When her co-workers describe Morgan Martin, they say she’s a “transplant staple.” She’s been with IU Health for seven years – always working in transplant.

She spent six years in transplant ICU at IU Health University Hospital – much of that time as a charge nurse – before becoming a nurse practitioner last year.

“From a very early age I’ve always had a keen curiosity in science and how the body works. I can remember asking for microscopes, anatomy/physiology books, figurines, and a real stethoscope for birthdays and Christmases,” said Martin.  “My Grandma JoAnn always wanted to be a nurse but was the youngest of 11 children and was never able to follow her dream.”

In some ways, Martin feels like she’s fulfilling her grandma’s dream. She loves her role of combining a passion for science and working with people.

Martin grew up in Silver Lake, in northern Kosciusko County in what she describes as a family with lots of ties to caregiving. Her father, Morris Jones is a volunteer firefighter, one cousin is a nurse, and another is a nurse practitioner. Her mother is Cindy Jones. Martin has been married for five years to Dan and they have a two-year-old daughter Taytum. 

“She’s the love of my life,” said Martin about her daughter.  She also enjoys family camping trips and attending baseball games especially the Chicago Cubs.

Martin’s known for sharing her fresh garden produce with co-workers – one who calls her “Sister Cucumber.” More than anything, her coworkers know Martin for her devotion to patient care.

“The number one question I get asked is ‘why did I choose to continue my career in transplant after I became a nurse practitioner,’” said Martin.  “Transplant is amazing medicine. It truly changes people’s lives. These surgeries aren’t for the faint of heart, but it’s so astonishing to watch people transform into much healthier versions of themselves.  I really enjoy the mix between medical and surgical nursing/medicine with complexities that match no other.  It’s grueling and intense and feels like home to me.”

One of her favorite stories is about a patient who was gravely ill. His family wanted him to make it to his daughter’s June wedding.

“We did it and it was so rewarding,” said Martin. “He got to go to his daughter’s wedding. It took a lot of care and rehab but I realized then, that’s why I love working in transplant.”

More about Martin:

• What makes her a good caregiver: “Everyday I left the house for school growing up my mom always used to say, ‘have a good day and be kind to everyone.’  I’ve really taken those instructions to heart.  I think the ability to relate to others, help them have a better day, be present in the moment, and treating others as you would want to be treated helps me to be a good nurse practitioner.”
• About her mentors: “I’ve had some pretty great mentors throughout my nursing and nurse practitioner career at IU Health.  Someone from every department has influenced my practice in one way or another.  From our surgeons, to x-ray techs, PT/OT, housekeeping, to nurses new and experienced, I strive to care for others like my colleagues and team members do.”
• Something that would surprise people to learn about her: “As a huge Disney fan, I’ve been known to burst out into some pretty great Disney tunes during patient care.  Now that I’m able to round on the transplant kids over at Riley, I feel that my singing is a little bit more appreciated and accepted with them versus the adults.  It’s pretty popular with my 2-year-old at bath time as well.

— By T.J. Banes, Associate Senior Journalist at IU Health.
   Reach Banes via email at T.J. Banes or on Twitter @tjbanes.

It all started with a tickle in his throat, a nagging cough and then a downhill spiral that left him weighing 102 pounds. Without a double lung transplant, he wouldn’t make it. Five months later, Nicholas Brown is back in the weight room with a new set of lungs, using each breath to its fullest.

The tickle in his throat was irritating. It crept up every now and then and caused Nicholas Brown to cough.

Then that little annoyance started coming around more often. A tickle that was more intense, like a scratch. A cough that lasted for days.

Brown was a healthy, 37-year-old guy. He lifted weights and ran. He was active.

That irksome cough? Whatever. It would pass.

It always did.

***

The night was a cold one, the kind of deep cold where the air seems too frigid to even breathe.

It caused Brown to launch into a coughing fit that wouldn’t end. Uncontrollable coughing. He was out with friends when one of them, a woman named Liz, got stern with Brown.

She insisted he go see a doctor about the cough. She pushed hard.

“Even though I was trying to be stubborn and say, ‘Ah, it’s nothing. It will go away,’ everyone else is noticing,” says Brown. “They are noticing, this is just not right.”

Days later, Brown made an appointment to see a doctor. He would get some medicine, Brown thought.

And that cough would be history.

