Just like good “ole” country folks, Larry Handfield knows most of his neighbors, and they know him, not because he is the only African American who resides in Williams Island Estates, but because he is a successful attorney and Chairman of the Board of Jackson Memorial Hospital, which is one of the highest profile positions in Miami-Dade County.

Looking out over the Intracoastal Waterway from his 7,000-foot home, Larry Handfield’s eyes light up as he turns and talks about the mango snappers, eels, stingrays and even sharks that sometime come into view from his back yard. The well-manicured areas around his free form swimming pool are like a scene from a magnificent painting. The impatiens with their vibrant hot pink blossoms are in bloom making the perfect foreground for this elaborate work of nature.

Pointing toward the nearby condominiums that start at 1.6 million dollars per unit, Handfield acknowledges Whitney Houston and Missy Elliot as his part time neighbors. On the other side, literally a stone’s throw away from his property lies a vacant lot, valued at two million dollars.

Yes, Larry Handfield has come a long way---from a rented one bedroom efficiency in the heart of Miami’s inner city to William Island Estates, the contrast is phenomenal, but most importantly, Handfield remains humbled by his early experiences. Although he never knew his father, he comes from a close-knit family with lots of cousins, because of it he learned the importance of sharing at a very early age. Even now, he continues to exercise compassion for people that he doesn’t even know.

As a kid growing up in challenging conditions, Handfield wanted to make the best of his life. He wanted much more than those things that he saw around him, and he knew that a good education was the only way out. Because of his focus and his early resolve, he now lives the American dream. He likes his visibility, because he understands the need for kids to have a role model.

Like most communities, kids have a favorite hangout. For Handfield’s peers, it was a big tree in the neighborhood, but even then, he understood that hanging out underneath that tree could only result in trouble and failure. So he avoided it, going directly home from school and getting into his books. His predictions were right. Says he, “Most of my peers who hung out underneath that tree are now dead or in prison.”

Handfield’s choice was to attend a historically Black college. Upon graduating from high school, he enrolled at Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach and joined the band as its drum major. The social aspect of being associated with music and the band appealed to him, but believing he could make a powerful impact in the lives of many by becoming a lawyer, he chose that profession as his life’s ambition.

In 1978, Handfield graduated with honors from Bethune-Cookman College and enrolled in Howard University’s Law School in Washington, D.C. “That was a very different experience,” he said. Leaving a school that had only 1500 students at that time, and going to Howard University where there was a student count of 20,000, was quite challenging. Not only that, he had to adapt to their level of diversity. A great number of students came from Harvard, Yale and Princeton to attend Howard’s Law School; yet again, he managed to graduate with honors.

Handfield has practiced law for 23 years, beginning as a federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C. and later, as Chief State Prosecutor in Miami with Janet Reno. He has been in private practice for 17 years, and currently he is head of The Handfield Law Firm, which consists of eight lawyers. Specializing in criminal defense, he tries cases throughout much of the country. As a result of his competence, Governor Lawton Chiles appointed him to his first state wide position as commissioner on the Sentencing Guidelines Commission. That commission’s responsibility is to review the sentencing for crimes and make reforms to ensure consistency. In other words, create guidelines to take race, gender and other biasness out of sentencing.

Later, Handfield was appointed by the governor to head the judicial nominating commission where he was chair. The responsibility of that commission was to select names to be submitted to the governor for the appointment of judges. Serving in that capacity for four years, he was able to help transform the judiciary into becoming more diverse--opening doors that were otherwise closed to Blacks, women and other minorities.

rt’s Top 50 “Best Hospitals 2005.” Kidney disease, digestive disorders, urology, ear-nose and throat, hormonal disorders, geriatrics, neurology and neuro surgery were among the categories in which the hospital was rated. However, says Handfield, “Jackson Memorial has one of the largest organ transplant operations in the country, the Bascom Palmer Eye Care Center and pediatric infant care are world renowned, and the burn center is one of the tops in the country.”

Representing part of Handfield’s challenges are the responsibilities he has in having the last word regarding who among the uninsured and non-residents of Miami Dade may receive life-saving treatment from Jackson Memorial. Says he, “Sometimes its difficult when I have to make the decision whether or not to let someone in, because I have to balance humanity vs. economics. That’s difficult.”

