Call them Dr. Feelgoods!
Medical staffers swapped their scrubs for tuxedos and gowns, and partied up a storm at New York Methodist Hospital’s annual Candlelight Gala on May 14, and frolickers say the knees-up was just what the doctor ordered.
“It was a very festive evening, everyone was happy, and I’m already looking forward to next year,” said Laurice Najjar, a 35-year volunteer at the Park Slope hospital.
Guests, staffers, vollies, trustees, and friends headed to the Brooklyn Museum to revel and raise cash, but stuck to the prescription for the evening — putting the “fun” in fund-raising.
The natty glitterati slurped cocktails, plied its luck in a raffle, tucked away a lip-smacking dinner, and boogied to live music from Brooklyn’s own Dylan Matthews Band. Roving caricature artists immortalized the merrymakers, who enjoyed a special dance performance and squeezed in a salute to a pair of honorees.
Board of Trustees chairman Rev. John E. Carrington was the first hospital trustee to become a two-time recipient of the James Monroe Buckley Award, commemorating the pastor who, after losing a friend to a tragic accident, persuaded the Methodist Church to build a hospital in Brooklyn in the 1880s.
Cardiologist Dr. David R. Schifter received the Lewis S. Pilcher Award, celebrating the founding editor of the Annals of Surgery — the oldest surgical journal in continuous publication in English since 1885.
The men were honored for their professional accomplishments and distinguished contributions to the hospital, said president and chief executive officer Mark J. Mundy.
“Rev. Carrington has been an exemplary chairman of our Board of Trustees for over 35 years and Dr. Schifter, who served as president of our Medical Board, has been a dedicated physician and mainstay of our medical staff for three decades,” Mundy said.
