THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 20, 1996 TAG: 9609190165
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 189 lines
It is not quite 10 o'clock on a muggy Tuesday morning. The tiny waiting room of the comfortably cluttered suite of offices on the south side of the College Park Shopping Center is filling rapidly.
In a cramped cubicle just behind the reception desk, Dr. Cynthia Romero - Norfolk Catholic High School class of '85, University of Virginia class of '89 and Eastern Virginia Medical School class of '93 - reads through the charts of the day's patients.
After a year of internship, two years of residency and a nail-biting wait to find that she had successfully completed her American Board of Family Practice exams, she is finally working in the private practice she had long dreamed of.
Now she waits for the office administrator and the senior member of the practice to arrive.
Moments later, Crisanto and Aleli Romero enter through the waiting room, greeting patients and staff as they go.
Dr. Aleli Romero, who has already completed her morning rounds at Chesapeake General Hospital, is ready to see patients.
Her husband, Crisanto Romero, who handles the business end of the practice, will spend his day tackling the never-ending flow of paper work generated by insurance companies and government agencies.
Rising from the crowded desk, their daughter Cynthia - better known as Cyn - moves toward an examining room to see her first patient of the day.
Welcome to life in a most rare form of family practice, a mother-daughter group.
``We don't think there are any others in this area, and there aren't very many anywhere in the country,'' said Cyn Romero.
The partnership is so unusual that it has been written up both in the summer 1996 edition of EVMS Now, the local medical school's quarterly publication, and in the November 1995 American Academy of Family Physicians Report, which goes to family practitioners nationwide.
This September morning, Crisanto and Aleli Romero are relishing in the fulfillment of a long-held family dream: that at least one of their three children would join the practice to which they have contributed nearly 20 years of their lives.
For Aleli Romero, 58, growing up in the Philippines in the years following World War II, any career other than medicine was not an option.
``I was told by my uncle when I was just a child that I would go to medical school. He told me when and where and how,'' she said.
As any well-bred young woman growing up at that time in that place would have done, she followed the family's wishes and got her medical degree.
In the early 1960s, she married Crisanto who, like many Filipino men in those days, had joined the U.S. Navy. Aleli Romero did her internship in the Philippines, then followed Crisanto to the United States.
By 1977 the couple had three young children. Aleli Romero had completed a residency at Portsmouth General Hospital and joined a Norfolk doctor in his private practice.
Today Cyn Romero, 29, looks back and marvels at what her mother accomplished at that time.
``She had the three of us when she did her residency,'' the youngest of the Romero children recalled. ``When she started in practice the group had two offices and admitted patients to two different hospitals. Two offices, two hospitals and three kids. I don't know how she did it.''
If things were difficult at first, they were about to get worse. Soon after she went into practice, before she had even turned 40, Aleli Romero was diagnosed with breast cancer.
It was a time for the Romeros to rethink their future. Aleli went through the major surgery and intensive therapy that constituted breast cancer treatment at that time, then began a solo practice in the same suite of offices from which she still works.
With the demands of his wife's illness and the growing family, Crisanto Romero made the decision to leave the Navy. When Aleli Romero started her solo practice, he was there to handle the business end of what was already becoming a family firm.
It has been his dedication, every bit as much as hers, that has made it all work.
As the children grew and the practice expanded, life was good for the Romeros.
Mary, the oldest child, became a senior research assistant in the biotech field and Al, the only son, went into the retail business. Nearly 2,000 people now consider Aleli Romero their family doctor. Many of them have been with her since she first opened her office in the 1970s.
With her daughter following her, Aleli Romero enters an examining room where Walter Butler Sr., a retired school custodian from Chesapeake, waits to be seen.
``I have someone very special I want you to meet,'' says the woman who has been Butler's family physician for nearly 20 years.
He smiles broadly as Aleli introduces Cyn. The introduction is not really necessary. ``I remember when you were just a little girl running in and out of here,'' he tells her.
Cyn Romero returns his smile, not at all embarrassed by patients' memories of her as a child. Professionalism softened by a very personal touch becomes apparent as she gets down to the serious business of making sure that Butler stays healthy.
A few days later, dressed casually, Cyn Romero stretched out on a sofa in her parents' comfortable Kempsville home and talked about what going into practice with her mother has meant to her.
