Hillblom’s legacy continues at Saipan hospital

Larry Hillblom’s love for Saipan has not been forgotten despite his untimely death and disappearance in May 1995. His eponymous foundation—Larry L. Hillblom Foundation, Inc.—has been providing and funding high-level healthcare professionals for the CNMI’s lone public hospital.

Dr. Phuoc V. Le of the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine’s Department of Internal Medicine, right, and Dr. Daniel Lamar, Medical Director for Public Health at the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp., talk about the partnership between the Commonwealth Health Center and the UCSF School of Medicine, courtesy of the Larry L. Hillblom Foundation, Inc.
(Jayson Camacho)

Through grant funding from the Hillblom Foundation, the University of California, San Francisco has been providing the Commonwealth Health Center at least two resident doctors from its Department of Internal Medicine, both as a training and teaching experience that benefit both parties.

Hillblom Foundation president Peter Donnici said in a phone interview that the project with UCSF and CHC is very dear to Hillblom because the late business tycoon used to regularly bring doctors from the U.S. mainland to Micronesia, particularly to Saipan.

Donnici said the foundation funds the CHC and UCSF partnership, where resident doctors come to Saipan to help and treat patients.

“Hillblom always had a keen interest in medical matters and in fact in his will he donated millions of dollars to further medical research and had a very high regard for Saipan and the people of Saipan, so we’re trying to carry out his wishes,” Donnici said.

In the past, the Hillblom Foundation also provided funds to diabetes organizations, including Hinemlu Familia—a non-government organization—that addressed childhood diabetes.

Dr. Phuoc V. Le of the UCSF School of Medicine’s Department of Internal Medicine is currently on Saipan to meet with officials of the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp., which runs Saipan’s lone public hospital.

Dr. Le, who arrived on Sunday morning, is here to check on how the resident physician program between UCSF and CHC is panning out.

“For about eight years the UCSF-Department of Internal Medicine has had a relationship with CHC, where we send resident physicians to Saipan essentially to take care of patients in CHC and to provide them with an experience in Global Health,” Dr. Le said yesterday.

Global Health at UCSF creates a stronger link between evidence and achievement in improving the health of disadvantaged communities. Saipan, for instance, doesn’t have many of the resources that are readily available for high-quality healthcare compared to UCSF, which offers every specialist and readily available equipment.

From what he has seen, Dr. Le said that Saipan offers very high quality healthcare but with limitations. So UCSF resident doctors in Internal Medicine and pediatrics come to Saipan and practice amongst CHC’s physicians within CHCC’s IM department while also teaching CHC’s IM physicians of the latest medicines or healthcare technologies.

“Many of them get a sense of appreciation for the difficulties and challenges of working here. Some go on to be inspired by their experience here and the idea is hopefully some of them will work in places like this. If not on Saipan itself, they could work in places like this and we’ve actually had some interesting cases where you see UCSF—particularly pediatrics—once they graduate from residency, they’d come back to Saipan,” he said.

Doctors from UCSF
Some of the doctors that came to Saipan through the program have returned to become permanent physicians at CHC.

Dr. Daniel Lamar, CHCC Medical Director for Public Health, mentioned a couple: Dr. Yousef Turshani, a physician who specializes in internal medicine and pediatrics; and Dr. Liz Triche, who is serving as CHCC’s pediatrician.

Dr. Tiffany Lin, CHCC’s hematology-oncology physician, through her fellowship at UCSF, was able to set up and continue in advancing her experience, training, and knowledge focusing on bleeding disorders in the CNMI.

Dr. Lamar also took note of the contributions of Dr. James Hofschneider, former secretary of the erstwhile Department of Public Health, who went to UCSF and was one of the primary people to initially help begin the partnership between the Hillblom Foundation, UCSF, and CHC.

“It has enabled us to have expertise here where we provide services to help train them in a setting that is relatively resource-poor and it is good for them and good for us. One of the key things is this has been enabled by a particular funding mechanism, the Hillblom Foundation,” Dr. Lamar said.

Rotation
Dr. Le said that UCSF provides two licensed resident doctors in their last year to and on the verge of becoming lone practitioners.

The two resident doctors from UCSF rotate on a monthly basis, so CHC has 20 resident doctors training yearly from UCSF. Right now, UCSF IM resident doctors, Dr. Sweta Patel and Dr. Teja Patil, are here on Saipan until March 30. While here, they share their expertise with CHC physicians and staff while at the same time learning and being trained on their own.

“I think our expectations are to see and take care of patients that are in some ways different to patients that we take care of in San Francisco. So I think we plan and expect to learn a lot. …We’ve heard from a lot resident doctors who’ve come here and they said it was a great experience to learn a lot,” Dr. Patel said.

Dr. Patil said they see a lot of similar diseases such as diabetes, heart failure, and high blood pressure in San Francisco and on Saipan, but it seems the numbers are even higher here on Saipan.

“In some sense, Saipan is a really great place for us to really solidify our knowledge on these super common diseases. On the other hand, I think we’re going to see different things like some infectious diseases. In our program we have so many experts and so many consultants that we have a lot of support in San Francisco but less independence. So when you come to a place like Saipan it really challenges us,” Dr. Patil said.

Dr. Le hopes the residency program would be sustained, with the Hillblom Foundation continuing to provide funding for UCSF resident doctors to keep coming to Saipan.