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The interior of Medarva West Creek Surgery Center (Photo courtesy Medarva)
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A rendering of Richmond Eye & Ear Hospital in 1951 (Photo courtesy Medarva)
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The exterior of Medarva West Creek Surgery Center (Photo courtesy Medarva)
Little eyes and ears are essential tools of learning.
At Sprout School RVA, they get a free screening before the preschoolers head to kindergarten, courtesy of an initiative of the Medarva Foundation. The pre-K vision and hearing screening program provides reports to Sprout and other participating metro Richmond schools and also to parents for follow-up with a physician.
“The program provides a valuable service,” says Kathleen Eastman, director of child and family development at Sprout School RVA, a mixed-income, early childhood education program offered at two locations through a partnership of the YWCA Richmond and the Children’s Museum of Richmond. “One of the things you want to make sure before kids go to kindergarten is that they can see and hear properly. We have found that kids who have been identified as having vision or hearing problems are more able to be ready for kindergarten.”
Working with the program has been a pleasure, she adds. “They are wonderful to work with. They really have children and families’ best interest at heart.”
The Medarva Foundation was created in 2001 to provide community outreach and research funding. It was originally known as the Richmond Eye & Ear Foundation. The nonprofit has three distinct areas of focus — the preschool vision and screening program, a low-vision clinic and medical research.
The vision clinic works with patients who have a variety of vision problems, including glaucoma and macular degeneration. “Anything that affects a person’s independence,” says Mary Jane Hogue, the foundation’s chief innovation officer.
The foundation also funds scientific research at Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk.
Last year it established a grant of more than $46,000 to help fund research to identify gene mutations that cause craniosynostosis, a birth defect involving the premature closure of one of the four soft spots along the top of a baby’s skull. VCU geneticists Rita Shiang and James Lister are conducting the research with Jennifer Rhodes, director of the VCU Center for Craniofacial Care.
The foundation also provided funds to a VCU study focused on restoring patients’ sense of smell and taste that has been affected by everything from chemotherapy to a brain injury. Previous grants from the Medarva Foundation totaling nearly $700,000 helped VCU School of Medicine professors Richard Costanzo and Daniel Coelho to develop the restoration technology. Funds are also directed toward community outreach programs at Cross-Over Ministries, Virginia Voice and Challenge Discovery.
“At Medarva we see medicine as an art. We practice the art of medical excellence,” says Eddie Edwards, Medarva's marketing director. “It’s a marriage of art and science. It inspires as much as it heals.”
The foundation is part of Medarva Healthcare, which also includes two surgery centers, a physician network and an office building.
During Debra Larkin’s 42-year tenure at Medarva Stony Point Surgery Center, the health care company has transformed from an inpatient facility dedicated to eye health to a multispecialty outpatient surgery center. Larkin, now director of physician services, risk management and compliance, came to Medarva Healthcare when it was known as Richmond Eye Hospital and over the years has watched it grow and diversify.
“When I started, cataract patients were admitted for surgery and stayed a week in the hospital. Their visit included a chest X-ray, a full array of laboratory testing and an [electrocardiogram] prior to surgery. The patient went to the operating room in a hospital gown, and smoking was allowed throughout the facility, except in the operating room,” she says.
Today, all of the surgeries that were once performed in an inpatient hospital setting are completed in an ambulatory surgery facility. “Cataract patients today are in and out in two to two-and-a-half hours. Any testing required is performed before coming for surgery,” Larkin says.
Street clothes are now allowed in the operating room, and recovery time is usually about 15 minutes from the time patients come out of the operating room. “And Stony Point Surgery Center is a smoke-free campus, including the parking lot,” Larkin adds.
The organization’s roots date back to 1937, when Virginia Fox Beveridge stipulated in her will that she wanted to create an endowment for the establishment of an eye hospital in her hometown of Richmond.
Beveridge was partially blind from an eye disease and had to travel long distances for care and surgery. She didn’t want others to face that type of burden just to receive specialty care. When she died in 1945, her wish for an eye hospital took root. Seven years later, on May 12, 1952, Richmond Eye Hospital opened at 408 N. 12th St.
The hospital became a regional referral center and eventually expanded and relocated to 1001 E. Marshall St. It was renamed Richmond Eye & Ear Hospital and employed approximately 50 physicians and about 75 employees. The nonprofit changed names again when it moved to Stony Point Parkway in 2002 and became Richmond Eye & Ear Surgical Specialty Center.
The move and name change were the result of decreasing demand for inpatient surgery. “The majority of inpatient ophthalmic and otolaryngologic surgeries evolved to same-day outpatient procedures,” says Edwards.
In 2004, the specialty center morphed into Stony Point Surgery Center. In addition to ophthalmology and otolaryngology surgeries, it offers an array of services, including adult and pediatric urology, orthopedics, gynecology, dermatology, oral/maxillofacial surgery and interventional spine/pain management. It houses 10 operating rooms, three procedure rooms and a laser suite, a medical staff of 186 physicians, and 154 employees. The center averages 1,200 cases a month.
In 2017, the company opened a second facility, West Creek Surgery Center in Goochland. That complex includes six operating rooms and one procedure room. Services include orthopedics, gynecology, plastics, endoscopy and more.
Supporting Wellness
The Medarva Foundation is one of several nonprofits in the metro area that provide low- or no-cost medical services or fund research. Here are four:
Bon Secours Richmond Health Care Foundation provides funding for a number of programs, including the Cullather Brain Tumor Quality of Life Center, the Evelyn D. Reinhart Guest House at St. Mary’s Hospital campus, and the Noah’s Children program.
Jenkins Foundation is a legacy of the 1995 sale of Retreat Hospital and has a $49 million endowment and has funded $29 million in grants. A supporting organization of the Community Foundation for a Greater Richmond, its 2018 grants included $20,000 for child advocacy training and supervision for Chesterfield CASA and $40,000 to the Better Housing Coalition for senior health and wellness.
Medical College of Virginia Foundation describes itself as the philanthropic steward for VCU Health and manages more than $500 million in assets and some 1,500 funds, in support of scholarships, research and other works.
Richmond Memorial Health Foundation works to improve access to health care and equity in its delivery. Its 2018 grants included $149,791 to the Youth Housing Stability Coalition to target housing instability issues facing youth of color, young refugees and immigrants, and younger LGBTQ+ individuals and $90,000 to the Central Virginia Family Resilency Project, providing substance abuse treatment for about 30 pregnant women or mothers.