Without her white lab coat, she looked considerably younger than her not quite 30 years.
But anyone put off by her apparent youth has only to talk with Dr. Cyn Romero, read her professional resume or watch her with a patient to understand that this is a fully trained, highly dedicated physician.
She is a young woman full of - and in love with - life.
``I'm interested in everything,'' she said with a laugh. ``My mother says I'm like garlic. I'm in every meal.''
As an undergraduate at U.Va. she participated in everything from cheerleading to research to establishing the university's Organization of Young Filipino Americans.
At EVMS she worked with Operation Smile, founded a student escort service, was co-editor of the class section of the yearbook, served on the student council and was class president for three of her four years.
At Riverside Family Practice Center in Newport News, where she completed her residency, she coordinated the Monthly Journal Club and a community lecture series, won the Mead Johnson Award for Graduate Education in Family Practice (given to only 20 residents annually) and made a name for herself with staff and patients as a gifted young physician.
``She's a fantastic doctor, one of a kind,'' said Mary Ann Johnson, a registered nurse who worked with her at Riverside for two years.
Johnson's words are strikingly similar to those used by Cyn Romero to describe her mother.
``She's the fantastic one,'' she said. ``Her patients just love her.'' The love is obviously mutual. Both Drs. Romero smile often as they speak fondly of the public Aleli has served for nearly 20 years. ``Her practice is just filled with very kind people,'' Cyn Romero said, forgetting for a moment that the practice is now hers as well.
Even so, it was never a given that Cyn Romero would join her mother in the practice. The senior Romeros wanted to give their daughter every chance to make up her own mind about whether or not she would become a doctor and, if she did, what type of medicine she would eventually practice.
Early in her undergraduate years, she almost opted for another career.
``You'll have to make up your own mind,'' her mother told her. ``We can't make that decision for you.''
It wasn't until late in her residency that Cyn Romero made the decision to join her mother in the practice of family medicine.
When she did, she made her announcement in the most professional of ways.
She sent her mother a certified letter asking her to dinner so that they could discuss details of the new partnership. It was over that dinner at Norfolk's Omni hotel that they became the firm of Romero and Romero.
On the Tuesday morning of her second week as a privately practicing physician, Cyn Romero takes just a bit of teasing from a patient, John McLin.
``Good morning, Doctor,'' McLin says, ``let me be the first to welcome you back from vacation.''
Cyn Romero laughs, mindful of the extra couple of weeks she took between board exams and starting work, during which she indulged herself in a trip to Mexico.
McLin and his wife, Doris, who is also waiting to be seen, are longtime Romero patients. Beyond that, they have a very personal interest in the new young doctor. Their daughter, Ann McLin Mead, had taught Cyn Romero at Norfolk Catholic and they have closely followed her journey through college, med school and residency.
Doris McLin smiles warmly. ``I think it's just wonderful for a mother and daughter to be in practice together,'' she says.
A few minutes later, Cyn Romero takes a few moments to reflect on what her life is like at this point.
``I'll be 30 in February,'' she says. ``I'm not even 30 years old and yet I've walked into this wonderful practice that can satisfy me not only financially but in terms of giving me a rewarding profession. The patients come to me because they need me, they're seeking help, they're seeking my advice. What more could I want?'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by D. KEVIN ELLIOTT
Color cover photos
Dr. Aleli Romero, above, stands in the doorway of her office as her
daughter, Cynthia, talks with her father, Crisanto Romero. Later,
Dr. Cynthia Romero examines a patient.
Photos
Dr. Cynthia Romero, left, and Dr. Aleli Romero speak with longtime
patients Doris and John McLin. Their daughter, Ann McLin Mead,
taught Cynthia at Norfolk Catholic.
Dr. Aleli Romero has been in private practice for nearly 20 years;
Crisanto Romero left the U.S. Navy to run the office; Cynthia
Romero, 29, decided late in her residency to join her mother's
practice.
Cynthia listens to the lungs of longtime patient Walter Butler. ``I
remember when you were just a little girl running in and out of
here,'' he tells her.
Cynthia's move to the family practice is the fulfillment of a dream
for Crisanto, left, and Aleli. He spends his day - in good humor -
tackling the never-ending flow of paper work generated by insurance
companies and government agencies. by CNB