flat-screen monitors and a sound system more reminiscent of something a patient would see over a massage bed, not an operating table. "It's very calming, very soothing," said Chitjian, who underwent a coronary catheterization at Hoag five years ago. "If I compare the two rooms, it was very bright, light, noisy; this is very different.

Students in yellow hospital gowns, blue booties, hair nets and face masks stood around the chilly operating room as nurse Denise ten Bosch took them through aC-sectionprocedure. She pulled them into the imagined surgery in the labor and delivery wing to play the mother, nurse and anesthesiologist. It started with giving the mother warm blankets before the operation, then giving her an epidural and ending with making sure no sponges were left inside her. She even gave the pretend father something do. "Put a hand on her forehead," the ever-smiling ten Bosch instructed.

Paul Tadross has racked up 170 hours of volunteer work at Hoag Hospital. He started a senior-freshman mentor program at Newport Harbor High School, where he is the ASB president. Now he can add another impressive note to his résumé. Tadross, 17, was honored as one of two Toshiba Classic Scholarship Fund recipients during a breakfast Tuesday at the Newport Beach Marriott Hotel & Spa. Tadross and Mission Viejo's Drew Gleason each received a $10,000 scholarship. They were chosen from 12 high school senior finalists who all received a Toshiba laptop computer.

A Hoag Hospital doctor will still have to pay an 85-year-old woman's family for failing to notice a blood clot that contributed to her death, an appellate court ruled this week. Dr. Luke Cheung, 49, of Irvine attended to Lois Shafer, of Corona del Mar on Feb. 8, 2009, after she fell in her home and suffered a head injury, according to appellate court documents. Cheung discharged Shafer after reviewing a CT scan of her brain, and sent her home with orders to resume her normal medication, including taking a blood thinner, Coumadin, and have uninterrupted sleep.

Aliso Viejo residents Huyen Trang Duong and Andy Huy Duong are the new parents of Tavia Vi Duong. The 7-pound-6-ounces baby girl was born at 4:05 a.m. Sunday, making her the first baby of the year to be delivered at Hoag Hospital of Newport Beach. "Four hours is a long time from midnight so we were pretty shocked and surprised that she was the first baby born in this hospital," Andy Duong said. "We weren't even thinking about it really, just the whole time worrying about her being born.

The first endowed chairs in cardiovascular surgery and gastrointestinal cancer at Hoag Hospital were named earlier this month, according to a hospital news release. Cardiovascular surgeon Dr. Aidan Raney, named the James & Pamela Muzzy endowed chairman in cardiovascular surgery, and digestive disease expert Dr. John Lipham, named the James & Pamela Muzzy endowed chairman in gastrointestinal cancer, were recognized Dec. 7 at the inaugural Hoag Hospital Foundation's Endowed Chair Investiture Ceremony.

It's Christmas Eve 2011 and the world is taking a collective moment to reflect. Listen to the quiet. Cherish the peace. Most everything and most everyone grinds down an octave or two as Christmas dawns. So much to be grateful for. So much to aspire to. The message, not only for people of the Christian faith, but for all humankind, is pax vobiscum - Latin for "peace be with you. " If only it could be so. Surely such a miracle would signal the dawn of the Messianic era. We will simply have to wait.

Hoag Hospital this week opened a cardiac operating suite touted by officials as "one of the world's most advanced. " The Bob and Marjie Bennett Hybrid Surgical Suite at the Newport Beach hospital is a hybrid cardiovascular operating room equipped with a robotic imaging system that functions like a GPS in a car, said Dr. Aidan A. Raney, medical director of cardiovascular surgery at Hoag's Heart and Vascular Institute. The Siemens Artis Zeego system along with 3-D and 4-D reconstruction software helps heart surgeons map out blood vessels, tissue and organs as they operate on patients, hospital officials said.

Orange Coast College baseball coach John Altobelli was resting comfortably at Hoag Hospital Thursday night after undergoing open heart surgery earlier to repair a weakened valve, said his brother, Tony Altobelli. John Altobelli, 48, preparing for his 20th season at the helm after a program-record 453 victories and capturing the 2009 state championship, began experiencing shortness of breath last season. After many tests, the weak heart valve was determined to be the root of the problem.

Corona del Mar's UPS driver Athena Lewis is recovering from surgery for breast cancer, but hopes to return to work in the new year. "That's my route," Lewis said in an interview from Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach. "That belongs to me. They can't give that away. " Lewis said she was diagnosed with breast cancer in August, but a lumpectomy did not succeed in getting rid of the cancer. She was tested for the cancer gene because of a family history, and when it was positive, she elected to undergo a double mastectomy.