Health & Fitness
Geriatrician receives 2012 Melville G. Magida Award from Fairfield County Medical Association and the Richard and Hindal Rosenthal Foundation
Bridgeport Hospital geriatrician Vivian Argento, MD, has received the 2012 Melville G. Magida Award from the Fairfield County Medical Association and the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation.
Bridgeport Hospital geriatrician Vivian Argento, MD, of Seymour has received the 2012 Melville G. Magida Award from the Fairfield County Medical Association (FCMA) and the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation. The award is presented annually to an area physician under the age of 40 who demonstrates exceptional patient care skills.
Dr. Argento, who is on the staff of the Bridgeport Hospital Center for Geriatrics, accepted the award at an evening reception in Shelton on Sept. 5 and was recognized again at the hospital’s quarterly medical staff meeting on Sept. 6.
“Dr. Argento is a gifted, brilliant physician with the rare ability to combine rigorous academic principles with a deep understanding of, and empathy for, patients and their families,” says Bridgeport Hospital Chief of Geriatrics and Palliative Care Beata Skudlarska, MD. “She is caring and compassionate and never ceases in trying to help her patients and their families.”
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In addition to her daily patient care duties, Dr. Argento is responsible for the creation of Bridgeport Hospital’s Geriatric Fellowship Program. This academic training program, approved in 2008, recently received a positive review from the accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Residency Review Committee, resulting in a five-year accreditation extension—a rare achievement for a newly created fellowship program.
Dr. Argento is also a supervisory physician for Bridgeport Hospital’s unique Geriatric Emergency Medical Service (GEMS), which embeds geriatric providers in the hospital emergency department to serve the needs of older patients.
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“The GEMS program, under the guidance of Dr. Argento, has thrived, and is recognized by patients, families, community service providers and local physicians as a true expression of Bridgeport Hospital’s patient-centered care,” notes Dr. Skudlarska.
Dr. Argento has also been extremely active in the field of palliative care services. In addition to board certification in Internal Medicine and in Geriatrics, she earned certification in
Palliative Care and rapidly became the “go to” physician in the Bridgeport area for hospitalized and ambulatory patients with palliative care needs.
From 2006 to 2011, Dr. Argento served as Secretary for the Connecticut Medical Directors Association, which governs physicians’ responsibilities in extended care facilities, and following formal training in nursing home administration and leadership, she became a Certified Medical Director for nursing homes.
Dr. Argento has authored multiple articles and book chapters, and serves as a reviewer for the Journal of the American Geriatric Society.
“Dr. Argento is the consummate physician who epitomizes excellence in the patient-physician relationship,” adds Bridgeport Hospital Chairman of Medicine Nicholas Dainiak, MD. “She has a keen intellect, deep compassion and an empathetic approach that places the patient and family at the center of health care.”
Dr. Argento is the fifth Bridgeport Hospital physician to receive the Magida Award since it was introduced in 1980. She joins pediatrician Robert Chessin, MD (1987), internal medicine physician/pediatrician Dennis (Dan) Williams, MD (1997), Vice President of Performance and Risk Management and incoming Chief Medical Officer Michael Ivy, MD (2000) and former Chief of Trauma, Burns and Surgical Critical Care Philip Fidler, MD (2005).
