Selber Gift Resulted in Heart Unit ; Special Units to Open at Confederate

              THE SHREVEPORT TIMES Tuesday, June 26, 1973 7rB.
Selber Gift
Resulted in
Heart Unit
When Mandel Selber Sr. died;
in 1967, his widow, Mrs. Annette'
Wiess Selber, wanted some type
of memorial which would be
appropriate for him.
Her immediate reaction, ac-cording
to an earlier interview
with her son Mandel C. Selber
Jr., "was that she wanted to do
something that would advance
the treatment of heart patients
in the Shreveport area."
The $18,000 donated by the
Mandel C. Selber Sr. Memorial
Fund for the Confederate Me-morial
Medical Center's Coro-nary
and Medical Intensive
Care Units was the impetus
which started plans for such a
unit, according to Dr. Marion C.j
Hargrove Jr., head of the
Department of M e d i c i n e at
Confederate and the LSU School
of Medicine.
The money was donated by
the memorial fund and a
supplemental gift given by his
widow.
Selber said his father was a
heart patient 10 years before he
died in Houston after under-going
heart surgery.
"Dad suffered an aneurysm,"
Selber explained, "We couldn't
get to Houston for eight hours
because planes didn't fly."
"He was already in shock by
the time the doctor operated.
The operation was a technical
success, but his kidneys did not
work," he added.
Selber said that he hopes his
family's contribution to'
Confederate will open doors to|
other private contributions.
Mrs. Selber also said that she
wanted the money to go to an
agency with a special need, to
help local people.
Hargrove said the new units
will significantly help provide
for a level of care for critically
fill people at Confederate.
At the time of his death, Mr.
Selber was a director of the
National Retail Merchants Asso-ciation
and held active member-ships
in the Shreveport Rotary
Club, Shreveport Petroleum
Club, Shreveport Masonic Lodge
No. 115, the Shriners, The Elks
and B'nai Zion Temple of which
he was a former director.
Checking The Monitoring equipment at
the nurses station of the new Coronary
Care Unit at Confederate Memorial
Medical Center are (left to right) Dr.
Stephen Glasser, head of the unit, and
Dr. Marion C. Hargrove Jr., head of the
Department of Medicine. (Times Photo
by Billy Upshaw)
Special Units to Open at Confederate
By MARGARET MARTIN
Times Medical Writer
The Mandel C. Selber Sr. mem-morian
Coronary and Memical
I n t e n s i v e Care Units at
Confederate Memorial Medical
Center will open this week,
according to Dr. Marian Har-grove
Jr., head of the Depart-ment
of Medicine.
The units are being named
after Mr. Seller because the
Mandel C. Selber Sr. Memorial
Heart Fund donated $18,000 for
the facilities 'and this original
grant provided the stimulus for
starting the centers," Hargrove
said.
Although at such state centers
as the Texas Medical Center,
Houston, Tex., memorials and
gitts are routine, they are
unusual at Confederate.
Mr. Selber was president of
Selber Bros, when he died in
1967, a position to which he was
detected in 1960.
The initial estimated cost for
the units was $143,234, but bids
for three Confederate projects,
including also the surgical inten-sive
caie units and the radiation
therapy cobalt unit totaled
$604,273.
Hargrove said the new units
will improve patient care and
make a major contribution to
the training program of the LSU
Medical School students, and
Confederate residents and in-terns.
"The units will make it pos-sible
to concentrate the seri-ously
ill patients in one area
with the proper personnel and
other resources necessary for
their total care," he said.
Presently, both heart patients
and seriously ill patients are
kept in the regular wards,
Hargrove said.
The units could be filled the
day they are open, he added.
The four Coronary Care Unit
(CCU) beds are divided into
separate curbicles, all of which
can be watched from a central
nursing station.
The Medical Intensive Care
Unit (ICU) includes six open
rooms and two isolation sec-
I tions. Two nurses' stations can
see into every room.
Monitoring equipment in each
room includes a heartbeat moni-tor
and module capabilities to
check the patient's temperature
i and 'blood pressure.
At each desk is sophisticated
electronic equipment which —
monitors every heartbeat.
In the CCU, for instance,
there is a memory bank to
record each patient's EKG
(heart beat) prior to, during
and after an irregular heart-beat.
After the nursing person-nel
has seen about the patient,
the tape can be kept and played
back.
Monitoring equipment at the'
nurses' station can record the
patient's heart beat prior to the
time he has an irregular beat;
sound an alarm, and print an
EKG (heart beat) tape when the
beat is irregular; and record
the beats of four patients on a
closed circuit television screen.
When a patient in the CCU
needs to be watched wittr
special care, a more sophisticat-ed
monitor can be hooked up to
any one of eight irregularities
which might occur, or a trend
record can be set which tapes
the EKG over a 24-hour period.
Nancy Hess is supervisor of
the units.
Head nurses are Jackie Bos-tick,
CCU; Sarah LeBlanc. ICU
and Jean Durr, relief head
nurse.
Other nurses are Pat Gould,
B r e n d a Grant, Pam Hanna,
Alice Reaux; Ginger Russell;
Sharon Walters, Jim Wheeler,
Kathy Boening, Irene Finklea,
Doris Martin, Kim Beaourgeois
and Margaret Jones. Nurses
aides are Hazel Smith, Pearlet-ta
Smith, Adele Moore, George
Le Mans, Janis Carmack and
Jessie J. Roberts.
Nurses will be involved in an
active in service training pro-gram
on a continuing basis,
Glasser said. Mrs. Bostick is in
charge of the program.
The program will start next
month. Mrs. Bostick said, and
both local and visiting speakers
will discuss the latest tech-,,
niques for nursing.
Most of the nurses have
[completed a five-week, 40-hour
| course which included every
phase of cardiac amd ICU nurs-ing.
The surgical units and the
cobalt therapy units will be
o p e n i n g later this summer,
according to Dr. Rod M. Yea-ger,
director of Confederate.