***

One doctor blamed the cough on acid reflux. When the medicine for that didn’t work, Brown was sent to an allergist.

But he wasn’t allergic to anything — except black mold and cockroaches. Brown was sent for a CT scan.

“The doctor comes out and it was the look the vet gives you when it’s time to put the dog down,” Brown says.

She told him he had idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

“I jokingly said, ‘Oh, can you write me a prescription to get me out of work?’” Brown says. “She said, ‘Yes, I can.’”

That’s when it hit him. This must be serious. But he’d never even heard of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

Come to find out, that cough was caused by scarring of his lungs. IPF is a disease with no known cause. Over time, the scarring gets worse, making it hard to take a deep breath. The lungs cannot take in enough oxygen.

And it causes a cough. That awful cough.

***

Once at IU Health, doctors started preparing Brown for the possibility of a lung transplant. A very likely possibility. 

“I just wanted to hang on to the lungs I had,” Brown says.  

He was finally at a job he loved. After two college degrees, one in telecommunications and the other in business, Brown had just become a journeyman tool and die maker. He was doing high precision grinding in the aerospace field.

But doctors told him, that job was no longer allowed. And even though Brown didn’t want to give up his own lungs, he would soon find out he didn’t have a choice.

And there likely wasn’t much time.

“It’s hard to put into words because you start looking at survival rates,” says Brown, “how long they say the average person lives after transplant.”

By April of this year, Brown was inside IU Health Methodist Hospital weighing 102 pounds (instead of his usual 170), struggling to survive.  

“They told me they had to list me (for transplant) or send me home for hospice,” Brown says. “I was almost gone.”

On March 5, lungs became available that were a match for Brown. He went to sleep the next morning for his transplant surgery and woke up two days later.

“For me it was instant,” he says. “I woke up and I knew I was breathing.”

It was a remarkable feeling that most take for granted. 

“I can’t even describe it,” he says. “Have someone hold your head under water for five minutes and then let you breathe.”

***

It’s impossible, Brown says, to thank the people and the place that saved your life.

His surgeon and the nurses. The pulmonary rehab staff and the Center of Life for Thoracic Transplant. The physical therapists and David Roe, M.D., medical director of pulmonary critical care and lung transplant at IU Health. 

IU Health boasted the 12^th largest lung transplant program in the country by volume in 2017, performing 65 transplants. That’s up from 50 just five years ago. 

What a wonderful place to be cared for, Brown says. And recently, while at the gym working out, he looked in the mirror.

“Good grief, I look so much different than I did a couple months ago.  I was a walking skeleton,” he says. “I look human again.” 

Brown snapped a selfie at the gym and posted it with a thank you to the IU Health transplant team.

“Just thinking about all that they did for me,” he says. “I’m where I am today and it’s all because of them.”

Brown comes to Methodist twice a week for rehab. He is up to 132 pounds. This past weekend, he went to GenCon. He’s looking forward to plenty of wonderful, healthy years ahead.

And he has started a blog about his journey called Borrowed Breaths.

The tagline Brown created says it all: “Each breath is a gift. So use it to the fullest.”

— By Dana Benbow, Senior Journalist at IU Health.

   Reach Benbow via email dbenbow@iuhealth.org or on Twitter @danabenbow.

Marie Kenley has congestive heart failure and is a patient in IU Health’s Virtual Complex Care program. Each day, she uses technology to send her blood pressure, weight, heart rate and oxygen saturation back to a team of nurses who monitor the data – and are there for anything Kenley might need.

Technology is Margaret Marie Kenley’s gig. She is an avid “Facebooker,” keeping up with the goings on of her friends and family spread throughout the country – including six grandkids and 14 great grandkids.

When she wants to crochet something different, Kenley turns to her tablet. There was the time she found a picture of cactus gardens and recreated the tiny plants out of yarn.

And each morning when it’s time for Kenley to have her mini medical checkup? She turns to technology again.

She sits on her bed and places the blood pressure cuff on her arm – 115/65, the machine reads. She steps on the scale. She checks her heart rate and oxygen saturation with a pulse oximeter.

It’s all recorded, as part of IU Health’s Virtual Complex Care program, through home health telemonitoring. A small router then transfers Kenley’s data back in real time to a team of virtual nurses.

If there is anything unusual, or out of the normal paramenters, a nurse will contact Kenley, who has congestive heart failure. If Kenley needs a nurse at any time, she can call and they will talk her through chest tightness or dizziness.

