Medical Practice

Nicholas DeMaria, Sicklerville's doctor, knows better than just about anyone how quickly the community has grown in the last decade. You see, most of the residents are his patients. "We're at 7,000 and counting," DeMaria said. He opened the practice only four years ago and already bulging files line the reception room of his offices on Williamstown-New Freedom Road in Winslow Township. DeMaria came to Sicklerville, once a quiet farming community, in 1986 after finishing his residency at Cooper Hospital-University Medical Center in Camden.

Talk to the doctor with the thick Brooklyn accent about how best to treat patients, and Scott S. Levy shares his "Nordstrom" approach to medical care. "My concept is, you run a medical practice like Nordstrom. You provide patient service, you try to do what's good for patients," said the new vice president and chief medical officer of Doylestown Hospital. "And if you do that, my feeling is, in the long run it will pay off. You treat patients like they're a customer. " Levy, who specializes in kidneys and hypertension, believes Doylestown Hospital, which is expanding with booming Bucks County, is thriving with that approach to patients.

I urge Gov. Thornburgh to veto the underage-drinking bill because of the improper amendment, by which Sen. Joe Rocks (D., Phila.) is attempting to misuse the "certificate-of-need" process in order to deny women their legal right to abortion by crippling clinics. This would be an abuse of the concept of certificate-of-need, which has been used for the last 10 years by health systems agencies. The procedure is an intricate system of checks and balances that has as its purpose the prevention of too large and duplicative hospital buildings, equipment and services in order to reduce health care costs.

A 72-year-old Upper Darby physician who pleaded guilty to illegally prescribing drugs to 14 people was sentenced yesterday in Delaware County Court to 15 years of probation. Edward Freedman, who had agreed in a plea bargain in July to give up his medical practice, was also ordered by Judge Clement J. McGovern Jr. to perform 1,000 hours of community service. McGovern suggested that Freedman perform the community service at a drug treatment center. Freedman, who had practiced from his home in the 300 block of Long Lane for 40 years, could have been sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined $250,000 if he had been convicted of felony drug violations.

HOBBLED BY prostate cancer, a blood disorder and a partly amputated right foot, Dr. Richard Minicozzi, 79, defended himself in a booming voice Tuesday in a federal courtroom, where he was sentenced to seven years in prison for turning his South Philadelphia medical practice into what prosecutors called a lucrative "pill mill. " In selling prescription drugs to his low-income patients, he was trying to help them, said Minicozzi, adding: "I felt sorry for them. Now I'm in trouble. I'm begging at the mercy of the court.

Harold R. Kay, 47, a surgeon and medical professor who pioneered new surgical treatments for heart disease, died yesterday of thyroid cancer at his home in Wynnewood. Though he had been ill for more than four years, Dr. Kay remained active in his medical practice until a month ago. In addition to his medical practice, he was a clinical associate professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. At age 25, he had battled successfully against Hodgkin's disease.

WILMINGTON - Delaware's medical licensing board failed to conduct its own investigation of a suspected pedophile pediatrician 16 years ago after learning that Pennsylvania authorities had been told that he fondled a young patient, according to a report released Monday by the state Attorney General's Office. The fondling allegation was investigated by Pennsylvania licensing officials and Philadelphia police, but no action was taken against Earl Bradley. He was arrested in Delaware in December and is charged with molesting more than 100 of his patients over the last decade.

The first construction in 10 years at Rancocas Hospital in Willingboro began last week with groundbreaking for a 6,000-square-foot expansion to Brachfeld Medical Associates, an internal medicine practice connected with the hospital. Jonas Brachfeld, a founder of the hospital and chairman of its department of internal medicine, said the $1 million project, which will double the 16- physician group's office space, is expected to be completed in six months. The medical practice is the largest affiliated with the hospital, said Mike Lewis, the group's administrator.

The medical license of Kermit B. Gosnell, the West Philadelphia abortion doctor who's been linked to two deaths, has been temporarily suspended in Delaware by that state's Board of Medical Practice. Gosnell's attorney, Michele Allen, and state prosecutors hammered out a consent agreement yesterday in which the 69-year-old physician agreed to the temporary suspension of his state medical license and license to distribute controlled substances, the board said at a meeting later in the day in Dover.

Plans to expand a West Philadelphia medical practice owned by the University of Pennsylvania Health System is drawing opposition from a group of neighborhood residents. Other neighborhood groups support the addition. Dr. David Nicklin, medical director of the practice on Spruce Street near Farragut, said the office wants to relocate its files from 4623 Spruce St. to a building next door, owned by Penn. The additional space also would be used for other administrative purposes.

