Aloha … from BethC Gifford raises money for March of Dimes
Brookfield resident leading
Gifford's surgery division
Rebecca O'Berry comes to Randolph hospital from Fletcher Allen
RANDOLPH, April 26, 2010 – Brookfield resident Rebecca O’Berry has worked at both the region’s tertiary care centers – Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., and Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington. Now she is putting her extensive health care leadership experience to work for her local hospital and her community.
O’Berry joined Gifford Medical Center this month as its vice president of surgical services, a position that oversees the medical center’s operating rooms, surgical staff and specialty clinics.
O’Berry was born in Maryland and worked in New York and Virginia before moving to Vermont eight years ago. She has a bachelor’s degree in business and management from Vermont College in Montpelier and is about a month away from earning her master’s in health care administration from New England College in New Hampshire.
Throughout her career, she has worked her way through the health care ranks. She was initially a medical assistant, then a referral coordinator, central business office manager overseeing billing and an office manager of a family practice.
She joined Dartmouth-Hitchcock in 2002 as first its regional coding supervisor and then associate practice manager. She spent three years at Dartmouth before accepting a position as assistant director of the department of surgery at Fletcher Allen in 2005. Again, she climbed the ranks, moving to director of medical group training, director of the Women’s Health Care Center and most recently as director of Fletcher Allen’s surgery health care service, overseeing a huge department with an eight-figure budget, multiple locations and 10 supervisors.
She now brings all of that experience to Gifford for much of the same reason she moved to Vermont – to be a part of rural setting.
When O’Berry was contemplating a move, “Vermont at the time had more cows than people and it was the only state capital with no McDonald’s,” she said.
She also needed a more suitable space for her goat, Charlie, said a straight-faced O’Berry.
When she laid eyes on a small farm in Brookfield, she knew she was home. She asked the realtor for the purchase agreement papers before stepping inside the house.
Since she and husband Jerry have added a buddy for Charlie: a second goat, Clara, and also a steer and a cow, Filip and Elizabeth. O’Berry, a mother of three grown children, calls herself an animal and outdoors enthusiast. She hopes to add sheep next to her farm.
And she hopes by working at Gifford – a goal since she moved to Vermont – that she will be making a positive impact in her community. Her desire, she says, is to “give back.”
“My goal is to provide really great quality of care, and have a good time at the same time,” said an upbeat O’Berry.
Surgical services form one division
One way Gifford and O’Berry are working to improve quality of care is by joining the medical center’s third floor surgery and outpatient specialty clinics under one division, so surgery patients receive seamless care from their first office visit to their surgery to their follow-up care.
As part of this realignment, general surgeon Dr. Ovleto Ciccarelli has been named medical director of Gifford’s surgical services division, providing clinical direction to the department and working alongside O’Berry.
Gifford President and Chief Executive Officer Joseph Woodin is enthused to welcome O’Berry and Ciccarelli to their new roles and called the new structure “an exciting time for the organization, as we align and re-focus our resources to provide high quality, seamless services to our surgical patients in the office and hospital settings.”