PEOPLE MAKE THE PLACE Providence Saint John's Health Center celebrates a milestone. WRITTEN BY SHARI ROAN
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n a sunny California day in early 1941, a group of physicians, nuns, priests and architects gathered on a palm tree-lined lot in Santa Monica to break ground on what would become Saint John's Health Center. In attendance that day were Sister Mary Hypathia Coughlin, who would use her considerable skills as a trained engineer to oversee the building process, and Louis Mahoney, MD, who not only lobbied for a hospital in Santa Monica to improve the health of the local citizenry but helped raise the initial funds for the project. Decades later, the hard-working, can-do spirit reflected in those individuals and their colleagues is embedded in the very fiber of the Health Center. What a 75 years it has been! When the 1994 earthquake struck, there were questions about
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SAINT JOHN'S, SUMMER 2017
whether the hospital could reopen. But thanks to determined donors and friends, Saint John's not only survived, it has thrived since that devastating event. While the buildings have changed, the values of compassion, excellence and service to the community are the same as those championed by the founders. Each generation of health care professionals and administrators has emphasized retaining the core values that were championed by the hospital’s founders, the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, says Marcel Loh, chief executive of Providence Saint John’s Health Center and the John Wayne Cancer Institute. “We recognize when people come to us for health care they are in a time of need,” he says. “We really have it in our DNA to do the best we can for everyone we serve.”