Last week, Kenley got to meet one of her favorite virtual nurses, Jodi Ralston, who came to her home for a special visit.

“To me, they are another member of the family,” says Kenley, 93, whose husband of 72 years died two years ago. 

She smiles and gives Ralston a hug. “I’m so glad I finally got to meet you.”

***

Ralston is a telehealth nurse, overseeing IU Health’s team of virtual nurses, three RNs and two LPNs. It’s Ralston and her team’s job to monitor the data that is coming in from those patients’ homes.

After Kenley checks her readings each day, the machine asks her some questions and gives her a reminder.

Have you been having any chest pain? Do you need your clinician to contact you today? Please remember to take your medication as prescribed by your physician and maintain a proper diet.

Kenley answers by pushing a yes or no button on the machine. 

Before the telehealth monitoring, Kenley, who has a pacemaker, would make trips to her doctor or the emergency room. She says the telemonitoring has cut those visits by 50 percent.

“You feel comfortable talking to them and they don’t only ask you how you feel but they go into detail,” says Kenley, who worked 25 years at Hawthorne Community Center, 13 as director.

If she has a dizzy spell, the nurses will advise her to sit down. When she’s feeling better, they will tell her to drink a glass of water, she says.

“You have a feeling of being a human and not just something on paper,” says Kenley.

The telehealth team also looks for things out of the ordinary, beyond the medical testing results.

“We know her trends. She is very consistent at testing,” says Ralston. “If we, all of a sudden, would not receive her readings that prompts us to call her.”

If they don’t reach Kenley, they will call her emergency contact. The team also makes calls to patients’ doctors and, if needed, will send out an ambulance.

“We do all of those extra steps just to make sure,” Ralston says.

Kenley’s daughter, Diane Arnold, says she likes, too, that all of her mother’s doctors receive the data, as well. Kenley’s results are sent to all of them – so her heart doctor and primary care physician are on the same page.

More than anything, though, the monitoring gives Arnold and her two sisters peace of mind.

“We really have that comfort,” says Arnold. “To know there are eyes and ears watching her, it gives us a lot of comfort.” 

That is exactly what the program is meant to do, says Peter Kamwendo, program manager for IU Health’s Virtual Complex Care.

“This technology allows us to come into the home daily,” he says.

It also allows the medical team to catch things early, reducing healthcare costs and doctor’s visits.

“And in the end,” Kamwendo says, “this keeps patients healthier, which is always the goal.”

— By Dana Benbow, Senior Journalist at IU Health.

   Reach Benbow via email dbenbow@iuhealth.org or on Twitter @danabenbow.

Dr. Don Selzer, chief, division of general surgery IU Health Physicians, IU Health North recently completed more than 1,000 bariatric surgeries. He talks about the weight-loss procedure and what he’s learned during his practice.

He has met more than 1,000 patients going through bariatric surgery, but Dr. Don Selzer remembers his first patient as well as his most recent.

“The most memorable experience in all my years of surgical practice was the first patient I operated on for bariatric surgery. He weighed 600 pounds had not been able to wear shoes for more than two years because he had so much swelling. I remember him walking into his appointment one year after surgery and he was wearing shoes. To see that impact was so worth it,” said Dr. Selzer, who completed his surgical residency at IU School of Medicine.

In his role with IU Health, Dr. Selzer has excelled in a practice that focuses on the causes, prevention and treatment of obesity. His training specifically focuses on medically supervised weight loss and management of obesity as a chronic condition.

What has changed during the course of his career spanning more than 1,000 bariatric surgical procedures?

“I think the one thing we’ve learned is when to operate and when not to operate. Specifically with bariatric surgery there is a time in some patient’s lives that they aren’t ready for changes in their lives,” said Dr. Selzer. Patients considering surgery may spend up to six months in nutritional, psychological and exercise counseling. Every patient must commit to completing specific steps to prepare for surgery.

“What I’ve learned is a human’s relationship to food and society’s relationship to food make it a psychological issue and if you lose sight of that, you may not have the best support following surgery,” said Dr. Selzer.

In a recent one-year follow up, one of Dr. Selzer’s patients Anthony Martin, 65, talked about how different his life is since surgery. He started the process at 370 pounds and now weighs 199 pounds.

