Stories

Paul and Mary Reitler met while he was traveling across the country with friends. The two lovebirds carried on a long-distance romance. Paul graduated from Stanford University and they were married while he served in the Navy. After graduating from Harvard Law School, he joined a Los Angeles–based law firm that later grew from a California firm of four offices to an international firm having fifteen offices.

Thanks in large part to philanthropic support, Providence St. Jude has moved into a new era of complex minimally invasive cardiac care procedures. As the cardiac care program seeks to build upon its suite of advanced diagnosis and treatment offerings, the support of the community partnered with a team of preeminent cardiac experts will be key to accelerating growth and propelling the program to new heights of excellence.

St. Jude’s Post-COVID Recovery Program draws upon the same expertise that has made the hospital a national leader in areas from cognitive recovery and chronic pain to cancer rehabilitation. “We don’t know of another program in the state that offers this level of comprehensiveness and innovation,” explains Dr. Covarrubias-Eckardt.

At Providence St. Jude Medical Center there is another option: a miniature clothespin-like device that attaches to the mitral valve to help it close more completely and restore normal blood flow. Called MitraClip, the dime-sized clip is implanted via a catheter threaded through a vein near the hip and successfully prevents the backward flow or regurgitation of blood by fastening together the valve’s leaky flaps.

Katie Monson might have been only twenty years old. But, in that short time, she shared a lifetime’s worth of empathy and compassion.