Hello and Happy New Year to all OHM and BMC Alumni.

This year will see a significant change at the hospital, as construction for the new surgical center in Scarborough nears completion this fall. This means that the Ambulatory Surgical Unit Brighton (ASUB), along with all pre surgical and post surgical services, as well as Central Sterile, is scheduled to move out of Brighton and into the new Ambulatory Service Center (ASC) sometime in September, which is a little ahead of schedule on account of the unusually mild start of winter. It will be sad to see so many familiar faces leave the hospital; this represents the single largest group of alumni remaining at Brighton.

In 2006, there was an opportunity to sign a collection of small rocks that are to be used in the construction of the new ASC. They were located in the surgical administrative office up on third floor, and I believe there was a similar rock collection started over at Bramhall as well. There are pictures of theses, available in ‘Reunion Central’. Currently, the rocks are sitting in a trailer at the construction site, and are destined to become part of an outdoor rock wall. Visit MMC’s website to learn more about the ASC.

What will fill in the empty spaces when the surgical group leaves? Good question. It’s not yet commonly known what plans are in store. Endoscopy may stay put, New England Rehab may need more space, and there’s always the chance that Bramhall campus could send something over to utilize the space. Who knows.

On October 22, 2005, the second alumni reunion party was held at the Elks Club. Once again, there was a large turnout and a good time was had by all. Pictures are available in the ‘Reunion Central’ section of the website. The word is that another reunion may happen some time in 2008, but there no specific plans as of yet.

Another recent event was the surprise retirement party for Mike Harkins in engineering. There were approximately 120 people in attendance for the event at the Keeley Center. A number of folks took their turns at the microphone to recall memories and to roast Mike. Everyone had a great time. We will all miss seeing Mike in the halls of Brighton. Perhaps he will stop in from time to time for a visit. Pictures from the party are not available yet, but I am hopeful that they will become available at some point.

In December, the OHM/BMC Alumni had their annual Christmas get together, and this time it was held in the hospital on the third floor in the Brighton Room. Along with the luncheon, the Jubilee Singers were there. They have a website you can visit at http://www.lighthousejubilees.com. Officer elections were also held, and here are the results: President, Deanna Richardson, V.P., Ann White, Secretary, yours truly, Steve Ramer, and Treasurer, Jackie Fournier. Looks like I’m the new kid on the block.

Over at MaineHealth, Janet Alexander, Director, Affiliate Hospital Relations, has retired from her post, and in her place is Sean Dugan, Director of Special Projects at MaineHealth. One of his roles is to support the Osteopathic Heritage Fund (OHF) Advisory committee. There is now a link on MaineHealth’s website that has information on the OHF. See ‘About Us’, then go to the Osteopathic Heritage Fund link.

The New England Osteopathic Heritage Center (NEOHC), located at The Ketchum Library at the UNE campus in Biddeford, continues to gather materials “that preserve the unique history of the osteopathic medicine profession in the New England region”. Archivist Gay Marks, provides the following: “The New England Osteopathic Heritage Center, located in Biddeford on the campus of the University of New England, is the only site for collection of osteopathic archives outside the Still National Osteopathic Museum in Kirksville, MO. The Center offers researchers and interested visitors an opportunity to use the resources it has been gathering for the past four years.  One the more interesting and special collections at the Center is the material donated by the Osteopathic Hospital of Maine, Brighton Medical Center Alumni Group.  It brings together some very personal remembrances in scrapbooks and photo albums, newsletters from the hospital, photographs and slides, and various artifacts which provide glimpses into the past three decades of the work of the dedicated staff of OHM/BMC.

In addition, the Maine Osteopathic Association (MOA) Collection here at the Center includes a large collection of black and white photos of the earlier years of OHM through its transition to BMC. The photos record the exterior changes of the hospital and there are a large number of interior views; also photos of staff”.

I recently visited NEOHC and watched a 12 minute video that was aired on MPBN television, “The Doctors of Osteopathy”, a history of the osteopathic profession. You can actually view a small screen version of this online at http://www.mpbn.net/maineexperience/segments.html or arrange to view it at the Center. There are also two other videos available at NEOHC, one is called “With These Hands” a 45 minute, 2004 production that was shown at the MOA 100th anniversary conference, and a 15 minute, 1940’s silent film voiced over by Dr. Pettapiece in the 1980’s, which includes a segment of the original OHM.

Patsy Leavitt has provided a copy of the Leavitt’s Mill Health Center 2005-2006 annual report. You can view the report here and don’t forget to visit their website at http://www.leavittsmill.org.

The ohmreunion.com website has been redesigned over the past year. I tried to make the site more user friendly in terms of navigation and organization. The largest addition to the site content in the last year was from several boxes of material that the OHM/BMC Alumni (aka. Golden Club) donated to NEOHC. Before the items changed hands, I was able to borrow them and add some of that material to the site, albeit the tip of the iceberg, yet it still added to over 600 new images, from photos, slides, negatives, scrapbooks, and various publications.

One interesting slide can be seen in the High Resolution Views section. It is 62 State Street, a 65 bed facility which operated as part of OHM from 1944-1946, and you can clearly see the sign on the building, which reads ‘Osteopathic Hospital of Maine’.

Remember that you need to use “bpics2002”, without the quotes, as your password to enter the ‘Reunion Central’ collection. The direct link would be http://www.ohmreunion.com/bpics2002.htm . I recommend that you book mark this address and/or send a shortcut to your desktop.

In 1997 the PreAdmission Unit Brighton (PAUB) opened, utilizing half the space of the original lab. Now that HLA has moved from the lab at Brighton and over to the main NorDx lab in Scarborough, the powers that be have been looking to utilize this vacated space, and so, we may be giving up more floor tiles. Not for lack of work mind you, we do all the draws for New England Rehab, our outpatient business has steadily increased over time, as has work from Chest Medicine Associates. First Care keeps us busy as well. One item, however, has been removed from our menu; bleeding times, now available only at Bramhall campus. For those of you not familiar with bleeding times, it is a procedure originally described by Rogerius, a famed surgeon from Salerno, Italy, in a paper called Practica Chirurgiae (The Practice of Surgery), published in 1180 A.D., shortly before the beginning of the Third Crusade. Basically, you cut the patients’ arm and see how long it takes them to stop bleeding, all the while with a pressure cuff set at 40 mm Hg. You see, bloodletting is just as popular now as it was back in medieval times. But seriously folks…J

This newsletter is mailed to an email address called ohm Newsletter Group, and then blind carbon copied (bcc) to everyone, which prevents all the email addresses from showing up in the header of the email. Remember that if you change your email address, please let me know so I can update my address book and keep your address current in the ‘Email Central’ section if you are listed there. Because I was getting a lot of spam, my address has changed to ohmreunion@gmail.com.

For all those in the surgical group that will be relocating to the ASC in Scarborough this fall, remember that as you clean out your work areas, empty desk draws, closets and cubby holes, keep an eye out for any OHM related materials, knick knacks, trinkets, memorabilia, ephemera etc., etc., set them aside and give me a ring so it can be shared on ohmreunion.com.

A copy of this newsletter will be posted, along with previous ones, in ‘Reunion Central’. In the mood for some light amusement? Checkout the Funstuff link in the ‘Sitemap’.

If you feel you've received this newsletter in error, or wish to be removed from the mailing list, please send an email and simply ask to be removed from the list.

And finally, many of the images you will see are large by design in order to see detail. Internet explorer by default automatically resizes images to fit the screen. Help with this is available on the ohmreunion home page.

Have a great year!