Top Doctors 2008

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

The most rewarding aspect? Operating on patients and watching them get better.”
— Dr. Benjamin Westbrook, CMC, Elliot, PMC and Cardiothoracic Surgical Associates, P.A.

WHY MEDICINE? WHY THIS SPECIALTY?
Great opportunity to help the less fortunate. Cardiovascular and Thoracic surgery is a dynamic specialty.

MOST REWARDING ASPECT OF YOUR WORK?
Operating on patients and watching them get better.

MOST DIFFICULT ASPECT?
The business of medicine.

WHAT KINDS OF SURGERIES DO YOU PERFORM MOST OFTEN?
Coronary artery bypass and valve surgery.

WHAT’S THE TRICKIEST SURGERY TO PERFORM?
Repairing a ruptured heart in the setting of an acute myocardial infarction.

WHAT MAKES A GREAT SURGEON?
Great judgment, hands and humility. And great colleagues and team.

RX FOR STAYING HEALTHY?
Exercise and eat well.

HOW DO YOU PUT PATIENTS AT EASE?
Stay relaxed and confident.

ANY MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT YOUR SPECIALTY?
It is not easy, but it is fun.

WHAT DO YOU DO TO RELIEVE STRESS AND LEAVE WORK BEHIND?
Spend time with wife and family.

Accept new challenges; work to expand your skills.”
— Dr. Misty Blanchette Porter, DHMC

WHY MEDICINE? WHY THIS SPECIALTY?
It was a given that I would go into medicine. My great grandmother was a mid-wife, my mother is a chairman of a Department of Geriatric Medicine. Louise Brown was born when I was in high school, and after reading about the process of IVF I knew I wanted to be a Reproductive Endocrinologist.

MOST REWARDING ASPECT OF YOUR WORK?
I enjoy seeing children that I helped couples conceive out in the community with their families.

MOST DIFFICULT ASPECT?
The grief that couples experience when they don’t conceive.

EXCITING DEVELOPMENTS IN YOUR FIELD?
Robotic surgery and 3-D imaging in GYN ultrasound. I do a fair amount of minimally invasive GYN surgery and the technical advances of the robot will allow me to expand my endoscopic skill set and perform fewer open cases. Three-D imaging will allow us to be more efficient in patient care and obtain detailed images without depending upon the use of more expensive technologies.

WHAT CAN PATIENTS BRING TO THE PATIENT/DOCTOR EQUATION?
Find someone they trust and work together in the process of care.

WHAT DO PEOPLE NEED TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT MEDICINE?
My colleagues do their best and try their hardest. We aren’t always successful.

DO YOU HAVE A MOTTO OR PHILOSOPHY?
Accept new challenges, work to expand your skills.

WHAT DO YOU DO TO RELIEVE STRESS AND LEAVE WORK BEHIND?
I bake almost nightly with my kids.

I want patients to engage with me person to person as much as possible.”
— Dr. B.J. Entwisle, Concord Hospital and the Capital Region Family Health Center


WHY MEDICINE? WHY THIS SPECIALTY?
Medicine is a great opportunity to work with people — patients, families and all the other caregivers; fellow providers — docs, PAs and ARNPs and all related specialties — nurses, PTs, MAs. I have met a lot of wonderful people and find that most of us in these related fields share values of wanting to help people and to do the best job that we can. The team work is very satisfying.

In my role as faculty at the NH Dartmouth Family Medicine Residency I work with multidisciplinary colleagues (FP, PEds, OB GYN and myself as internist/geriatrician) as we teach younger (mostly) physicians in training. I really enjoy my teaching partners and getting to know ongoing groups of younger people — keeps me on my toes!

MOST REWARDING ASPECT OF YOUR WORK?
Working with older people, and helping them achieve their own goals of being as independent as possible, or helping to simplify care and orient towards quality days for people near the end of their lives. Recently I took on a new 99-year-old man, a retired French teacher. He handed me a book of his own poems; I feel very appreciative of getting to know someone like him. Also in my other role as a teacher, to observe the residents mature into independent physicians with eagerness and curiosity intact is very rewarding.

MOST DIFFICULT ASPECT?
Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. We spend as much time describing what we do as DOING what we do; hopefully I will live long enough to see this change.

RX FOR STAYING HEALTHY?
Following all of our own advice: try to eat healthy, exercise, enjoy friends and family, have some great hobbies and try to reduce stress!

HOW DO YOU PUT PATIENTS AT EASE?
To demonstrate to them, as much as possible, that we are a team together. Clearly I have the power of knowledge, and I need to handle that respectfully, but I want patients to engage with me person to person as much as possible. I also take care of a large number of elders with dementia, so in that case it is relating to their families and caregivers.

