Sinai Hospital

The first baby born at Sinai Hospital during Sunday's Ravens game is going to get a little contribution toward their financial future. The Northwest Baltimore hospital is going to give a $3,000 savings bond to the first baby born after the kick off of the game against the New England Patriots. The hospital sees the gift as a way to celebrate the Ravens' success and cheer them on during the playoffs. "That baby will literally be able to say he or she was born a Ravens fan," said  Neil Meltzer, president and COO of Sinai.

A man was shot in Woodlawn in Baltimore County on Friday night, according to police. City police first responded at about 7:30 p.m. to reports of a man shot near the intersection of Liberty Heights Avenue and Powder Mill Lane, which is near Powder Mill Park and just inside the city line, according to Det. Jeremy Silbert, a city police spokesman. After determining the man had actually been shot nearby in Baltimore County, they turned the case over to county police, Silbert said.

Elsie Scheye, a longtime Sinai Hospital lab technician known to generations of interns, residents and patients as "Dr. Elsie," died Sunday at Stella Maris Hospice after hip surgery. She was 82.In 1988, Mrs. Scheye, who held a medical degree from the University of Hamburg in Germany, retired from the pediatrics laboratory at Sinai, where she did blood analysis. She spent another year as a Sinai volunteer before Alzheimer's disease forced her to quit."My mother was very devoted to Sinai; she worked there for about 30 years and everybody knew her," said Thomas Scheye of Baltimore, acting president of Loyola College.

Some Ravens fans probably wanted to cry like babies when their team lost Sunday's playoff game against the New England Patriots . But one Baltimore baby had reason to smile after the game, even though she's too young to realize it yet. Shaina and Gershom Segal gave birth to a little girl at the Herman & Walter Samuelson Children's Hospital at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore the same night as the game. She'll get a $3,000 savings bond as part of a contest by the hospital to reward the first baby born after the start of the game.

W.A. Schneckenburger, 75, Sinai Hospital official Walter A. Schneckenburger, Sinai Hospital's retired chief financial officer and a health care consultant, died Sunday of a brain tumor at his Towson home. He was 75. Born in New York City, he attended Princeton University and earned a degree in accounting from St. John's University in 1963. During World War II, he served in the Army as a sergeant in a tank battalion. He attended the Nuremberg war-crimes trials. After moving to Baltimore in 1969, he became Sinai's controller and retired 12 years later to open his health care consulting business.

Dorothy V. Kerger, a retired hospital administrator and volunteer, died of a heart attack Friday at Howard County General Hospital. She was 87. She was born Dorothy Virginia McCracken and raised in Cooksville, and was a graduate of Howard County public schools. The former Randallstown and Roland Park resident was married in 1941 to Joseph Carlton Kerger. Her husband, a carpenter, died in 1964. Mrs. Kerger was an administrator at Sinai Hospital from 1967 until her retirement in 1987. She was a 15-year volunteer with Union Memorial Hospital and Northwest Hospital Center.

In a second layoff in three months, Sinai Hospital has given pink slips to about 20 management employees, including the vice presidents for marketing and human resources and four directors.The new reductions, which have been rumored for the last week, were confirmed yesterday by Paul Umansky, the public and community affairs director for the city's third largest hospital.Jan. 18 was the last day of work for some of the employees affected. Others are still working, but are expected to leave this Friday.

Jacqueline Patricia Dawson, a longtime switchboard operator at Sinai Hospital, died of cancer Saturday at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. She was 71. Born Jacqueline Wright in Cambridge, she moved to Baltimore with her mother at the age of 8 or 9 and graduated from Catholic High School, where she never missed a day, said her daughter, Mary Wright of Parkville. She spent most of her life in Ednor Gardens. After a number of years as a homemaker and then as a telephone operator for an apartment complex in Baltimore, she worked for Sinai Hospital almost 25 years ago. She started as a clerk in the gift shop, then became an operator in the communications department 10 years ago. "She did the announcement at the end of the day when everybody had to leave," her daughter said.

Sylvia L. Feldman, who was known as the "head nurse" of rTC Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, garnered the respect and affection of nurses, physicians and patients during her 42-year career.Mrs. Feldman, formerly of Northwest Baltimore and a resident of Deerfield Beach, Fla., died Aug. 4 of heart failure at Sinai Hospital. She was 86.Mrs. Feldman, who began her nursing career in 1931, had retired in 1973 from Sinai Hospital, where she had been the hospital's first nursing supervisor. Her duties included hiring nurses for the hospital.

Dr. Harold Sussman, a retired Baltimore surgeon whose career at Sinai Hospital spanned nearly a half-century, died from stroke complications there Tuesday. The Pikesville resident was 81. Dr. Sussman was born in Baltimore and raised on Bryant Avenue. He was the son of Jacob Sussman, co-owner with Carl Lev of Sussman and Lev's Delicatessen in the 900 block of E. Baltimore St., and he worked in the business during his high school and undergraduate years. "While working there, he learned how to be a surgeon while cutting up turkeys and putting them back together again," said a daughter, Amy S. Scherr of Mount Washington.

