Morristown - Medical oasis

Last Friday one of my fingers came off second in an encounter with a small circular saw. Since that time I’ve fielded the question “Why did you drive all the way home from Stony Point, NY, to go to the hospital?” at least 7 times.

It is about an hour’s drive back to Morristown from where we keep our boat.  And that’s a long time to wonder about a finger that’s met high speed carbide and come away the worse for it (even if your humming “I fought the Saw and the Saw won, I fought the Saw and the Saw won...).  However, we’re talking about Morristown now, the place where the greatest medical professionals in the country come to die, or at least to live out their middle years.  That’s worth a little time and bleeding.

After doctors spend years learning their trade, labor ceaselessly among the patients and floors of great houses of medicine like New York Presbyterian, Sloan Kettering, Mount Sinai and lots of others in the city, they yearn for respite.  Often they come just 30 or so miles out of the city to settle in Morristown and surrounding area for a nicer place to live.  In fact they do that a lot, if the certificates that adorn the walls of the medical offices around town are any testament. 

It makes our little community the hub of medical activity for Northern New Jersey and one of the best places in the country to get sick or injured.  Anyone who’s walked the sprawling endless halls of Morristown Memorial or just stood back as it’s grown explosively over the years knows Morristown is a powerhouse of medical talent.  There are over 910 listings for doctors offices in Morristown, not individual doctors mind you, just offices.

The hospital is a regional trauma center and although it has less than 700 beds, they admit over 34,000 people each year and more than 80,000 visit the emergency room.  It is a teaching hospital and has been ranked as one of the best facilities in the country in 9 different specialties. 

It’s not just the doctors, It’s the nurses and all of the other professionals that make Morristown a medical mecca.  In fact, I’ll put our nurses and physicians assistants against any in the whole country.  Polite, professional, experienced and generous with their care and understanding, they are the ones who make the entire medical center function so smoothly.

The testament to that is upon arrival, I was conducted through initial evaluation and within 15 minutes was sitting in my own little curtained off treatment room.  It’s a fast and efficient place.  Constantly attended by doctors and nurses I hardly had time to take advantage of the large quiet space and cable TV.  In a short time Dr. David Evdokimow, the “Hand man” on duty, was distracting me from “Gold Rush Alaska” as he smoothly put my finger back together.  He did such a good job I’ll have to trash all my designs for the ultimate cyber-finger.  Darn, I was really looking forward to multiple attachments.  Shortly later I was on my way again, bandaged and better.  That’s why I drove all the way from Stony Point, to be on the mend by dinner time.

I may have spent far too much time in the hospital over the years, contributing at least 3 to the over 4000 babies born there each year, plus various other family injuries and conditions, but I’ll keep coming back as long as I can make it.  It’s a place where I know I’m safe and will be well cared for.