1996 Annual Report
Tony Marzoni, M.D.
Tony Marzoni, M.D., knows the moment when he felt most successful.
It wasn't when he received one of the highest ratings of all physicians in PAMF's 1996 Patient Satisfaction Survey, or when he became the Chief of Staff of Recovery Inn of Menlo Park, or when he was elected recently to the seven-member Clinic Executive Board.
His biggest success, he recalls, lies behind something his 21-year-old daughter, Emily, recently told him. "I was talking to my daughter, and she said, `You know, Dad, I feel really lucky.' "And I felt like I had done some good. I guess I have worked the hardest and learned the most from trying to teach my children," Dr. Marzoni says of raising his three children, James, 23, Emily and David, 18.
"A great deal of my time is spent giving them roots and wings. I see that my job is to give them to the world as independent, self-reliant, productive people who are going to make their own contributions in kind.
"I am not much of a believer in institutional goodness--I believe more in the impact of one person on one other person, and that change happens that way. So having a young woman feel lucky, and who sees the world as an abundant place--that's really good."
Francis Anthony ("Tony") Marzoni, has been doing good since he joined PAMF in 1978. He is recognized as an excellent surgeon and has become an expert in breast cancer.
His manner is quiet and thoughtful, with none of the bluster or arrogance of TV-show stereotyped surgeons: "I sometimes feel like a sheep in wolf's clothing," he says, smiling.
Dr. Marzoni spends a lot of time talking to his patients--but talking is not where his true effectiveness lies, he says: "I have become a better listener over the 19 years I have been here. I really enjoy what I do and think that is conveyed to the patients--and the patients here are a likable lot," he adds. "I think at the end of a visit they know they met somebody who liked them and wanted to help them."
That ability to listen helped Dr. Marzoni get one of the highest ratings of physicians at PAMF last year. Of course, Dr. Marzoni pointed out some other things that satisfied patients: a strong support staff, a receptionist just for the surgery department, extra exam rooms--and getting good news when you expect bad, he notes.
"When a patient comes in with a breast cyst and I aspirate it and it's gone, they feel wonderful. Or when I tell them a problem doesn't need an operation and there is a medical solution to it--or that they will die with it instead of from it--they feel better. One reason why patients in general are happy when they see a surgeon is because most people don't need an operation."
Dr. Marzoni, who graduated from medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, thinks of himself more as a teacher than a surgeon--helping people learn about their bodies and their health. "I think I am a teacher at heart, and if I were not doing surgery I would be a high school English teacher in a little prep school in New England somewhere," he says.
Dr. Marzoni likes to read novels and history books ("100 books a year"), and hopes to travel with his wife, Priscilla, now that his children will all be off to college. And he will have a little more time to play piano, which he began to learn a decade ago on his 40th birthday.
He'll continue to devote his time to the Recovery Inn of Menlo Park, wherehe was Chief of Staff since it opened in 1992 until he resigned after being elected to the Clinic's Executive Board last December.
A huge challenge in the next four years is serving on the Executive Board, Dr. Marzoni says. "It's a tough time for medicine right now-- and for an organization such as ours, facing so many outside changes.
"But my interests aren't in our relationship with the outside world as much as our relationship with each other, how we can become an even more functional family," he says. "I see myself as a conciliator, someone who can bring people with different views together."
Dr. Marzoni is happy with his practice, his patients, his family, his books and music. His father was a physician, too, and Dr. Marzoni summarizes his approach to life and medicine by talking about a memory of his dad:
"I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, and it doesn't snow often in Birmingham and when it does, it's a big deal--you get out of school, the town's paralyzed. I remember when I was 9, it had started to snow before I went to bed. I woke up around 2 o'clock in the morning and I jumped up to see how much snow there was.
"And I looked out the front window and saw a set of half-effaced footprints going to the empty spot where my dad's car should have been. He was already out sewing up the first person who'd cracked up his car and split his head open on a windshield.
"For me, doctoring is about getting out of bed at night to go attend to somebody. "I guess if I wanted to be thought of in some way, I'd want people to say: `He was somebody who, when I needed help, would get out of bed.'"