“I have a whole lot more energy. I’ve been busy working around my home, rebuilding a deck and other projects. Before surgery, I had trouble even walking,” said Martin, a resident of Fairland.

For Dr. Selzer’s patients, bariatric surgery is the last resort. Most have tried multiple diets and weight-loss programs with limited success.   

“Generally speaking, if it sounds too good to be true – like a magic pill – it probably is too good to be true. Choosing bariatric surgery is the toughest way to lose weight but it’s also one of the most successful options that leads to maintained weight loss,” said Dr. Selzer.

What does it mean to have helped more than 1,000 patients reach that milestone?

“Every year at around this time, I sign a book or card for a graduating fellow or resident and I’m always reminded of the reality about surgery and medicine in general. Whenever you think you’ve mastered the process you will be humbled. It just means that I’ve attempted 1,000 times at perfection,” said Dr. Selzer. He recites one of his favorite quotes by Vince Lombardi Jr.: “Gentleman, we will chase perfection and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way, we will catch excellence.”

More about Dr. Selzer:

• He is married to Cindy Selzer, a pharmacist. They have two sons, Samuel, 11, and William, 8.
• His initial exposure to a career in medicine was from his mother, a retired internal medicine physician. “I was told by my physique (he stands at 6’3”) I should go into orthopedic surgery, but I was enticed by general surgery,” said Selzer.
• Originally from Wisconsin Dr. Selzer is a fan of both the Badgers and the Hoosiers. He also enjoys spending time outside on the baseball field with his son, a pitcher, running, trying new restaurants, and watching historical documentaries. 

— By T.J. Banes, Associate Senior Journalist at IU Health.
   Reach Banes via email at T.J. Banes or on Twitter @tjbanes.

Diagnosed with large B Cell lymphoma, Lori “Jill” Trinkle is preparing for a groundbreaking gene therapy and will be receiving the revolutionary CAR-T treatment at IU Health – the only site in Indiana to administer the treatment.

She knows she’s a pioneer – one of the first to receive a revolutionary new cancer treatment. But Lori “Jill” Trinkle looks at it as a way to acknowledge the progression of a medical and scientific field that is out to slay the giant called “cancer.”

Diagnosed February 16, 2017 with high grade, aggressive large B cell lymphoma – Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL), Trinkle, of Michigan, was originally treated with chemotherapy. After six founds – administered during a 21-day hospital stay – a PET scan showed that her chest was clear. She completed the treatment on June 30, 2017 and four months later the lymphoma was back. Tinkle went through two more rounds of chemotherapy in preparation for a stem cell transplant. A year after her diagnosis, she was admitted to IU Health Simon Cancer Center for three weeks for the stem cell transplant. Anther PET scan came back clear.

But in May the cancer returned in her right lung. On June 13 she began 20 treatments of radiation to attack the mass in her chest.

Those two treatments – with relapses – were the pathways that lead Trinkle, 59 to a gene therapy that has only recently been approved by the FDA. IU Health is the only state-approved site to use the treatment known as CAR-T.

During a recent check-up Trinkle met with Dr. Michael Robertson, who specializes in hematology/oncology to talk about that next step in her treatment – CAR-T. Specifically, the groundbreaking gene therapy uses custom-made cells to attack a patient’s own specific cancer. As part of the Indiana University’s Grand Challenge Precision Health Initiative, CAR-T cell therapy allows doctors to isolate T-lymphocyte cells – the body’s cells that fight infections and are active in immune response. According to Dr. Mervin C. Yoder, M.D., a leader in IU’s Precision Health Initiative, the T cells are then engineered to express a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) that targets a protein on a patient’s cancer cells, attaches to them and eventually kills them.

As Doctor Robertson evaluates Trinkle during her recent check up, he asks about her breathing, if she has fever, lumps or bumps. She tells him about a rash that could be from radiation and some back pain, she believes is caused by a degenerative disc. Otherwise, she says she feels great and is ready for the next phase of her treatment plan.

“I think we’re on track,” said Dr. Robertson. “The reason she’s one of the first for the CAR-T treatment and the reason she is a good candidate is because standard chemotherapy hasn’t done the job to control the lymphoma. We’re hoping the immune system can do what the chemo couldn’t do.” He tells Trinkle to expect to be fatigue – symptoms similar to when she went through her stem cell transplant. She will remain in the hospital for about three weeks. In addition to Dr. Robertson, Trinkle has been in the care of medical oncologist Dr. Karuna Koneru, medical radiation oncologist, Dr. Fred Wu, both of Bloomington, IUH Southern Indiana Physicians.