The first baby born at Sinai Hospital during Sunday's Ravens game is going to get a little contribution toward their financial future. The Northwest Baltimore hospital is going to give a $3,000 savings bond to the first baby born after the kick off of the game against the New England Patriots. The hospital sees the gift as a way to celebrate the Ravens' success and cheer them on during the playoffs. "That baby will literally be able to say he or she was born a Ravens fan," said  Neil Meltzer, president and COO of Sinai.

Ruth L. Thomas, whose philanthropic interests ranged from medical and educational institutions to helping newly arrived immigrants, died Wednesday of complications from a stroke at Springhouse Assisted-Living in Pikesville. Mrs. Thomas would have celebrated her 98th birthday this coming week. The daughter of Jacob Legum, founder of Park Circle Motor Co., and Rose l. Legum, a homemaker, Ruth Legum was born in Norfolk, Va., and moved with her family to Fairview Avenue in Forest Park in 1917.

Benjamin Herman, a free-lance writer and author whose stories of ordinary people and daily life in Jewish East Baltimore and industrial Dundalk entertained newspaper readers for more than 60 years, died Monday of a cardiac arrest at Sinai Hospital. He was 84 and had lived in Towson for the past decade. If author John O'Hara had Gibbsville, Pa., William Faulkner Oxford, Miss., and Isaac Bashevis Singer the ghettoes of Eastern Europe, then Mr. Herman's milieu was Dundalk and the East Baltimore neighborhood where his grandparents lived and whose atmosphere and tales he absorbed as a young boy. "I have been to Europe, Russia, Africa, the Far East and South America," Mr. Herman told Contemporary Authors Online in 2001.

Baltimore County police were searching for four men after a man was found shot in the basement of a Randallstown home Friday evening. Officers were called at about 5 p.m. to the 3500 block of Corn Stream Road, where they found a 20-year-old man who had been shot. He was taken to Sinai Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said. Police were searching for four men in their late teens. No additional information was immediately available. jkanderson@baltsun.com Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

Neil Meltzer is known in Baltimore circles as the head of Sinai Hospital, but he has also become a player in shaping health care reform. Meltzer has been chosen as one of 15 people to serve as a member of the Government Accountability Office's National Health Care Workforce Commission. Meltzer, chief operating officer and president of Sinai Hospital and senior vice president of LifeBridge Health, was told this month by Gene Dodaro, acting comptroller general of the United States and head of the GAO, that he had appointed to the commission.

Tents framed the entrance to Meyerhoff Symphony Hall for "The Magic of Life Gala," the biannual fundraiser for LifeBridge Health. Inside the tents and the Meyerhoff's lobby, guests were greeted by event chairs Joseph and Annette Cooper , Jon and Susan Levinson and John and Laura Shmerler . With more than 1,000 guests in attendance, that meant lots of hugs and air kisses. Lucky recipients included: Lowell R. Glazer , Sinai Hospital board chair; Neil Meltzer , Sinai Hospital president, and wife, Ellen Meltzer , private tutor; Henry Rosenberg , Rosemore Inc. chairman, and wife, Dot Rosenberg ; retired W.B. Doner & Co. chairman/CEO Herb Fried and wife, Nikki Fried ; Wil Sirota , LifeBridge board member; Alexis Vandernat , Long & Foster real estate agent; Louis Thalheimer , Lord Baltimore Capital CEO, and wife, Juliet Eurich , Alvin & Fanny B. Thalheimer Foundation executive director; Nan Rosenthal , Baltimore-based public relations consultant; Dr. Larry Becker , semi-retired orthopedic surgeon, and wife, Alma Becker ; and Michele Lax , the Pearlstone Conference Center president, and husband, Barry Garber , Sinai Hospital board member.

The parents of a baby stolen last year from Sinai Hospital have filed a $38 million lawsuit against the hospital.Douglas A. and Linda Norris, whose 2-day-old infant was taken from Mrs. Norris' arms by a woman posing as a nurse, filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Baltimore Circuit Court. The suit asks for $18 million in compensatory damages and $20 million in punitive damages."The purpose of the lawsuit is to make a point to other hospitals that parents cannot stand to be treated in such a fashion," Mr. Norris said in a telephone interview.

Dr. Alan S. Exler, an oral surgeon, teacher and Sinai Hospital's chief of dentistry, died yesterday of pancreatic cancer at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. He was 51 and lived in Owings Mills. An assistant professor at the University of Maryland's School of Dentistry, he was a classroom instructor and hands-on teacher at its downtown Baltimore clinic. In his 24 years in the profession, he founded dental offices in Glen Burnie and Bel Air and also practiced in Eastpoint and Pikesville.

Sinai Hospital has agreed to pay a $60,000 fine for irradiating a cancer patient in the wrong place, while Constellation Energy paid $12,670 for muddying a mountain stream as it builds a wind farm in Western Maryland, the state Department of the Environment reported Wednesday. The two cases were among 40 enforcement cases in which state regulators reported collecting or levying more than $500,000 in penalties in the past several weeks for air, water, radiation and lead paint violations.