Karen Feisullin stood in the courtroom and looked at the yellowing ultrasound machine removed from the West Philadelphia abortion clinic of Kermit Gosnell. "I've never seen anything this old, this is an old machine," Feisullin, an obstetrician-gynecologist and a doctor for 11 years, told Assistant District Attorney Edward Cameron. Feisullin was called as a witness for the prosecution as the third week of the murder trial of Gosnell began Tuesday in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court.

Charles A. Ritchie, 87, of Drexel Hill, an obstetrician who delivered hundreds of babies and enjoyed being reminded of that when they grew up, died Saturday, March 9, of an infection at Bryn Mawr Hospital. Dr. Ritchie was well-known in Philadelphia and Delaware County for his longtime practice of obstetrics and gynecology. In 2002, he was honored for 50 years of distinguished service by the Pennsylvania Medical Society and Delaware County Medical Society. He had staff privileges at St. Vincent's Hospital in Southwest Philadelphia, Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in Darby Borough, and Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Drexel Hill.

John C. Esposito, 86, a physician in Springfield, Delaware County, for more than 50 years, died Monday, Feb. 18, of cancer at his winter home in Cape Coral, Fla. A son of Italian immigrants, Dr. Esposito grew up in South Philadelphia. His parents, Charles and Anna, impressed on him the importance of a sound education. After graduating from South Philadelphia High School for Boys and Temple University, he received his medical degree from Georgetown University School of Medicine.

HOBBLED BY prostate cancer, a blood disorder and a partly amputated right foot, Dr. Richard Minicozzi, 79, defended himself in a booming voice Tuesday in a federal courtroom, where he was sentenced to seven years in prison for turning his South Philadelphia medical practice into what prosecutors called a lucrative "pill mill. " In selling prescription drugs to his low-income patients, he was trying to help them, said Minicozzi, adding: "I felt sorry for them. Now I'm in trouble. I'm begging at the mercy of the court.

After 28 years in office, Letitia "Tish" Colombi, the only woman ever elected to the Haddonfield Board of Commissioners and the only female mayor in the borough's history, has decided not to run again. Her term expires in May. Colombi was first elected a commissioner in 1985 and became mayor in 2001. She has been reelected twice since. She will turn 68 next month, and would have been 72 by the end of her next term had she been elected once more. "At 72, am I going to have the same energy I do now?

Samuel F. Rudolph Jr., 80, obstetrics chief at Bryn Mawr Hospital for two years in the 1980s, died Tuesday, Aug. 28, of heart failure at the hospital. Dr. Rudolph retired from medical practice in the early 2000s, his son Richard said. "What he loved most was helping women bring new life into the world," his son said. "He was a very accomplished person in a number of areas," his son said, but "what was very touching about him was that he was so humble. You never heard him talking about it. "It was what he did. It was what he was. " Born in Upper Darby, Dr. Rudolph graduated from Upper Darby High School in 1950 and, with a basketball scholarship, earned a bachelor's degree in premedical studies at Muhlenberg College in 1954.

David J. McAleer, 92, who retired in 2002 after a 46-year medical practice in Delaware County, died Monday, Aug. 6, of heart failure at his home in Hershey's Mill, a retirement community in West Goshen. Dr. McAleer was a surgeon at what is now Mercy Catholic Medical Center in Darby from 1956 to 2002 and at Riddle Memorial Hospital near Media from 1962 while maintaining a practice in Upper Darby, then in Havertown and Drexel Hill. He was president of the medical staff at Mercy in 1985-86 and, in the same term, chairman of its medical board.

Bonnie Offit's medical schooling didn't deal much with the condition known as midlife crisis. After all, she was studying to be a pediatrician; her patients would be a long way from tiring of life's routine. But Offit knows it when she's experiencing it. "This is my midlife crisis, for sure," the 50-year-old Bala Cynwyd mother of two said, laughing, one recent morning as she sat in the frozen-yogurt shop she opened just before Memorial Day weekend in Stone Harbor. It's one of three Bonnie's Toppings stores she has opened in the last year at the Jersey Shore.

In January 1957, Dr. John B. Flick Jr. cut out of the heart of a 9-year-old girl a bullet that had been lodged there for 17 days. "Doctors said every time her heart beat, the bullet pushed against the wall of the heart," the Evening Bulletin reported. "In time, they said, it would have worn a hole in the muscle. " Thanks to Dr. Flick, the spent bullet became a belated Christmas present for the girl. "He followed up on her a couple of years later, and she was doing fine," Dr. Flick's daughter, Louise, said in an interview.