One such decision was made recently when he cleared the way for 13 year-old, Marlie Casseus from Haiti. This child had a huge tumor over her face that was about to render her blind. Said Handfield, “When you see her and see her mom, it’s going to do something to your heart. Those kinds of things make all the headaches and stress of this responsibility worthwhile. Everyday, I come home knowing that I made a difference in someone’s life.”

According to Handfield, his life at Jackson Memorial is like “living in a fishbowl.” All board meetings are televised, and as chair, he is known for having one of the higher profile positions in Miami-Dade County. “And I understand that,” says Handfield, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen, I knew that going in, but I’m happy about some of the changes I’ve helped to implement in building a world class medical center.”

The mission of the organization is unique. It is a public hospital, but the physicians are from the University of Miami. So there’s a marriage between a public institution and a private institution and to the patient, there is no difference. “We have one single standard of care whether you have the ability to pay or not,” said Handfield. “There can be a millionaire in one room and someone off the street in another, and both will receive the same standard and quality of care and service. That’s the mission. Once you enter those doors, your quality of care is equitable to the person in the next bed or the next room. It’s all integrated. That’s what makes it so special.”

Yes, Handfield does get occasional criticism for the decisions he makes, but he says that’s because the person or entity does not understand the reasons for the decision. During his tenure, he has definitely tried to create more opportunities for minorities at the hospital. Dealing with a two billion dollar budget, there are a lot of opportunities for vendors, and he does his best to make sure that it is diversified.

Says Handfield, “I do not have a medical background, but I have become somewhat of an expert in health care administration by virtue of being the board’s chair of a health care organization. I also understand what happens when you’re at war. With war, the first to be cut are such things as social services. Medicaid, Medicare and education take a back seat to pay for war. As a result, it becomes a problem that effects all of us.”

With all of this going on in Handfield’s life, one might wonder about how he balances his work with family life. The answer is that he manages quite well. He cares about family. Extended family is special to him as well. Life with his wife, Cynthia Babbs, who was his high school sweetheart, is a good one. They have two daughters, Crystal, 18 and Chelsea age 13. He manages to jog 25 miles a week. He enjoys football, good movies, reading and vacationing abroad—but not necessarily in that order. Says he, “The most enchanting place I’ve ever visited was Italy (Venice, Monte Carlo, and Rome) the construction of the coliseum always leaves me in awe. We’ve been there three times and I plan to go back again.”

One of the highlights in Handfield’s life is having had the Bethune-Cookman College music building named in his honor, “The Larry Handfield Music Building”. Having once been a member of the Board of Trustees for Bethune-Cookman College, he anticipates and looks forward to going back on the board in March 2006.

Last, who is Chairman of the Police Oversight Board for the City of Miami whose responsibility it is to investigating police misconduct, you ask? It’s Larry Handfield. He admits that he has an awful lot on his plate, but he justifies all of his responsibilities in his parting statement, “It keeps me very busy, but my motto is service is the price we pay for the space we occupy on this earth, and by serving mankind, you’re serving God.”

The Jackson Memorial Hospital Foundation, International Kids Fund, and The Good Samaritan for a Better Life Partnership Results in Ambassadors for America

About four years ago, it became very apparent that many families coming to Jackson Memorial Hospital, a public facility, to get medical services were being turned away, because they were not citizens of this country. As a result, the International Kid’s Fund was created. The International Kids Fund gets money from the community, either through corporate or individual donations. “Which is really quite generous, because when you think about it, these are children that the donors will never meet, but they see a child in need and they come forward. It’s an amazing miracle,” Says, Josephine Mora, the Community Outreach Manager for the organization. Her job is to bring children to the community and to raise the funds for their hospital care
While all the cases are special to Josephine Mora, Marlie Casseus’ case is an extra special one.

When she was brought in, she had lost all of her teeth. They were found floating in all the mass that was later removed from her face; therefore, not only will her face have to be reconstructed; her teeth will have to be implanted. Although the hospital gives a special rate for this type of work, it is still an expensive undertaking.

Says Mora, “When I went to see Marlie the next day after surgery. I asked, ‘Marlie, are you okay?’ Marlie, with the feeding and breathing tubes still in her, gave me a ‘thumbs up.’ To me, that was amazing. She’s a very gutsy little girl.”

Representing The Good Samaritan for a Better Life, twin sisters, Gina and Ginette Eugene, were responsible for presenting Marlie’s case to the International Kids Fund.
Marlie’s mother, Maleine Antoine, said that she first noticed the change in her daughter’s face when she was eight years old. It got progressively worse, and by the time she was 13, she was in danger of loosing her sight.

