Letter from Dr. Ron Kwon:
11/24/2007
Dear friends:
I shall be closing my Maui practice and relocating to the Boston area
where I shall serve as a clinician and medical director with Harvard
Vanguard starting in April, 2008.
It will be refreshing to work in a community where high standards of
medical care are the norm. The community hospital in Concord, MA
(where'll we move to) already has private birthing suites, a level II
nursery and a neonatal ICU staffed by neonatologists from Mass. Gen.
There is a PET/CT scanner with a beautiful cancer treatment center
and radiation therapy from Mass. General, also. Of course this
hospital has a helipad and its own blood bank, and patients with
heart attacks have their coronary intervention provided within 44
minutes, one of the best records in the country!
Maui is a beautiful place with wonderful people, but it has a
heartrendingly inadequate medical infrastructure and there are no
signs to indicate that any solutions are forthcoming. I choose to
finish my career elsewhere but I will miss our dear friends and of
course our terrific patients.
Aloha and thanks for your kind support and friendship through the years.
--Ron Kwon
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11/26/07
We are losing a great doctor, a great leader, and a wonderful human being.
Maui will have one less hero.
To Dr. Kwon: We wish you all the best. Enjoy this great opportunity. Harvard Vanguard is lucky to have you. I know I can speak for all of the 3,000+ members of AIHM on this: Mahalo for everything. You will be missed.
Aloha,
Jan Shields
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11/26/2007
The best Internist on Maui, Dr. Ron Kwon, departs for the East. It has to break the strings of your heart to know his departure rests on less than satisfactory medical care at Maui Memorial. He gave years, time and sacrificed salary to fight for
another Hospital that meets standards of the 21st Century and when we twice lost the battle to release the CON (Certificate of Need) it was the straw that broke the good Doctor's back. He truly deserves to end his career in a modern,
well-equipped
facility.
Oahu likes having 24% of our medical cases air-lifted over to them. They have become very comfortable counting on dollars from Maui. Shame on all of us for standing silent for so long and letting this Banana Republic Legislature and SHPDA Panel
prevail. It is high time we dissolve the old boy network and the best way to begin is to unseat Senators Roz Baker and Shan
Tsutsui. Look to see where their political contributions come from and you will soon see why it goes on and on and on and
on. The next time you are at Maui Memorial look at the fancy entrance....all 37 million dollars of the entrance, admitting, etc. You the tax payers of Maui are paying for that medical??? addition and they weren't even smart or caring enough to
install a pad for the helicopter. My oh my.... and remember, we deserve the politicians we elect. JBV