Bill Gibbons, MD
Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health Urgent Care physician Bill Gibbons, MD a husband and father of five, died suddenly in February 2020, on his 56th birthday. Now his legacy is living on through portable kits used to treat critically ill patients at all Lancaster General Health Physicians (LGHP) Urgent Cares.
Gibbons had joined Urgent Care Parkesburg in 2018. His colleague, Tom Raff, MD, Urgent Care Regional Medical Director, remembers him as a larger-than-life character with a great love for the practice of medicine.
“He was always excited about work,” Raff said. “He loved taking care of patients and was happy to teach new clinicians some of the many skills he had acquired over the years.”
Gibbons also had an interest in wilderness medicine, which involves caring for patients in situations that lack the resources of modern medicine. A Fellow of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine, he was also a 42-year member of the Civil Air Patrol and an Eagle Scout.
LG Health’s Urgent Cares sometimes see very sick patients who collapse outside the building, Raff said. In these cases, the team must provide supportive care in the parking lot until an ambulance arrives.
The combination of this clinical need and his interest in wilderness medicine led Gibbons to create a “go bag,” or a portable kit that contains the supplies needed to stabilize and resuscitate a patient in the parking lot. Before his passing, Gibbons had assembled a go bag for the Parkesburg Urgent Care and had planned to do the same for other Urgent Care locations.
Tyler Galbreath, PA-C, joined the Urgent Care Duke Street team in March 2022, after several years working in the Lancaster General Hospital Emergency Department. With his background in emergency medicine, he saw an opportunity to continue the project that Gibbons had started and complete it in his memory.
Galbreath worked with Raff, as well as Urgent Care practice managers April Hankinson and Lisa Williams, to create more go bags that contain essential supplies to treat a critical care patient. The bags include an AED; bag valve masks in adult, pediatric and infant sizes; a stethoscope, pulse oximeter, blood pressure cuff, and tourniquet; and personal protective equipment for the provider.
While these supplies were already available in Urgent Cares, they were not standardized or easy to transport into a parking lot, Galbreath explained. In many cases, they were stored on rolling carts, which could be difficult to maneuver during a stressful situation, especially by a single provider.
The completed go bags are now available at all Urgent Care locations, and the idea may be expanded to LGHP family practices.
“When patients who are very sick come to us for care, even seconds can make a significant difference,” Galbreath said. “I was honored to help complete this important project in Dr. Gibbons’ memory.”