WHAT CAN PATIENTS BRING TO THE EQUATION?
Be as honest as you can, make sure your questions are answered and understand that a lot of problems take time and teamwork from patient and doc; hang in there with us! Respect the doctor who is able to say “I don't know, but I will find out who does.”

The improvement in people’s lives that I am able to assist gives me great satisfaction.”
— Dr. Lawrence M. Hoepp, CMC, Elliot and General Surgical Specialists of N.E.

WHY MEDICINE? WHY THIS SPECIALTY?
Surgery is the perfect forum for me to practice medicine. I am able to medically change people’s lives for the better and take an active part in their health care with technical procedures. It is an extension of medical care into the operating room that I believe can be used to great advantage.

MOST REWARDING ASPECT OF YOUR WORK?
The improvement in people’s lives that I am able to assist with surgical procedures. It gives me great satisfaction. The endearing notes of thanks that I receive from many of my patients is a great reward.

MOST DIFFICULT ASPECT?
My practice is quite active and we have very long hours, which means lost time from my wife and family, which is now mounting up over the year. Also the business aspect of managing a surgical practice is certainly not my favorite part.

WHAT KIND OF SURGERIES DO YOU PERFORM MOST OFTEN?
I have a unique practice since I was trained in the ’70s at one of the best surgical residency program in the United States and have specialties in Vascular Surgery and General Surgery in which I have received Board status. I have also had considerable training and experience in Thoracic Surgery. With this extensive background, I perform a wide variety of very difficult technical procedures on a daily basis.

WHAT’S THE TRICKIEST SURGERY TO PERFORM?
A carotid thromboendarterectomy. Not only is it different to pronounce and spell, but I pioneered the procedure in this area with the patient awake under local anesthesia with mild sedation. The procedure is performed to remove plaques in the neck arteries that can cause a stroke. It is more often than not performed on patients who have not had a stroke, so it is critical that it be performed in a perfect manner to avoid any type of complication.

WHAT MAKES A GREAT SURGEON?
My prior Chief of Surgery of the University of Rochester Strong Memorial Hospital was Dr. Charles Rob, an English-trained surgeon. He was a great surgeon, a man of infinite wisdom and tremendous technical skills and great diagnostic prowess. In England he was Winston Churchill’s surgeon and allowed him two cigars a day and two glasses of brandy. For that reason Churchill was able to keep those vices to a minimum.

There is nothing more rewarding than putting all of the pieces of the puzzle together to arrive at that ‘Eureka’ moment.”
— Dr. David Donsker, Exeter Hospital and Seacoast Pathology, P.A.

WHY MEDICINE?
I can’t imagine a more rewarding profession. Medicine allows you to continually grow intellectually while working with equally devoted and engaged colleagues towards a common good by providing profoundly important, often life-altering services to your fellow human beings.

WHY THIS SPECIALTY?
Pathology, as practiced in the community hospital, requires a broad understanding of virtually every field of medicine. Although it is often regarded as a specialty amongst specialties, it actually provides an opportunity for those physicians who find all aspects of medicine fascinating to remain “generalists” at heart.

MOST REWARDING ASPECT OF YOUR WORK?
The core of the practice of pathology is making medical diagnoses. There is nothing more rewarding than putting all the pieces of the puzzle together to arrive at that “Eureka” moment.

MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT YOUR SPECIALTY?
Because of the high visibility of forensic pathology in the media, we are frequently regarded as dealing only with dead people. In fact, virtually everything we do as community pathologists directly affects a living patient.

RX FOR STAYING HEALTHY?
Stay physically fit, eat and drink well but in moderation, keep engaged with friends and family and, above all, keep looking forward to pursuits and challenges yet unfulfilled.

EXCITING DEVELOPMENTS IN YOUR FIELD?
Although some of the tools and methods we use in pathology, such as routine microscopy, haven’t changed much since the 19th century, pathological diagnosis is on the cutting edge of 21st century medicine. Laboratory testing and pathologic examination incorporate the most recent advances in such areas as robotics, molecular biology and genomic medicine on a daily basis.

WHAT DO YOU DO TO RELIEVE STRESS AND LEAVE WORK BEHIND?
Although I am fully devoted to medicine in my professional life, once out of the hospital I become entirely immersed in other pursuits. I am completely involved with my avocations: ornithology, the art and literature of natural history, good food and wine and travel. I am fortunate to be able to share these interests and more, as well as quiet bonding time, with my wife, Terri. The rule: Don’t talk medicine at home!

DO YOU HAVE A MOTTO OR PHILOSOPHY?
Whatever you do in life, do it fully, with passion and commitment.