Said Ginette Eugene, “When Marlie was in Haiti, she was not looking at herself, because it was too painful for her. So she had to deal with the disfiguration when she arrived here. By that time, it was getting to the point where she could barely stand the pressure. She was at the edge of giving up. We tried to give her the word of God as much as we could.”

Before leaving Haiti, Marlie was being fed regular food, which could have killed her. The mass had forced her tongue all the way to the back of her throat. When she put food into her mouth, she had to use her finger like a stick to push the food down through the tiny passage that was left. The noise of each swallow was evident of the difficulty she was having trying to eat.

Said Ginette, “Once when I gave her a bowl of water, she put it onto the plate so she could lick it up into her mouth. At this point she is being fed through a tube. She will not be able to eat as normal for a while yet.”
Mora, who was present during the entire surgery, said, “It was amazing to see what those doctors were doing. I feel very grateful that I can do this [help children like Marlie], because my family has been very blessed. They are healthy and so are my grand children. I am so thankful.”

The International Kids Fund has been proven to be a diverse organization. Miami being the gateway to the Caribbean and Latin America, a lot of children in need of special medical attention have come in from countries such as Haiti, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Mexico, Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador and others where technology is not as advanced as that in the United States. In such cases, these children return to their countries as ambassadors for the United States, because of the care and compassionate attention they received while in this country.

In order for a child to come to America for medical care, International Kids Fund must write a letter to the authorities in order for he or she to get a visa. The letter must verify that there is money to pay for the surgery and that the Jackson Memorial Foundation and International Kids Fund are sponsoring the child and that he or she will not be a burden to the United States.

After the life-saving surgery of one particular 15-year-old girl, Dahana David, Gina Eugene went back to Haiti with the girl. After arriving there she went to the television station “singing for the Lord and thanking America for what they were doing to help save the children.” Marlie’s father who had a television, but never turned it on, did so that day and heard Gina on the air. He called the station and asked her to do something to save his little girl. “That’s how this child was found and was brought to the states by The Good Samaritan for a Better Life,” said Gina. As a result, The Kids Fund got involved and the first surgery was performed on Marlie December 14th.

“There are some cases that the Kids Fund cannot take,” said Josephine Mora. They can take neither terminal nor transplant cases. If transplant cases were accepted, it would cost at least a half million dollars and would require medical care for the child for the rest of his or her life.

Jesus and the Miracle
Marlie Casseus was the third case from Haiti that was introduced to Dr. Jesus Gomez by The International Kids Fund. Dr. Gomez is a volunteer surgeon for this program. When he met Marlie about four months ago, she was in bad condition. According to him, she was depressed; she was choking, and not able to drink any fluids. It was a complete struggle to get food into her body.

Said Dr. Jesus Gomez, “In the beginning, we did not have any money for this case. For these pro bono cases, there are some supplies and some fees that have to be paid, even when Jackson Memorial gives the patient a super discount there are some supplies that have to be purchased, because they are coming from outside.”

A breathing tube was inserted into Marlie when she was taken into the operating room. The breathing tube was a challenge, because from the anesthesia’s standpoint, nobody was able to put her to sleep.

Consequently, Dr. Gomez was forced to give her sedation to the vein. There was a nurse present who translated his words to Marlie in Creole. Said, Dr. Gomez, “I numbed the neck, which was a challenge, because I was the only one capable to find that air way. She was truly in my hands. I was able to put a temporary feeding tube from the mouth to the stomach and we kept Marlie like that a few weeks and started a fundraising campaign. Finally, we raised the money for the first big surgery.”

Dr. Gomez refuses to take total credit for the work performed on Marlie. He said it was necessary to include several members of the staff. Among them were Drs. Lee, Palmer and Parson. The mass had grown so much that it was compressing part of the optic nerve, especially on the left side. He needed eye specialists to make sure that his dissection would not be damaging to any structure of the eye. At the same time, a pediatric surgeon was called to insert a more permanent feeding tube inside Marlie. Said Dr. Gomez, “It’s good that this case was here at the University, because this is a huge multi-specialty practice. You can count on some very talented doctors specializing in specific areas.”

Of course, Dr. Gomez’s part was the biggest and the longest. It took almost 17 hours to do the surgery. He explained, “First, the whole face was opened up like an eagle to expose the mass. It was taken out in pieces. We probably removed about eight pounds worth of mass from Marlie’s face. That was very big for a girl who weighs only 85 pounds; it’s almost 10% of her weight.

