Vermont Business Magazine Paul Donovan, DO, emergency medicine and sports medicine physician at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center (SVMC) since 2011, has written the third and final volume of a history of North Adams Regional Hospital (NARH), which closed in 2014. Donovan had worked at NARH for 22 years.
“This is the culmination of a 4-year effort to document a hospital that was at the center of life for employees, the town, and the community,” Donovan said. “I hope these books will be helpful reminders of the organization and its impact.”
The first volume of North Adams Regional Hospital: A Historical Perspective covers the hospital’s inception after a deadly train accident in 1882 to a major hospital reorganization in 1910. It was published in 2015. The second volume, which covers 1910 – 1956, came out in 2016. It ends with the opening of a brand new 119-bed hospital, a significantly larger hospital than the original 12-bed hospital, which opened in 1885.
The third book covers 1957 – 2014. Highlights include the addition of 80 beds with the opening of the North Wing in 1970, the hospital’s centennial in 1983, the purchase of Sweet Brook Nursing Care Facility and Sweetwood Retirement Community in 1999, the opening of the Ambulatory Care Center and new Physician Office Building in 2002, and the complete modernization of patient care units in 2006. The changing medical landscape that unfolded over the following years found the hospital in financial difficulty.
“The hospital closure on March 28, 2014, unexpectedly ended 129 years of care,” Donovan said. “This project is a tribute to the individuals, patients, and families that the hospital served and to the community that had supported it.”
Donovan is indebted to photographers and former employees David Blanchette and Paul Hopkins, Publisher Caroline Birch, and Designer Erin Dawson. Numerous interviews with former medical staff, employees, and volunteers were conducted and recorded in the chapter “Employee Conversations.”
Part III is available in soft cover for $25 at the Williams College Book Store, the North Adams Historical Society, and the MASS MoCA Books Store. Copies are also available at the North Adams and Williamstown public libraries.
The author will present at 6 p.m. on Thursday, May 10 at the North Adams Library. The talk is free and open to the public. The author invites comments and questions at [email protected].
About Paul J. Donovan, MD:
Dr. Paul J. Donovan was a member of the medical staff of North Adams Regional Hospital from 1989 – 2014. He was director of Emergency Services 1991 – 1993 and from 2000 – 2011 and served as the president of the medical staff from 2008 – 2010. Donovan is board certified in Emergency Medicine and Sports Medicine. And maintains offices in North Adams, MA, and Bennington, VT. He serves on the medical staffs at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, MA, and Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington, VT, and is the team physician for Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and as a teaching assistant at Williams College. He has authored numerous publications in the fields of emergency and sports medicine. He resides in Stamford, VT, with his wife and family.
About SVHC:
Southwestern Vermont Health Care (SVHC) is a comprehensive, preeminent, health care system providing exceptional, convenient, and affordable care to the communities of Bennington and Windham Counties of Vermont, eastern Rensselaer and Washington Counties of New York, and northern Berkshire County in Massachusetts. SVHC includes Southwestern Vermont Medical Center (SVMC), Southwestern Vermont Regional Cancer Center, the Centers for Living and Rehabilitation, and the SVHC Foundation. SVMC includes 25 primary and specialty care practices. For more information, visit svhealthcare.org.
Source: BENNINGTON, VT—May 8, 2018—SVHC