A Heart Doctor Is Remembered for His Heart
He was a doctor who practiced personalized care in an age that places a premium on express medical treatment.
He made house calls, spent hours at bedside talking with patients and their families, waived his fees for those who could not afford them and gave some patients a ride to the hospital if they had no other way to get there.
John Negley Goodwin was a cardiothoracic and vascular surgeon at Glendale Memorial Hospital and co-founder of the Heart Center there.
Many said his Nov. 4 funeral was a service befitting a dignitary. About 1,400 people crammed into St. Bede the Venerable Catholic Church in La Canada Flintridge to mourn his sudden death at the age of 56.
He died Oct. 30, 1998, in Orlando, Fla., where he had been attending a medical conference. He suffered a fatal irregular heart rhythm while exercising in the hotel gym.
At the hospital, Goodwin knew nearly everyone by first name, from the gardeners to administrators to medical staff. “I’ve never seen anybody so loved and respected,” said Glendale Memorial nurse Kathy Sugar, who worked for 20 years with Goodwin. “He was one of a kind.”
Three months after his death, those touched by him are responding with two events, appropriately during National Heart Month, that will help perpetuate his legacy. A hospital-sponsored dinner Saturday at the Ritz Carlton Huntington Hotel in Pasadena and a “Whopper of a Luau” on Feb. 12 will raise funds for an endowment in the physician’s name.
“He was the kind that touched,” said Larry Cimmarusti, 50, who, along with his brother Ralph, is organizing the luau. The brothers credit Goodwin with saving their parents’ lives when he performed heart surgery on them.
“When my mom had surgery, he called us every 15 minutes from the surgery room to tell us what was going on,” Larry Cimmarusti said. “You know what comfort level that [gave us]? We were overwhelmed.”
Goodwin’s compassion and work ethic were infectious, according to the nurses with whom he worked. He wouldn’t think twice about helping a nurse turn a patient or get blood from downstairs.
Clutching a laminated picture of a smiling Goodwin that she and other hospital staff members wear on chains around their necks, nurse Armida Schneir vowed, “I will forever wear this picture of him.”
The physician, trained at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, had less compassion, however, for health insurance companies.
“I’d hear him on the phone. He would say, ‘You can’t do that. That’s not good for the patient,’ ” recalled Dr. Santo Polito, medical director of the Glendale Heart Center and a longtime friend of Goodwin. “He was a real patient advocate. He was tenacious. And he would win.”
But Goodwin’s unwavering dedication to patient care was not without personal sacrifice. His family said he would survive on four hours of sleep. He rose early, made rounds, attended morning Mass every day, performed surgery, made house calls and made more rounds.
He generally arrived home about 10 p.m. and before taking even a bite of his dinner, he would call a list of patients at their homes to check on them, said his wife, Janet.
Goodwin was a loving father, his family said, but his wife of 32 years shouldered much of the raising of their four children, now ages 20 to 31.
“How do you get mad at a guy who’s out saving humanity?” said Janet Goodwin, who lives in La Canada Flintridge with their daughter Kate and son Daniel, a USC Medical School student.
The family, together with the Glendale Memorial Foundation, the fund-raising arm of the nonprofit Glendale Memorial Hospital, has established an endowment in John Goodwin’s name. It will fund scholarships for health care professionals at Glendale Memorial who wish to further their education and who exemplify the late doctor’s “spirit of caring and compassion and the highest quality of medical care.”