“We had some bleeding, some complications----nothing we couldn't handle. Everything went pretty well. There was a lot of skin to close. I did more than 2500 stitches on her face at that point. Imagine having a balloon inside your face and its been expanding your skin, now you remove this balloon from inside your face and the skin collapses. That’s the reason we came up with the idea to reconstruct part of Marlie’s face using a titanium mash. I customized and basically tailored the titanium mash to create part of the face. Titanium was used because it’s completely inert to the body. It’s expensive, but it is also malleable, that means that even though the material is rigid enough to create the support, I can handle it with my hands and some instruments and give it the contour of the face.”

Marlie spent a few days in ICU. When she recovered, she was transferred to the floor and finally, she was dismissed from the hospital in excellent condition. At that point, Marlie’s nutritional support was improved. She was getting the amount of calories she needed to heal and continue to function.

Meanwhile, fundraising efforts continued for Marlie’s third operation. In the third stage, the lower lip was split completely open as the surgeon moved in on the entire mandible—from the joint on one side to the joint on the other side. In order to keep the airway of the upper portion of the larynx open, Dr. Gomez had to create something that would hold the flow of the mouth including the tongue and the glands. He did this by creating a new titanium mandible a little larger than the titanium mash used for the mid face. Two artificial joints were constructed to give Marlie the capability to move her jaw again. Dr. Gomez attached that, and then resutured and resuspended all the muscles from the floor to that plate. That way, Marlie was able to move her tongue.

Her glands are working well, and now all the muscles are scattering down around the plate, which means when she goes in for future surgery, she is gong to be able to open and close her mouth. At this point, movement is very limited, but she can function, she can smile. She can move the tongue, which is a good thing, because future plans include removing the feeding tube to allow her to swallow again. Explains Dr. Gomez, “That capability is still in tact, because even when the mass was expanding the bone so much, the expansion was exospheric (from inside to outside and not from inside to even deeper.) The whole deeper structure is still in tact. The muscle were stretched, some of them almost disintegrated from the pressure of the mass for all of those years, but with a lot of patience, we were able to put everything together.”
Dr. Gomez believes that they are getting to the point where specific issues can be addressed such as improving Marlie’s facial appearance, restoring the vital capacity to swallow, to smile again. “I’m ready to bring Marlie back to society again,” he said.

Dr. Gomez does not feel good about always being the one singled out to talk about Marlie. Says he, “ It’s not just me. Probably I am the tip of the iceberg, but there is a huge team: The people who do the paper work, those who brought her there, the people who raised the money, the nurses who helped me in OR, the anesthesia people who put her to sleep, the ICU team that took care of her after I finished, and though I am the tip of the iceberg, I am blessed for the team effort. We accomplished a good staff for her, not just from the technical and surgical standpoint, but also from the human standpoint. We gathered all these souls—all these human beings with technical capabilities, and medical training. They came with very specialized abilities to help another human being. That’s the core of how I work.

“Even though this is what I do on a daily basis, head and neck surgery and facial surgery, Marlie’s case was kind of unpredictable for two reasons: just the nature of the disease, a genetic disorder. It’s not a tumor where you can say; okay the whole tumor is out. It’s a disease that is still with her. It’s going to be with her for a while, probably for the rest of her life. I was confident because of the amount of work we do here, the technology and the level of training. I would say that after I opened the lesion in the fourth hour in OR I was confident that we would be able to reconstruct Marlie’s face. It’s going to take a lot of work, because some of her facial features were so deformed. We perceive that it will take a lot of work and a lot of years for her to have a more normal appearance. I would say that she is going to get a very acceptable appearance, but the good thing about Marlie is that probably about 50% of herself is just her appearance, 50% is inside her.

As for me, I think she is beautiful. She’s beautiful because she is a nice child. I think that even though her face is not going to look perfect, she is improving every single day. She is a different girl. I’ve seen Marlie come from inside a box to the real world.

Now, she’s a child who likes to interact with people. She likes to help people, and she likes the physical contact. In the beginning, she was so afraid of that. As a surgeon, it’s good to establish a rapport with your patient. I like to touch my patients. The physical contact is very important. In the beginning, I was trying to establish that bridge between her and me; I was kind of frustrated because she was too shy. Now, when she sees me in the hallway, she’ll come to me and give me a hug. She just a different girl, and to me, that is worth a million dollars.