Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau President & CEO Chris Barrett didn’t wake up that January morning thinking, “I’m going to have surgery today” – which is why he still remembers being told in the ER of St. Luke’s Monroe Campus that his surgery was scheduled in 42 minutes.
“In an incredibly stressful situation, everyone at St. Luke’s calmed me and said, ‘We have this under control,’” Barrett said.
More than a year later, Barrett is healthy and back to normal following emergency surgery to clear an intestinal blockage that hit him without warning. Barrett, 64, felt fine that morning, began feeling stomach pain in the afternoon, and by 8 p.m. was in the ER at St Luke’s Monroe Campus. There, Dr. Daniel Fegely quickly diagnosed the blockage, scheduled surgery, and relieved Barrett’s anxiety.
“He said, ‘This is not life-threatening, you’ll recover,’ and that made me feel much better,” Barrett said. “Dr. Fegely was so kind, so helpful, and he really put me at ease. He knew exactly what he was doing. Everyone did.”
The comprehensive care Barrett received is a testament to St. Luke’s overall excellence. This past fall, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ranked St. Luke’s #1 – ahead of Houston Methodist and Mayo Clinic, two of the nation’s most prestigious institutions – as the nation’s top health system for quality, safety, and patient experience. This objective recognition, based on public data reported to the government, reaffirmed St. Luke’s preeminent position among the leading health systems in the country.
Barrett spent four days recovering at St. Luke’s Monroe Campus, where he contemplated the hospital’s impact on the Pocono Mountains community, which welcomes more than 30 million annual visitors to enjoy four seasons of recreation, scenery and fun.
A region that serves a growing population of residents as well as tourists needs quality health care, Barrett said. After his experience with the Monroe Campus team, he switched his primary care to the team at St. Luke’s.
“I tell everybody, ‘I know you don’t want to go to the hospital, but when you have to, you want to go to the best place you can go,’” Barrett said. “And St. Luke’s is that place in the Poconos.”
In 2024, St. Luke’s Monroe Campus opened a four-story, 165,000-square-foot expansion that doubled its size, added advanced services, and enhanced access to local care. The expansion included a cutting-edge interventional radiology suite, a cardiac rehabilitation suite, a new 36-bed medical-surgical unit, and a Homestar pharmacy.
Having a state-of-the-art hospital system available to everyone who lives and plays in the Poconos elevates the region’s quality of life, Barrett said.
“When somebody visits, or when a company wants to relocate to a region, they’re very sensitive to that quality of life,” Barrett said. “Everyone can be assured that if, God forbid, something happens, we have a top-notch health system here that would be able to do anything. I’m just thankful that St. Luke’s Monroe Campus is located within the Pocono Mountains. It's a treasure and jewel of our region, no question about that.”
