Each year, the WakeMed Foundation’s Community Campaign offers an opportunity to support hospital programs and services. We caught up with Dr. Jim Palombaro, co-chair of the WakeMed Foundation Community Physicians Annual Campaign and President of Wake Emergency Physicians, to talk about why serving WakeMed matters to him.
As an Emergency Room physician, Dr. Jim Palombaro works on the front lines to deliver WakeMed’s mission. “Every day is different in the ER,” says Dr. Palombaro. “You know when you’ll start and you know when you’ll finish, but you never know what’s going to happen in between. There’s nothing structured about it. To be in emergency medicine, you have to be somewhat of an adrenaline junkie.”
Dr. Palombaro has been at WakeMed since 1998, when he left his job as a U.S. Navy physician for an opportunity with Wake Emergency Physicians (WEPPA), the group that staffs all of the hospitals’ emergency rooms. He’s been here ever since.
Dedication to Support
Just two years after starting at WEPPA, Dr. Palombaro became president, and he has led the group for 20 years now. In addition to working in WakeMed’s various ERs each day, he helped plan and open many of our freestanding emergency locations. “One of my first exposures to the WakeMed Foundation was through opening the WakeMed North Emergency Department,” Dr. Palombaro recalls. “The foundation was instrumental in funding that brick-and-mortar project. WakeMed North was one of the first freestanding emergency departments in the country and the first in North Carolina. I was amazed at the Foundation’s dedication to supporting the needs of WakeMed.”
WakeMed North is one of many projects supported by WakeMed Foundation fundraising, and it made an impact on Dr. Palombaro. Since then, “I have seen firsthand as an emergency physician all of the ways the Foundation supports WakeMed’s mission,” he says. “They have helped the Emergency Department tremendously with behavioral health initiatives. People might not realize the amount of behavioral health patients we get each year. With the Foundation’s support, these patients get out of the ER and into the right location for treatment much quicker than before.”
WakeMed Physicians Campaign
Even after putting in long hours, it’s important to Dr. Palombaro to give back — and he chooses his workplace as the organization to support. As co-chair of the WakeMed Community Physicians Annual Campaign, “we reach out to the community of physicians in the WakeMed system to share the WakeMed story. We all work in our own bubbles, and it’s easy to forget all that WakeMed does for the community outside of the patients you care for.”
‘We’re here to take care of everybody’
For Dr. Palombaro, the community and his patients are one and the same. “One of the things that drew me to WakeMed is their care for underserved patients along with everyone else. For years, we didn’t even have a place for insurance information on the ER chart for providers to view, since the care we deliver is not related to the insurance a patient has. The whole purpose is that we’re here to take care of everybody who walks in the door, especially those who have nowhere else to go.”
About Jim Palombaro
Dr. Jim Palombaro is President of Wake Emergency Physicians (WEPPA), which staffs all of the Emergency Rooms in the WakeMed Health & Hospitals system. The emergency medicine physician has been involved with WakeMed on a professional level since 1998. As the co-chair of the WakeMed Foundation Community Physicians Annual Campaign, Dr. Palombaro helps share the WakeMed mission with his fellow physicians, encouraging them to financially support the mission they care about day in and day out. Under his leadership, WEPPA gives annually to the Foundation in order to support their own colleagues. This includes supporting the Skills Scholarship Program, funding that is earmarked for emergency medicine technicians and nurses who want to further their education via conferences, seminars, and other opportunities. “We’re all one team, and this is one way we can help our Emergency Department colleagues.”
About the Community Campaign and How to Get Involved
Each year, the WakeMed Foundation Community Campaign offers an opportunity for the community — for you — to support hospital programs and services. Foundation board members and volunteers raise donations and sponsorships of every amount from existing and new donors. One hundred percent of donated dollars go directly to fund programs and services to support patient care in all areas of the hospital. Creating healing environments. Providing innovative programs. Investing in skilled and compassionate caregivers. Supporting the urgent needs of our patients and families. Donations make it all possible. Your gift truly helps save and transform lives. To join our group of volunteers, email Ashley Stallings at astallings@wakemed.org. Make a gift now.
