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Physician winners

Daniel Juarez, MD, inter-nal medicine physician at Metropolitan Methodist Hospital, was selected for his outstanding work as a founding member of the Mexican American Hispanic Physicians As-sociation, which works to improve education and community health. Dr. Juarez has served on the executive commission of the annual San Fernando Health Fair, which provides free health screenings and services to those who lack insurance.

Marie Berkenkamp, MD, pediatric emergency medicine physician, is the chief of staf at Methodist Children’s Hospital. She is one of the founders of a nonproft called Shared Beat, which works to provide health care and education to people in Guatemala. She helps to host an annual fund-raiser for the group. Dr. Berkenkamp has also been a group mentor, volunteer and runner for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s annual marathon.

Volunteer winners

Irving O’Neal has been with Methodist Healthcare for 22 years as a pastoral care volunteer at Method-ist Hospital. Once a week, he provides patients and their families with the Catholic Holy Eucharist and facilitates Catholic Communion services. He has become so close to some families that they have asked him to facilitate at the funeral services of loved ones.

James “Duck” Wilcox has been a Blue Bird volun-teer for 20 years and has put in more than 16,400 hours volunteering at Methodist Hospital four days a week. Wilcox has served on the Blue Bird Auxiliary Board in a num-ber of capacities, including as president. Wilcox also helps his local Leon Valley Community Center, calling bingo and helping with other various events.

Employee winners

Ama Osei-Bonsu , clinical lab assistant at Method-ist Stone Oak Hospital, founded Te Heart Smiles, a nonproft organization that has had a profound impact on the lives of children living in an orphanage in Ghana, Africa. Osei-Bonsu works throughout the year to collect clothing and dental products for the children, many of whom are disabled.

When Methodist Hos-pital physical therapist

Mahera Jeevanjee heard of the devastating earth-quake in Haiti in January 2010, she spent $700 to fy to Miami to join a medi-cal mission going to Port Au Prince about a month after the quake. She spent a week in 110-degree heat with 48 other medi-cal personnel and no running water. Jeevanjee provided wound and burn care and also cared for premature infants.

Other award nominees included Rene Jaso, MD; Kristy and Charles Hammack; Telma Lincoln; Matthew Swaby; Dwight Ware; Cara Argumedo; Robert Rutledge; and Paula J. Wisness, RN.

Methodist Healthcare has a tradition of honoring people who go above and beyond their service to Methodist Healthcare and take our mission of Serving Humanity to Honor God outside the walls of our hospitals. Te Graceann Durr Humanitarian Award of Methodist Healthcare is named in memory of a long-serving and devoted Methodist Healthcare board member and the frst woman to lead the San Antonio Independent School District.

Mrs. Durr was the daughter of G. S. McCreless, a real estate developer who, with four other businessmen, donated the land Methodist Hospital was built on. Trough-out her life, Mrs. Durr embraced the value of

the human spirit and the duty of each of us to work diligently to improve ourselves and others.

She remained true to her beliefs about the value of kindness, happi-ness, thankfulness, giving, integrity and living a life of gentle morality. She died in 2008.

In recognition of exemplary service to patients and the health care com-munity, and in recognition of a dedicated spirit and genuine concern for

the welfare of others, the following physicians, employ-ees and volunteers were recognized in March for their outstanding commitment to the humanitarian values that are the foundation of Methodist Healthcare. Each selected a charity to receive a $500 donation.

Irving O’Neal

James “Duck” Wilcox

Extending our mission

outside the hospital

Ama Osei-Bonsu

Majera Jeevanjee

Daniel Juarez

Marie Berkenkamp

S U M M E R 2 0 1 1   3 K E E P I N G W E L L

M e t h o d i s t H e a l t h c a r e