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Peconic Bay Medical Center names first female chairperson

BARBARAELLEN KOCH PHOTO | Peconic Bay Medical Center on Route 58.

For the first time in its more than 60-year history, Peconic Bay Medical Center’s board of directors will be led by a woman. Sharon Patterson, the board’s current vice chairman, will succeed Jesse Goodale III, hospital officials said.

“Sherry brings a wealth of leadership experience, given her many years as a vice chair of the board, her direct involvement in numerous key hospital committees, her commitment to the medical center foundation, her relationship with the medical center staff and her major involvement in our local community,” said hospital president and CEO Andrew Mitchell.

Ms. Patterson is a longtime Riverhead realtor. She’s been a board member since 2000 and is currently its first vice chair. She also serves on the board of trustees of the East End Health Alliance, which links PBMC with Eastern Long Island Hospital and Southampton Hospital.

She is on the Riverhead Rotary board and, in the past, has served on the Riverhead Free Library board.

She and her husband, Stephen Patterson, donated the waterfall garden at PBMC to provide a landscaped, tranquil setting for patients and their visitors.

As part of her new responsibilities, Ms. Patterson will be rolling out a new brand, PBMC Health, Mr. Mitchell said.

PBMC Health embraces the reality that the medical center is more than the sum of its parts — the hospital, skilled nursing facility, rehab and home health care provider, he explained.

“We are now one of the largest sponsors of primary and specialty office medical care in Suffolk County,” Mr. Mitchell said, adding that the hospital has ties to medical offices and institutional facilities from Hampton Bays to the Moriches, and Ridge to Mattituck.

“I am thrilled that Sherry will be our first woman board chair during this exciting and challenging time of PBMC expansion and national health care reform,” Mr. Mitchell said.

Read more in next Thursday’s Riverhead News-Review.

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