News Archive 2005

Hospital honors doctor serving in Iraq
The Journal News
Brian J. Howard
August 26, 2005

CORTLANDT MANOR - The first time Dr. John A. McGurty was called to active duty 23 years ago, his wife Kathy stayed behind with two baby daughters and a new house in Virginia. She had only the friendship and support of other Navy wives to help her through.

"That was a hard deployment. You were by yourself," she said yesterday. "Here I have a whole community that watches out for me."

Her husband, a 52-year-old Navy reservist with a private practice in their hometown of Peekskill, left in January for Iraq. A flight surgeon, he is assigned to a Marine unit at Al Asad Airfield west of Baghdad.

He is expected to return home in November, though his wife said that's no guarantee. Still, she couldn't help but feel positive about her husband's service yesterday as she helped unveil a Hudson Valley Hospital Center flag her husband took to Iraq and had flown in Baghdad, Fallujah, Al Asad and Ramadi.

The flag will be permanently displayed in the hospital's newly revamped emergency department, which officially opened yesterday. John McGurty is the department's assistant director.

"His unparalleled commitment to his patients and this community is a tribute to the medical profession and a model for future generations," hospital President John Federspiel said before the unveiling.

Emergency room patients at Hudson Valley can now expect immediate triage and treatment in the new "no-wait" department. Medical and insurance information is entered into rolling computer stations by staff during and after treatment. Entergy Nuclear Northeast, the owner of the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, contributed a $500,000 matching grant for the project, which cost $980,000 and took about two months to complete. The work was part of a $35 million expansion planned at the hospital.

Dr. Raymond Iannaccone succeeded McGurty as director of the emergency department two years ago. Following the flag unveiling, he gave tours of the emergency department. He described McGurty as part of the fabric of the hospital and the community, and said McGurty would be gratified by the revamped facilities. He also speculated that his friend was holding up well in spite of the realities of war.

"I think he's faring fine," Iannaccone said. "John McGurty does not get fazed whatever the environment. He manages to deal with it and get by fine."

Kathy McGurty said her husband travels regularly between Al Asad and an outpost five to 10 miles from the Syrian border. His quarters in an abandoned train station amount to a cot inside a windowless bunker with a single lightbulb. With no running water the last few days, he has had to shower with bottled water, she said.

She has little communication with him when he is at the outpost, though they otherwise speak by telephone every few weeks. They exchange e-mails frequently, mostly so she can share news from home.

The couple celebrated 28 years of marriage Aug. 6. They now have three grown daughters, including one who will attend Navy flight school in the fall.

Kathy McGurty said her husband appreciated the support friends and neighbors have shown her in his absence. They include members of the Peekskill and Mohegan Lake fire departments and the Peekskill Police Department, for which he is the official surgeon, and his partners who are picking up the slack at his private practice.

"It's very reassuring (to him)," she said. "It makes what he has to do so much easier not having to worry about what's going on here."

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