Support our Sponsors
Sleepy Hollow Tarrytown St. Patrick's Day Parade - Gullotta House
Community News
Health News
Lifestyles

Phelps Hospital Educators Provide Emergency Training Overseas

• Bookmarks: 137


January 4, 2017

by Rick Pezzullo

Since 2009, educators from the Hoch Center for Emergency Education at Phelps Memorial Hospital Center in Sleepy Hollow have formed a special bond with a little-known country in the southern slopes of the eastern Himalayas to provide medical training overseas.

(Above) Anne Castioni and Emily Kaplan of the Hoch Center for Emergency Education, where a simulated ambulance (left) is used during training sessions. —Photos by Rick Pezzullo
A simulated ambulance  is used during training sessions.
—Photos by Rick Pezzullo

In early November, Anne Castioni and Emily Kaplan spent two weeks in the Kingdom of Bhutan, a nation of 750,000 people, training 131 physicians and nurses on American Heart Association resuscitation techniques for adults and children.

Support our Sponsors
Gym Cats - gymnastics in Westchester County

“They’re very appreciative of what we provided them,” said Castioni, Emergency Medical Education Coordinator for the Hoch Center who has made the 25-hour trip to Bhutan three times since 2012. “They try to reuse everything. You just have more of an appreciation of what you do have (here) in terms of people and supplies.”

“It was amazing to see the emergency training we provided in 2014 and the way it’s being utilized now,” said Kaplan, who first traveled to Bhutan in 2014. “They have a much more holistic approach to medicine. They’re very forward thinking. It’s one of the most international countries I’ve ever been to.”

The Hoch Center for Emergency Education, which has 45 adjunct professors, opened in 2007 and was the “brainchild” of Dr. Emil Nigro, according to Castioni.

“He had the vision and foresight to see the need for emergency training at a community level,” said Castioni, who has been a paramedic for 36 years. “He fought tooth and nail to get the funding he needed.”

Area resident and philanthropist Lisina Hoch and her husband, Frank, helped jumpstart the construction of the 7,000-square-foot training center at Phelps, which bears their name, with a donation of $500,000. They were also instrumental in initiating the relationship between Phelps and the Bhutan Foundation.

“They gave us an opportunity to have an international footprint,” Castioni said of Lisina and Frank Hoch.

(Above) Anne Castioni and Emily Kaplan of the Hoch Center for Emergency Education, where a simulated ambulance (left) is used during training sessions. —Photos by Rick Pezzullo
Anne Castioni and Emily Kaplan of the Hoch Center for Emergency Education.
—Photos by Rick Pezzullo

During the first trip to Bhutan, which is bordered by Tibet and India, in 2012, Hoch Center educators taught 27 people. That number increased to 108 two years later.

Having an emergency education facility on the hospital campus, equipped with a simulated ambulance, makes Phelps a rare exception in the region, according to Castioni and Kaplan.

“It’s very unusual, very unique,” Castioni stressed. “Most hospitals don’t provide this service.”

Kaplan said the Hoch Center for Emergency Education trains individuals from other hospitals in Manhattan, New Jersey and Connecticut, along with Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties.

“People come from all over locally,” said Kaplan, who has been a paramedic for the last 15 years.

“Whatever people call us for we try to provide,” Castioni said. “We are the content experts in emergency care.”

Read or leave a comment on this story...


Support our Sponsors
  • Andrea Martone - Sleepy Hollow real estate
  • Newington Cropsey Birds 2025 art show
  • Piccola Trattoria open for brunch - Dobbs Ferry

Art Will Imitate Life When Chazz Palminteri Brings His Heralded One-Man Show To Music Hall

By W.B. King -- Leaders of the free world, titans of industry and notorious gangsters often share a common interest—subscribing...
Read More

Dobbs Ferry Resident Nominated for Television Academy Award

By Rick Pezzullo--- A 2020 Dobbs Ferry High School graduate has been nominated for the Television Academy Foundation’s 44th College...
Read More

County Hands A Big Check To The JCC On The Hudson

This past week, the Shames JCC on Hudson, which is located in Tarrytown but serves communities all along the lower...
Read More

Jenkins Wins Special Election for Westchester County Executive

By Rick Pezzullo--- Ken Jenkins will continue as Westchester County Executive for at least the rest of the year, easily...
Read More

America the Odditorium

AMERICA THE ODDITORIUM: Oh beautiful for spacious skies and penis bones By Krista Madsen Desperately seeking some comic relief, I thought I’d...
Read More

SH Wrestling Program Grappling to Return to Glory Days

By Tom Pedulla--- A wonderful memory of an extraordinary accomplishment has given way to a wrenching turn of events for...
Read More

Condition of Hudson River Focus of Irvington Forum

By Jeff Wilson--- The educated audience came to the Irvington Library to inquire about the health of Mother Nature’s beautiful...
Read More

Legislation Proposed to Extend SH’s Stewardship of Kingsland Point Park

By Rick Pezzullo--- Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins introduced legislation last week to extend the Inter-Municipal Agreement (IMA) with the...
Read More

Handmade Snowflakes Bedeck Sleepy Hollow’s Beekman Ave.

By Elizabeth Tucker—           When artist Kersten Harries was cleaning out the house she had just...
Read More

Elmsford Woman Sentenced for Loan Fraud Scheme

By Rick Pezzullo--- A nurse practitioner from Elmsford who stole the identities of 12 medical doctors and orchestrated an $11.2...
Read More
137 recommended
3170 views
bookmark icon