Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 23, 1991 TAG: 9103230214
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHARLES HITE MEDICAL WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"We were very pleased to get her," said hospital Administrator Bill James.
Dr. Britt-Marie Carsjo, after waiting two years to get a permanent visa to the United States, will join the hospital's staff in September, he said.
Just last month James announced the hospital had recruited a Northern Virginia obstetrician who would join the hospital staff May 1. That news prompted Dr. Beulah Roblette, a local obstetrician who had temporarily stopped delivering babies, to resume her practice.
"We've gone from zero to three in a very short time," James said. "I'm all smiles."
The hospital officially will reopen its Birthing Center - with 12 maternity beds, 14 bassinets and two delivery rooms - May 1.
The process of recruiting Carsjo began three years ago, James said, when she responded to an advertisement the hospital had placed in a professional journal.
Carsjo was completing a two-year obstetric and gynecology residency at the Medical University of South Carolina and was planning to return to Sweden to begin a private practice.
The doctor had heard good things about Southwest Virginia from two professional colleagues who had decided to work in the United States - one in Blacksburg and one in Lewisburg, W.Va.
Carsjo visited the hospital in April 1988 and said she would be interested in setting up a practice in the area. Then began the tedious process of getting a visa.
First, James said, the hospital had to convince state employment officials that Carsjo would not be displacing an American worker from a job. Then she had to get her visa approved by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. After that it was a matter of her waiting for her turn to leave Sweden. The Swedish government has a quota of citizens that can emigrate to the United States.
"She would check periodically with the consulate to see where she was in line," James said.
Carsjo visited the hospital again in February - at the same time Dr. Darryl Barnes of Alexandria decided to join the hospital staff.
Carsjo, who lives in Stockholm, received her medical degree in 1977 and completed an internship in 1978. In 1983, she completed a 4 1/2-year residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm.
She moved to the United States for a one-year postgraduate clinical fellowship at the University of Oklahoma and then moved to South Carolina for further studies. In 1989, Carsjo returned to the United States for a one-year fellowship in pelvic surgery at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
Alleghany Regional, a 176-bed hospital near Interstate 64 between Covington and Clifton Forge, closed its maternity unit Nov. 2 after Dr. Michael Lassere phased out his obstetric practice. Lassere said last May that the pressure of being one of only two obstetricians in the area had taken too great a toll on his family.
Roblette, saying she couldn't handle the obstetrical workload by herself, said she would also stop taking new patients. About 350 babies were born at the hospital each year.
by CNB