08/28/2024
Some of my favorite childhood memories! ❤🥰🍀🙏🏻 When I was about 4 years old, my father who was an Internal Medicine MD would take me with him to the South Side Hospital on the weekends! He went there to provide healthcare and visit his patients who were hospital in-patient. I would wait patiently for my Dad in the hallway, standing outside the patients doorway; while he went into their hospital room, visited the patient and provided any healthcare they needed during their hospital stay. After he saw all his patients, we would have lunch together in the hospital cafeteria at South Side Hospital in Youngstown!
Later as a teenager and college student, I worked in my father’s medical office on Midlothian Boulevard in Youngstown. Again, this offered a lifelong lessons about values. I performed very basic tasks, scheduling appointments, filing paperwork, and organizing patient diagnostic test results. If a patient called for an appointment, they were provided with a timely appointment. (No one looked to see if they had an outstanding amount owed on their invoice!) On one occasion, a patient came and had a medical office visit appointment with my father. The patient did not pay any amount on his invoice, which was completely acceptable to our medical office business processes. After he left, my father said “Joanne, bring me Mr. ******* invoice statement.” It had been quite a few months since Mr. ******* had paid any amount on his invoice statement. After looking at Mr. ******* invoice statement, my father took his pen, crossed out the remaining balance, wrote $0 on the amount owed, and gave the statement back to me to record and file. Mr. ******* continued to be a healthy happy patient of my father’s!
Both of these memories are some of my happiest childhood memories of Youngstown, Ohio!
