Welcome to the latest issue of Newton-Wellesley News, which is intended to keep you abreast of exciting advances in care. Despite the unique health challenges presented by COVID-19, we hope you enjoyed a restful and relaxing summer. At Newton-Wellesley, we focused on recovery, welcomed patients back for elective services and recharged for the fall season. We remain safe and ready to serve the community’s needs, as we have since 1885. One change occurred at NWH over the summer: on July 1, I began my tenure as President. I am thrilled and humbled by this opportunity. I believe we are on the cusp of a changing paradigm in healthcare, where more care—and more complex care—will be delivered in community-based hospitals. In this issue you’ll find articles that include: • Q&A in which I discuss my global experiences, first impressions of NWH and vision for its future; • How patients are benefiting from a new procedure A Conversation with Errol designed to prevent stroke; Norwitz, MD, PhD, MBA • Our innovative Resilience Project, which provides behavioral health programs at middle and high President and CEO of Newton-Wellesley Hospital schools in area towns; and ERROL NORWITZ, MD, PHD, MBA, arrived in July • Sophisticated treatment that Joanne Borg-Stein, MD, to serve as President and CEO of Newton-Wellesley Chief of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and Hospital. After growing up in Cape Town, South Africa, her team provide to heal musculoskeletal injuries he went from Oxford University in England to the Boston and pain. area, where he continued his training in obstetrics and Be sure to check out our Upcoming Events Calendar. gynecology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and We hope you’ll join in (virtually!) on Sunday, October Massachusetts General Hospital. Errol settled down in 4, for Hope Walks, our annual cancer care fundraising Newton, where he and his wife, Ann, raised their three event. children. He was a member of the NWH medical staff from We are proud of all we are accomplishing at NWH— 1997-2002 and considers his new position “a homecoming.” and we couldn’t do it without you, our generous community. You allow Newton-Wellesley the When did you first consider opportunity to continue to serve our patients, their becoming a physician? families and our community. Thank you. In high school, I leaned heavily toward the sciences, and Errol Norwitz, MD, PhD, MBA biology in particular. When I was growing up in South President and CEO Africa, schools were not allowed to teach evolution, but I (continued) A Conversation (continued) had a biology teacher who had a copy of “On the Origin of You attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Species” by Charles Darwin—a banned book at the time. Scholar. What was the focus of your studies? A couple of us read it surreptitiously in his office, and it At Oxford, I read for a PhD in Biochemistry, with a forever changed the way I view my place in the world and focus on labor and childbirth. I worked under the the impact and legacy that I want to leave behind. auspices of Professor Sir Alexander Turnbull, Chairman I knew from an early age that I wanted to go into of the Nuffield Department of Ob/Gyn, and a highly medicine. I was the first person in my family to get a regarded scientist. Our philosophy was that, if we could university education, let alone go to medical school. In understand the molecular mechanisms responsible for the European system, which South Africa follows, you birth at term, then we would understand what causes go directly from high school to university, so I started preterm birth. As it turns out, we were wrong. Preterm medical school at the age of 16. I was incredibly young labor is a completely different problem, and we have yet and naïve, but you learn to grow up—and become to find an effective way to prevent preterm birth. responsible—very quickly. During my four years at Oxford, I also played rugby for the “Blues” team. I started playing rugby in South Africa From there, why did you decide to specialize in at the age of five and really enjoyed it, but it is a physical obstetrics and gynecology? and brutal game. I am pleased that none of my kids chose After two years of foundational courses—biochemistry, to play rugby. anatomy, physiology, microbiology, etc.—I headed into One of the expectations of my scholarship was that I my clinical work at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. would return to South Africa to practice and teach. This My first day on rotation, I volunteered to cover labor was indeed my intention when I started. But I met my & delivery and assisted in my first delivery under the wife, Ann, at Oxford. She is from Buffalo, New York, and watchful eye of the head midwife. From that moment, I was an American Marshall Scholar reading for a PhD knew I wanted to go into obstetrics and gynecology. In in History. The two best decisions I ever made were to South Africa, ob/gyn is run mostly by midwives and is not marry Ann and to come to the United States. Ann was a highly regarded as an academic specialty. But I loved it. medical student at Harvard, so I had to figure out a way South Africa has one of the highest preterm birth rates to get into the U.S.—and particularly Boston. in the world, so we delivered a lot of preemies. Sadly, when we tracked these babies after discharge from the You arrived in Boston to complete your training. neonatal intensive care unit, many of them died. I knew Did you think you would remain in the area? even then that, if those kids had been born in Boston, the I was very fortunate to get into the four-year combined vast majority would have survived. This led to my lifelong ob/gyn training program at Brigham and Women’s research interest in the molecular mechanisms underlying Hospital/Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard preterm labor in order to prevent preterm birth. Despite Medical School. I started in 1992 and absolutely loved it. our best efforts, however, around one in ten pregnancies in the United States still ends in preterm birth. (continued) A Conversation (continued) “This is my family’s hospital. We live in Newton and have come to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for our healthcare for more than 20 years. We’ve received exceptional care and haven’t felt the need to go to one of the academic medical centers.” – Errol Norwitz, MD, PhD, MBA I found Boston to be cosmopolitan with a European flavor You’ve said that serving as President and CEO that made me feel comfortable. I had figured that, since of Newton-Wellesley Hospital is your “dream Americans speak English, the culture would be similar to job.” Can you explain why? that of England and South Africa. But the culture here is very different; it took me a while to recognize it and make This is my family’s hospital. We live in Newton and have the adjustments. come to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for our healthcare needs for more than 20 years. We’ve received exceptional Ann and I have grown to love Boston. We went to New care and haven’t felt the need to go to one of the academic Haven for a few years and, although we liked it there, we medical centers. We get the care we need and the experience really missed Red Sox nation. There is something very we are looking for right here, a mile from our house. special about the culture here in Boston, although I still haven’t gotten used to the cold weather. I spent my youth I believe the healthcare of the future in the U.S. is going in Cape Town, which has a temperate climate, much like to look quite different from what we see around us today. Miami or Los Angeles. We spend way too much on healthcare, and our health outcome metrics are average at best. To be cost-effective, You were recruited by Tufts Medical Center to more care will occur in the community—at hospitals like serve as Chairman of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Newton-Wellesley—including by providers who may not Why did you decide to go for your MBA? be physicians. Some care will occur in the home. We’ll engage people earlier in their lives, so we’re not When I accepted the Chair of Ob/Gyn at Tufts Medical trying to prevent metabolic and cardiac disease 30 Center, I realized that I had just been put in charge years too late, after someone is overweight, diabetic of a $22 million business—and I couldn’t balance my and has been smoking for years. If we are going to put checkbook at home. I had never taken a single finance the “health” back into healthcare, we need to provide course in my life. I knew that, to be a good steward of education much earlier in people’s lives and encourage my department, I needed to dig into finance, operations them to engage and take responsibility for their long-term and marketing, so I made the MBA a requirement of my health. It’s my job to show how community hospitals recruitment package. After two years, the department like Newton-Wellesley can add value to the larger Mass was moving in the right direction, and I started the General Brigham system and the health of the population MBA program at Boston University’s Questrom School and communities we serve.