Milford Regional Medical Center and Milford Regional Physician Group have long been in a unique position to recruit highly regarded physicians. Known as one of the country’s safest hospitals, Milford Regional is often the community medical center that is regularly first in the region to invest in leading edge technologies. Combine this innovation with its strong partnerships with the most trusted academic medical centers in New England and Milford Regional is known as a great choice for physicians. Physician recruitment for Milford Regional Medical Center and Milford Regional Physician Group continued throughout 2020, with well-respected physicians joining our organization from the country’s top institutions, bolstering key specialties.
Neurologists Join Milford Regional Hospital Staff
Eliezer Sternberg, MD and Aditi Ahlawat, MD, joined Milford Regional’s active medical staff and established Milford Regional Neurology, a Milford Regional Physician Group practice located within the Medical Center.
Dr. Sternberg, who graduated from Tufts University School of Medicine, was awarded Resident of the Year from Yale-New Haven Hospital and went on to complete fellowships at Massachusetts General Hospital in Clinical Neurophysiology and Epilepsy. He has won multiple teaching awards and has written widely about neuroscience in various medical journals, as well as being featured in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and other national media outlets. In addition, he has written three books and his research focuses on how the neurosciences shed light on the mysteries of consciousness and decision-making.
In September, Dr. Ahlawat joined Milford Regional from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Neurology where she completed her residency and fellowship. Prior to her work at Beth Israel, Dr. Ahlawat received the Senior Thesis Excellence Award at Brandeis University, where she focused on Lafora Disease, a rare form of epilepsy. She earned her medical degree at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and received the Medical Student Prize for Excellence by the American Academy of Neurology and the Research Travel Grant from the Neurocritical Care Society for her research on penetrating traumatic brain injuries. Her research on POEMS syndrome, a rare disease affecting multiple organ systems, earned her the 2014 New England Case Report of the Year. Together these two fine physicians have expanded Milford Regional’s Neurology Department to meet the high demand for services throughout our service area.
Orthopedic Surgeon Joins Milford Regional Hospital Staff
Geoffrey Stoker, MD, a member of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, joined the active medical staff at Milford Regional. Fellowship-trained in hip and knee replacement at world-renowned New England Baptist Hospital, Dr. Stoker completed his undergraduate studies at Boston College, earned his medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis and completed his orthopedic residency at Tufts Medical Center, where he received the Henry Banks Outstanding Orthopedic Resident Award.
Offering innovative surgical options customized for each patient, Dr. Stoker’s practice and his surgeries at Milford Regional focus on partial and total knee and hip replacement, including revision procedures. He evaluates and treats patients with a variety of hip and knee problems, such as arthritis, avascular necrosis, and other joint conditions. He has a special interest in preoperative optimization for medically complicated patients and enhanced recovery after surgery, including same-day, outpatient joint replacement.
UMass Medical Center Neurosurgeons Join Hospital Staff
Fostered through our valued affiliation with UMass Memorial Healthcare System, UMass Neurosurgeons Ziev Moses, MD, and Justin Slavin, MD, joined the active medical staff at Milford Regional to meet the increasing demand for experts in neurosurgery.
Dr. Moses graduated from Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, New Hampshire with a degree in medicine in 2012. He completed a neurosurgery training program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital through Harvard Medical School. He continued his training with a fellowship in neurophysiology at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School and a second fellowship in neurosurgery – spine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Moses’ clinical interests include degenerative spine disorders, minimally invasive spine surgery and spinal reconstruction.
Dr. Slavin earned his medical degree from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland in 2008, where he also performed a neurosurgery residency. His training continued with a fellowship in spinal neurosurgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Dr. Slavin’s clinical interests include degenerative spine disorders, minimally invasive spine surgery and spinal microsurgery. He is an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
Brigham and Women’s Pain Medicine Specialist Joins Hospital Staff
Milford Regional’s strong partnership with Brigham and Women’s Hospital has paved the way for Dr. Edward Michna to become part of Milford Regional Medical Center’s active medical staff and join Dr. Victor Wang, medical director of Brigham and Women’s Center for Pain Medicine at Milford, in an expansion of our in-demand pain management clinic.
