Former hospitalist provides valuable insight to primary care patients
UH Clinical Update - March 2018
Internist Martina Ferraro, DO, MBA, began her career in primary care, but then spent a decade as a hospitalist at Cleveland Clinic. Now that she’s returned to her primary care roots and has joined University Hospitals, Dr. Ferraro is able to provide valuable perspective to her patients from her hospital experience. 
“As a hospitalist, I spent the majority of my time treating preventable diseases such as COPD,” she says. “I felt like this was my opportunity now to be proactive. Now that I have my own patients again, I have a preventive medicine list that I go through – it’s 20 different items!”
Some of Dr. Ferraro’s original patients from 10 years ago are even returning to her internal medicine practice, now headquartered at UH Sheffield Health Center.
“That’s the most wonderful feeling,” she says. “I’m here to stay, and this just reinforces that I made the right decision. There is no better feeling than when I see the names on my schedule. I remember these patients perfectly – when I see their names, I know exactly who they are.”
Dr. Ferraro earned her medical degree at Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine and completed her residency training in internal medicine at Fairview Hospital. She started with UH on January 1.
“I decided that not only did I want to go back to outpatient medicine, I also wanted to join UH,” she says. “I like the way UH handles primary care. “I was at Elyria Memorial Hospital during the partnering with UH and was impressed with the transition and how the hospital was elevated as a result of it.”
One point of pride for Dr. Ferraro is her patient access. She encourages all her patients to sign up for the UH Personal Health Record (Follow My Health). When they do, she sends them a welcome email and keeps the electronic connection open so that her patients can send their own emails to her with questions.
“My patients always have access to me,” she says. “The joke is that Dr. Ferraro will email you on the weekend. If I need to talk to them on the phone or see them in person, I do not rely on email, but they do have that initial contact available.”
Patients seeking an appointment for a physical or to establish a new primary care relationship can also be easily accommodated in Dr. Ferraro’s UH Sheffield office.
“A patient can call and get an appointment pretty quickly,” she says. “Many of my patients like that we have other specialties in our building, such as orthopedics, neurology and ENT. That’s a selling point for them. I am so fortunate, too, to have a wonderful medical assistant, Doris Yontosh, who is experienced, competent, hard-working and always a few steps ahead of me. Our patients love her, and by the time I walk in the room, she has them relaxed and comfortable.”