Sarasota Memorial Hospital honored two physicians for outstanding service this week and announced its 2023-2024 chiefs of staff for the SMH-Sarasota and SMH-Venice campuses. Rickey Wiseman, MD, was awarded Sarasota Memorial’s 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award and Matthew Waldron, MD, was named 2023 Physician of the Year. After input from the medical staff, a committee of physician leaders recognized Drs. Wiseman and Waldron at the SMH-Sarasota annual medical staff meeting on Oct. 17. Rickey Wiseman, MD, received the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award for decades of dedicated service to Sarasota Memorial and the community. A longtime internal medicine specialist in the community, Dr. Wiseman has spent the past 45 years combining his passion for medicine, compassion for people and strong faith while caring for patients in our community. His peers praise him as a mentor and role model for compassionate, high-quality care. Dr. Wiseman has volunteered his time and services caring for low-income and uninsured patients at Sarasota Memorial’s Community Specialty Clinic since its inception 30 years ago, while also caring for patients in a busy private practice for decades. Among other contributions, he continues to serve as medical director and a volunteer physician in his retirement at the clinic, which provides free care, consults and specialty services to thousands of vulnerable Sarasota County residents each year. Mathew Waldron, MD, a cardiac anesthesiologist, was awarded Sarasota Memorial’s 2023 Physician of the Year. Dr. Waldron joined Sarasota Memorial’s medical staff in 2022, but served a vital role his first year as the health system opened its own anesthesiology practice to meet the growing region’s increasing medical needs. Although a relative newcomer to Sarasota, Dr. Waldron’s advocacy and unwavering dedication to patients and his ability to lead, unify and inspire his peers helped Sarasota Memorial create a new anesthesia practice that combined longtime anesthesiology professionals in the community with new ones recruited by SMH, creating the largest medical division within SMH’s First Physicians Group (FPG). Dr. Waldron’s peers praised him for his tireless efforts the past year to coordinate a successful transition during a challenging, nationwide shortage of healthcare professionals. In related news, the Medical Staffs of SMH-Sarasota and SMH-Venice selected their Chiefs of Staff for 2023-2024: Sarah Temple, MD, was named Chief of Staff, serving as the top representative of SMH-Sarasota campus’ 1,800-plus medical staff members and advanced practice providers; she succeeds Jonathan Hoffberger, DO, whose one-year term as chief ends this month. Scott Perrin, MD, was named Chief of Staff for the SMH-Venice campus, serving as the top representative for that hospital’s 1,200-plus medical staff members and advanced practice providers; he succeeds Christopher Jefferson, MD, who has served as chief since the hospital opened in 2021.