July 4, 2017
IN MEMORIAM
LIBERACION CRUZ-PIERONI died 11/14/2007 in Toms River, NJ at age 61. She retired as a pediatrician in New Jersey at the Department of Human Services, Division of developmental disabilities in Lisbon, New Jersey.
Photo of her daughter.
Evelyn Duran, Cherie Co, Freddie Domingo, Beni Coloma, Suzette Correa, Vicky Co, Libby Cruz
Norman San Agustin’s Announcement
Whereas cats have 9 Lives, men, if lucky, have only two. The first is usually for themselves and for their loved ones.
The second, if given the opportunity, is for God and country. I have been blessed with both and happily share this second life with those who believe in the mission of the Asian Breast Center.
I would also like to share the letter from Trish O’Keefe, the President of , announcing the end of my career in the United States and the proud beginning of my new one in the Philippines. This also erases any doubt that I have now indeed decided to devote all my time to the ABC. My contract with the hospital was for another 6 months but I have finally come to fully understand what my friends Ramon and Joey have been telling me for a long time, “there is no such thing as absentee management”. Fortunately the hospital honored my request.
I still do not believe in Serendipity. I strongly believe we are all together in this altruistic project by Divine Design. With God’s blessing and guidance we cannot fail.
God Bless and Best to all… Norman
Morristown Medical Center
ATLANTIC HËALTH SYSTEM
Dr. Norman San Agustin will be relocating to Private Practice in the Philippines
to devote all of his time to develop an Asian Breast Center, the first free-standing
comprehensive Ambulatory Center dedicated to the management of one disease, Breast
Cancer.
He will continue to work in his current practice until December 31 , 2016 and
transition the practice leadership to Dr. Michael Hernando.
Dr. San Agustin was a Chief Resident in General Surgery 1976-1977, had a very
successful, private practice from 1977 until2012, when he aligned with MMC/AHS
successfully forming the Morristown Surgical Associates and within two years built the
practice into a 7-person multi-specialty surgical group.
He also provided community service, as Medical Director at Villa Walsh
Academy, providing care for all the Religious Nuns in the institution, assumed
numerous roles as one of the Founding Fathers and Director of the Morris County After
Care Clinic for over 38 years, Chairman of the Comprehensive Cancer Care Program
and Director of the Breast Cancer Program at Saint Clare’s Hospital.
Through the Nikki San Agustin Foundation, Dr. SanAgustin was responsible for
the passage of a Law that now makes it mandatory of all children to wear helmets when
they ski, donation of one of the first dedicated Pediatric Mobile Intensive Care Units to
MMC, establishment of the Nikki SanAgustin Feeding Center in the Philippines.
It has been an honor to have had the opportunity to work with Dr. San Agustin
during the past many years.
Please join me in wishing Dr. SanAgustin well in his new private practice in
the Philippines.
Trish O’Keefe, Ph.D., RN, NE-BC
Morristown Medical Center
100 Madison Avenue
Morristown, NJ 0796CI
MEMOIRS
You were told, by the time you finished medical school half of what you learned is obsolete. In time you knew that was not exactly right but you get the idea. Times when your job was to do a gastric lavage to contain a GI bleed till your hands cramped or the iced melt on you. No more, now it is Protonix drip as the standard of care plus endoscopes to find the site and fulgurate it or shut down a bleeder by interventional radiologist and as a last resort the surgeon goes in by a laparoscopic procedure. Times are when you need a team to fight and stop a disease causing havoc to a frail body that is not meant to last. With a team of specialist, you may buy some time for the patient whose life now tethered to tubes, IV fluids, medications, respirators, and cardiac monitors. When all else fail, you are yourself the last theraphy, to provide comfort to the family. The team leaves you and you are there the last person standing along with the Palliative care team. Call the Hospice. It’s over and let go. Pope John Paul 11 says, “there comes apoint where one just have to abandon all human calculations and somehow grasps the Godly dimensions of every difficult issue.”
JDLeoncio
USTMD70
The ERMD called me to see a patient of someone I am covering for. The patient’s name is one I remember so well when I used to do part time work at the Health Department. When I saw him he was not that patient I know but has some resemblance and I asked if his fathers name is the same. He answers yes. I said I took care of your father in the early
taboc 