Richard (Rick) Rohrs, PA-C, currently serves as the Assistant Vice President for Provider Operations at Northwest Hospital and is recognized as a Distinguished Fellow, American Academy of Physician Assistants (DFAAPA). In 1977 he started as the third PA at Northwest Hospital (then Baltimore County General) and eventually became a manager, then a director, and moved up in hospital administration—but still maintains his PA license.
“PAs were kind of a novel profession at the time,” Rick says, “so it was appealing to be part of a hospital that supported the profession. There were 150 PAs in the state of Maryland then, and now there are thousands. It’s been a great experience to grow along with the hospital and the profession.”
After seeing an article about the LifeBridge Health Glazer Legacy Society, Rick decided to make a legacy gift to support the hospital that has been so supportive of him and his profession for so many years—which is why he has made a bequest in his will to ensure funding for the future of LifeBridge Health.
Rick has been making annual gifts to LifeBridge for years and says, “I have a comfort level knowing that the money will go directly to patient care, enhancing the patient experience through staff and ‘doing good’ in general—not just going to overhead.” He wants the mission that he has invested in for a lifetime to always continue to be a success. “I like the idea of planting seeds for the future,” he says, “and my gift will be worth a lot more several years from now.”
Rick has done missionary trips and traveled the world helping to start and assist PA professions in other countries, including in South Africa, Liberia, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Germany, Canada, Brazil, China, and Cuba. “You can’t do that kind of thing unless your employer supports it,” he says. “It’s been mutually rewarding because in addition to helping others, I have also learned things abroad that I could bring back here to LifeBridge. I have invested in the hospital, and it has invested in me. Honestly, my colleagues feel like family, and LifeBridge feels like a friend—so I want to invest in its continued success even after I retire one day.”