Dr. Michna graduated with a degree in medicine from JMDNJ-Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark, New Jersey in 1991 after earning a law degree from Seton Hall Law School in Newark. Dr. Michna completed an internship at Monmouth Medical Center in New Jersey, and then performed a residency in anesthesia and a fellowship in pain medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He is board certified in anesthesia, pain medicine and palliative care. Dr. Michna is an assistant professor in anesthesia at Harvard Medical School and is the Director of the Pain Trials Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
New Milford Regional Medical Center Physicians
Milford Regional Physician Group 2020 Progress and Recognitions
Focus on Re-Engineering, Telehealth and Recruitment
In a year like no other, the coronavirus pandemic swept our nation as Dr. Patrick McSweeney took over the reins as president of Milford Regional Physician Group (MRPG). Although FY 2020 brought significant challenges to the healthcare system, MRPG was able to quickly adapt to a completely new environment; most notably was the abrupt transition to providing telehealth visits at all MRPG outpatient offices. Providers and staff did an amazing job of re-engineering office practices to accommodate the needs of our community while ensuring the safety of patients and staff. As patients began to return to MRPG practices, staff again adapted quickly to PPE use, implementation of social distancing protocols, and screening of all patients prior to entering facilities, all measures to ensure the safety of both patients and the MRPG team.
MRPG Welcomed New Physicians and Advanced Practitioners
Even during this unprecedented time, MRPG continues to expand access to care through our service area by recruiting many new providers:
- Several primary care physicians joined MRPG this year, including: Karina Reynolds, MD, Community Pediatrics of Medway; Melissa Mahr, MD, Hopkinton Primary Care; Kevin Anderson, DO, Northbridge Primary Care; and Deborah Derderian, DO, MHA, Mendon Internal Medicine.
- Equally successful was MRPG’s recruitment of primary care nurse practitioners including: Elyssar Saad, NP, Franklin Primary Care; Matt Rozanski, NP, McGrath Medical Group; Rachel Lien, NP, Franklin Family Medicine; Nancy Nagda, NP, Community Pediatrics of Milford; Ryan McGovern, NP, Blackstone Valley Family Physicians; Lauren Abric, NP, Bellingham Medical Associates; Noressa Santomenna, NP, and Colleen Ammidown, NP, Hopkinton Internal Medicine & Pediatrics.
- New specialty practices were formed, with the additions of Milford Regional Neurology and Eliezer Sternberg, MD and Aditi Ahlawat, MD; Milford Regional Orthopedics and Geoffrey Stoker, MD; as well as Milford Regional Urogynecology and Diego Illanes, MD.
- MRPG’s Hospitalist program continues to flourish, with the addition of: Ish Gupta, MD; Niharika Singh, MD; Mahawa Sam, MD; Terry Huynh, MD; Heather Gustafson, PA; Samuel Snyder, PA; and Geraldo Silva, NP.
- In Urgent Care, MRPG added Michael Murphy, MD; and Reynold Dahl, MD, who transitioned from primary care. Milford Regional Urgent Care also welcomed Rosemary Kirousis, NP.
- MRPG’s Surgical Physician Assistant Program added: Michelle Ristuccia, PA; Nury Flynn, PA; Ashley Palmer, PA and Bradley Kozub, PA.
- Specialty practices added Jill Vonnegut, NP, to Milford Regional Infectious Disease and Anne Marie Caron, DNP, APRN, ANP-BC, GS-C, to Palliative Care.
Moves
Diabetes Education was welcomed to the MRPG family, with Caron Grupposo and her team moving from the hospital to their new home at 12 Uxbridge Road in Mendon.
MRPG Recognition
Wicked Local/Gatehouse Media once again recognized a number of MRPG practices in their annual Reader’s Choice Awards, including Blackstone Valley Family Physicians, Community Pediatrics of Medway, Franklin Pediatric & Adolescent Care, Franklin Primary Care, and Mendon Internal Medicine. Many MRPG providers were also recognized with this high honor, including Emmett Clemente, MD; Kathryn Cohan, MD; Reynold Dahl, MD; Chantal Dewey, MD, MPH; Carrie DiRamio, MD; Mary Lyons, MD; Erika Pommett, MD; Elena Smagina, MD; and Monica Woodward, MD.
Milford Regional Physician Group has always excelled in quality measures as compared to national and local benchmarks. With the onset of the pandemic, patients’ ability to get preventive screenings and routine testing related to their condition were impacted. Since the reopening of our practices and hospital testing, MRPG’s providers and population health coordinators have been working diligently to get the highest risk patients in for necessary screenings.
Milford Regional Physician Group was named to the Harvard Pilgrim Honor Roll. Harvard Pilgrim selects Honor Roll practices based on their points earned on 15 quality measures across three domains of clinical care affecting both adult and pediatric patients: acute, chronic and preventive care.