September 2, 2015 - Center Rotary Club presented a check to the Catherine Pinkston Roughrider Scholarship Foundation (RSF) during the September 1st Rotary Club meeting. Accepting the $33,000 plus check was Jerry Pinkston, RSF board president. The funds were raised during the Fun for Funds benefit auction held earlier in the year.
Pinkston read thank you letters from Center 2015 graduates who had received scholarships. The RSF has over 2 million dollars and gives students who apply a $1,200 scholarship.
The program speaker for the meeting was Jeff Fatheree who spoke on behalf of CHI St. Luke's Health in regards to their upcoming plans and commitments to East Texas. Though not present, Fatheree introduced Ilyas K. Mohammed, M.D. with the Heart Institute of East Texas and explained Dr. Ilyas's exciting new procedures in heart catheterization to the members of the club.
Dr. Mohammed specializes in Heart and Vascular Care, and is commuting to Center several days a week from his Lufkin office. "We are going to do all our procedures in Lufkin, but all of your followup appointments, just your checkups, your routine care is going to be able to be done here," said Fatheree.
He emphasize the benefit of not having to deal with big city traffic for big city care. He also spoke about future plans, "So, our idea was to come over and provide some care, maybe make it where it is a little closer to home. We're bringing a mobile cardiac imaging unit online probably about the end of October." "CHI's mission is to provide better health care and better health to East Texas," continued Fatheree.
Fatheree ensures all that this is just the beginning of a very bright future with CHI taking a close look at what East Texas needs. A partnership between CHI St. Luke's and The Texas Children's Hospital is also in the works to provide care for children in East Texas. He mentioned CHI St. Luke's Health plans to bring in more specialists, further improving the quality of health care throughout East Texas.
