Glendale Adventist Medical Center

The teen volunteer program at the Glendale Adventist Medical Center is inviting students interested in careers in medicine and nursing to attend a presentation today on careers open to them in healthcare. The speakers will include Dr. Catherine Chern, private practice physician in Glendale and Armen Hatamian, an emergency room nurse at Glendale Adventist Medical Center. The presentation will include what doctors and nurses do on the job, the kind of environment they work in, the schooling it takes to be a doctor or nurse and future job expectation for this career.

Judy Seckler GLENDALE ADVENTIST MEDICAL CENTER -- A new way to cope with the stress of life is just a short drive away. The Rehabilitation Department at Glendale Adventist Medical Center is offering a new massage therapy program. A half-hour massage is $30 and a hour full-body massage is available for $60. The service is available Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and all massage therapists are certified and licensed. A special room in the outpatient rehabilitation section of the hospital has been converted to accommodate the new program, complete with a soothing waterfall, a scent machine and a professional massage table.

Gary Moskowitz Every Tuesday night at 5:30, a small group of pregnant women meet at Glendale Adventist Medical Center to help each other prepare for the day their child is born. The "Fit For Birth and Beyond" class is designed to help expecting mothers limit weight gain, keep energy levels up during pregnancy and help prepare their bodies for labor and delivery. Many of the women who attend come alone and most of them are married and working. The class educates pregnant women on the changes that occur in their bodies during pregnancy, helps reduce stress and pain, and shows them how to handle physical changes that occur.

Hospital hits its fundraising mark The Healthcare Foundation at Glendale Adventist Medical Center announced last week that it reached its fundraising goal of $10 million. The campaign was originally supposed to take about three years but instead took about 2 1/2 . The money benefits the hospital’s new West Tower, a 190,000-square-foot, seven-story building with 60 new patient beds, larger individual rooms, a new intensive care unit and a new emergency department.

AMERICAN RED CROSS GLENDALE-CRESCENTA VALLEY CHAPTER Volunteers are needed for teaching first aid, CPR and defibrillation classes. Prospective volunteers start by attending a New Volunteer Orientation class. For more information, call (818) 243-3121, ext. 117. To enroll in the orientation class or obtain information about all other Red Cross volunteer work, such as reception at blood drives, call (818) 243-3121, ext. 110, or visit www.arcglendale.org. The Red Cross is at 1501 S. Brand Blvd.

Glendale Adventist Medical Center will host a holiday boutique Sunday to raise money for its annual Children's Holiday Party. The holiday boutique will be from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at the Vallejo Drive Seventh-day Adventist Church, 300 Vallejo Drive. The boutique is open to the public. The boutique will offer holiday items and gifts. The holiday boutique funds the medical center's annual holiday party, which provides gifts for about 1,000 needy children in the northeast portion of Los Angeles County, officials said.

Between 1905 and 1915, the average length of stay for patients at Glendale Sanitarium -- the precursor to Glendale Adventist Medical Center -- was 40 days. Today, 100 years later, the average length of stay for Glendale Adventist Medical Center patients is between four and six days -- a testament to just how far a century can take medicine and technology, hospital spokeswoman Alicia Gonzalez said. And it has taken just that long for Glendale Adventist Medical Center -- the oldest hospital in the Glendale-Burbank area -- to grow from its birth in 1905, at the site of a 75-room hotel, to the 400-bed facility that it is today.

Alex Coolman GLENDALE -- The medical group named in a lawsuit alleging fraudulent Medi-Cal billings at Glendale Adventist Medical Center has paid $250,000 to settle the case. The Perinatal Medical Group was named by Dr. Caroline Pieszak, who was a resident in the obstetrics/gynecology program at Glendale Adventist in 1995 and 1996. Pieszak charged that the group and the hospital routinely overbilled Medi-Cal for deliveries during that time. Simple procedures conducted by residents were reported as having been performed by licensed doctors, Pieszak's suit alleged.