“It could be scary but I’m comfortable with my doctors and the process,” said Trinkle, who has an older brother, younger brother and two younger sisters. She has one daughter and they enjoy exploring Michigan together. “I’ve stayed positive through it all. My faith is strong. I’ve met fantastic people in the hospitals – both Bloomington and Indianapolis – very capable and caring. I look forward to having my energy back and doing the things I love – yoga, volunteering, walking and fostering animals.”

— By T.J. Banes, Associate Senior Journalist at IU Health.
   Reach Banes via email at T.J. Banes or on Twitter @tjbanes.

Dennis Disney is a calming, caring force there at a time – usually a very scary time — for patients and their families. ECMO is reserved for the sickest of patients, often a last resort for those with life-threatening lung and heart problems.  

Dennis Disney remembers those warm summer nights at his hometown fair.

It was magical. The rides and the games and the prizes. The elephant ears and the corndogs and the cotton candy.

But something else stood out to Disney: The LifeLine helicopter that sat on the fairgrounds, up close and personal.

It was captivating, so thrilling to even think about — an aircraft that raced to the scenes of accidents and traumas, picked up patients and then rushed them to the hospital.

As Disney became an adult, he’d see LifeLine flying overhead – all over the place.

“I always thought, ‘Where does that go?’ Disney says.

He soon found out. That helicopter flew to IU Health Methodist Hospital. 

“My desire always was to take care of the sickest patients I could take care of,” says Disney. “Methodist is where the sick patients are.”

***

Judge Jones is lying in a hospital bed in the cardiovascular critical care unit on the second floor of Methodist.

He is hooked up to a machine that performs ECMO, which stands for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.

Jones is fighting for his life and he’s had Disney by his side every step of the way. Disney, a respiratory therapist at Methodist since 1994, has been an ECMO clinician for the past seven years.

“From the day I came in this hospital, I felt it with him,” Jones said this week of Disney. “He’s right there by your side and he will hold your hand and he will get you through the tough times.”

Sitting next to Jones’ bed is his daughter, Izzy Fiesel.

“It brings me to tears, being so thankful that we have people like Dennis helping with dad,” says Fiesel. “I’m telling you, I just love him.

His patience, his kindness, just everything.”

Disney is a calming, caring force there at a time – usually a very scary time — for patients and their families.

ECMO is reserved for the sickest of patients, often a last resort for those with life-threatening lung and heart problems. It is a series of equipment and tubes that provides heart-lung bypass. ECMO allows those organs to rest.

“It buys the body time to recover,” Disney says. “I really think it’s modern medicine at its best.”

***

And Methodist Hospital is one of the best at performing ECMO. Just last month, it became one of only 14 hospitals in the world to be named a Platinum Level ECLS center for ECMO care.

“We are a world class program delivering state of the art care with unbelievable results and outcomes,” says David W. Roe, M.D., a pulmonologist and medical director of lung transplant at Methodist. “I am so proud of all the ECMO team members.”

This honor puts Methodist in an elite category. There are 686 ECLS Centers registered in the world with ELSO and only 14 are Platinum Level — 0.02 percent.

“We got a fabulous award and we are very proud of this award,” says Disney. “But we are far more proud of the patients we are able to return to the family, patients able to have a new quality of life. It’s remarkable.”

Disney says without support provided by the perfusion team, CVCC and respiratory, the ECMO program would not be a success. There are 24 bedside ECMO clinicians, which are drawn from a pool of nurses and respiratory therapists, as well as perfusionists to assist.

A patient on ECMO is never left alone; there is always someone with them.

“Our primary responsibility is to protect the patient,” Disney says.

It’s exactly what he dreamed of doing all those years ago.

“I firmly believe in my heart that this is what I’m supposed to be doing,” he says. “Whatever path I took to get here, this is where I was meant to be.”

More with Disney

Growing up: Disney was born in Middletown, Ind., the youngest of three siblings. His dad worked in a factory and his mom owned a bakery, a gourmet wedding cake creator. 

Education: After graduating from Shenandoah High School, Disney spent four years in the United States Army. He then went to Ball State University to become a respiratory therapist. He chose the field after seeing his mom suffer from pneumonia and COPD.

