Carl Unrein is proud of the picture
he has in his office. He’s in a
New York Yankees uniform,
playing in a fantasy camp with
Mickey Mantle standing in the
field behind him. But he’s prouder
still of the work he does as president
and chief executive of the
St. Joseph Hospital Foundation.
“We support the true mission
and spirit of the Sisters of Charity
of Leavenworth (Kan.),” he
says. “Anybody who walks
through the doors of St. Joseph
Hospital,wewill take care of. Every
human being should be treated
with dignity.”
The Sisters have been taking
in people in need since 1858 and
at the Family MedicineCenter at
Exempla St. Joseph Hospital
since the ’40s. They do it with
the generous help of the foundation.
This year, the foundation is
seeking funding from the
Post-News Season to Share campaign.
The clinic looks like any medical
center, sitting just to the
north of the hospital on Franklin
Street. Here the doctors practice
family and internal medicine,
general surgery, and obstetrics
and gynecology. Other needs
are referred to area clinics.
The Family Medicine Center
includes a staff of eight teaching
physicians, one physician’s assistant
and 24 resident physicians.
They will attend to more than
16,000 patient visits this year, 43
percent of them children.
“Yesterday, I saw a 5-year-old
boy, an 83-year-old woman with
20 medical problems that need
20 medications, and a
23-year-old woman with a metabolic
disorder that only 12 people
in the world have,” said Dr.
Stephen Cobb, director of the
Family Medicine Residency Program.
“Your life is unpredictable
here. It’s not like having a
private practice in Highlands
Ranch.”
Language is sometimes an issue.
Dr. Julie McClanahan
speaks Spanish, but patients
come in speaking everything
from Russian to Farsi. Staffers
have a roster showing who
speaks what language.
Failing that, a phone service offers up a translator day and
night.
Dyna Kay is practice administrator
of the Family Medicine
Center – the go-between for
the clinic and the foundation.
“She’s our heart,” says McClanahan. “And it’s always bleeding.”
Kay finds what a patient needs
– and if the clinic can’t provide
it, she goes to the foundation for
the money to fund specialized
work, such as eye surgery and dental work. “And I have never
been told no,” she says.
The Family Medicine Center
is renovating its space, expecting
to grow next year to 20,000
to 25,000 visits. Other providers
are leaving the metro area, Cobb
says. Sister Mary Alloys Powell
says the clinic is building for
what it knows it will need.
“We are here to take care of
the underserved in Denver,”
Cobb says. “We are proud to be
the hands and feet of the Sisters.”