Personal: He is married to Barb, whom he met at Methodist. She has been a nurse at the hospital for 33 years.

Outside of Methodist: The Disneys volunteer for Indy Honor Flight, assisting veterans from World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars to travel to Washington, D.C. to visit the memorials.  

— By Dana Benbow, Senior Journalist at IU Health.

   Reach Benbow via email dbenbow@iuhealth.org or on Twitter @danabenbow.

Conrad Baker spent 45 years cleaning inside Methodist Hospital. But after he retired in 2008, he just couldn’t stay away. And so, Baker applied for a job and came back to work at Methodist – the place he loved.

Conrad Baker had been doing little jobs, those odds-and-ends types of gigs to make a living.

Cleaning the lint out of machines in the Laundromat. Firing up coal furnaces to keep them running.

Until one day, his stepdad said to him: “Mr. Conrad, why don’t you go up to that Methodist Hospital? You might get hired over there.”

Baker walked all those blocks to the front door of Methodist that day in 1963. He went inside, right up to the desk at the hospital’s main entrance.

“I asked them, ‘Did they have any openings?’” Baker says. “Would you know? They hired me the first day.”

That was 55 years ago that Baker was hired as a housekeeper. And for decade upon decade, Baker cleaned with a good attitude and a wonderful work ethic.

He cleaned so many nooks and crannies inside Methodist, he knew the hospital better than, perhaps, just about anyone.

When he retired in 2008 – after 45 years at Methodist — Baker was a housekeeper in the emergency department.

When he left, there were so many tears. People just adored Baker. And he adored every single one of them.

“I just love people,” says Baker. “Be kind, regardless of how they treat you.”

But something incredible happened when Baker walked away from Methodist.

He realized he couldn’t.

Three years later, he was back at the hospital – asking again if they had any openings.

“Mr. Conrad Baker. He is a gentle soul,” says Kathy Hendershot, director of nursing operations, overseeing the ED and behavioral health, at Methodist, “who loves this place.”

***

Here Baker was in his late 60s, typing up a résumé. The rules had changed a bit in 2011, compared to 1963.

He couldn’t just walk up to the front door of Methodist and land a job. But Hendershot caught wind that Baker wanted to come back to work at the hospital.

And if anyone had the experience and a proven track record to land a job there, it was Baker.

“You won’t have to do cleaning anymore,” Baker recalls Hendershot telling him.

No, he would be a stock clerk. For Baker, that means making sure the ED is stocked with enough wheelchairs and cots.

In a hospital, wheelchairs are a coveted commodity. They are known to disappear.

Each day, when Baker starts his 4-hour shift at 8 a.m., he checks to see how many wheelchairs are in his department. He likes to try to keep about 20.

“Sometimes, I get them in there and then as fast as I get them in there somebody takes them,” he says.

And so Baker spends much of his three days a week at Methodist scouring the hospital for wayward wheelchairs.

Sometimes, when a nurse or secretary in a unit sees Baker coming to search?

“They give me a hard time,” he says. “There’s that wheelchair thief.”

Of course, Baker always asks before he takes any wheelchair – to make sure it doesn’t belong to a patient.

He’s good at hunting them down. But he also has some help. After all, Baker has been at the hospital more than 50 years. People know him.

Employees will see Baker and tell him a place they spotted a wheelchair. Others will bring chairs in for him that have been left in a parking garage.

“It’s just a nice environment to work in,” Baker says. “To work around people you love.”

More with Mr. Baker 

Personal: He is married to Rosemary, whom he met in 1964 at Methodist. She was in housekeeping, too. “She was a tough cookie,” he says. When Rosemary left the hospital, they lost touch for 30 years but then had a chance meeting on a city bus and reconnected. They have been married 25 years.

Outside of Methodist: Baker is a lead singer in his choir at Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church and also a member of the men’s chorus. In addition to being involved in church, Baker and his wife like to hunt down deals at garage sales, travel and spend time with their kids, grandkids and great grandkids.

Fun fact: He grew up in an apartment building located on West 10^th Street. That location is now the site of IU Health’s Fairbanks Hall.

— By Dana Benbow, Senior Journalist at IU Health.

   Reach Benbow via email dbenbow@iuhealth.org or on Twitter @danabenbow.