Remembering a legend

Hanging on a wall in the emergency room at Saint Joseph London is a plaque dedicated to the late Dr. David De La Peña, a beloved emergency room physician who advanced trauma care and established a paramedicine program in Laurel County. 

He is not the only De La Peña family member who has served the London hospital. His wife, Faith, worked as a Cytotechnologist in its lab before her retirement and his late son, David III, was a Respiratory Therapist there.

His daughter Karin is a clinical educator who said she feels like she is walking in her father’s footsteps as she researches ways to advance care at Saint Joseph London.

Working at the same hospital as her father, mother and brother gives her a sense of pride and tradition. “That’s why maybe sometimes it may seem like I’m a little pushy with things to do and to improve on — because I have that pride. I want us to be the best,” Karin said.

Dr. De La Peña came to the London hospital after a career that saw him traveling internationally for the World Health Organization and working as a pathologist and medical examiner in Mexico City. He and his wife Faith, a Laurel County native, met in Cincinnati. 

They moved from Mexico to Laurel County to care for Faith’s mother when Karin was a teenager.After obtaining his American physician license, Dr. De La Peña worked as an emergency room doctor at the London hospital. The transition was not difficult.

“He blended right in,” Karin said. “Everybody just fell in love with him. You can ask anybody here that he took care of; there are some people who still remember him, and they just loved him.”

When Dr. De La Peña became the Medical Director of the Laurel County Ambulance Service in the late 1970s-early 1980s, his daughter said, he realized more lives could be saved if the emergency service had paramedics on staff. Dr. De La Peña sponsored several EMTs for paramedic training. He later went into family practice before retiring in 2011.

Karin remembers visiting her father in the emergency room after school. 

“We would see people coming in and we would watch him work,” she said. The changes she has seen in emergency care since those after-school visits are primarily advancements in trauma care and technology, such as ultrasound, along with an improved structure for triaging and sorting patients according to their medical issue. The dedication, she said, is the same.

The Next Generation

There was never any doubt that Karin would go into a medical field. After working five years as a nurse at the London and Lexington hospitals, she qualified to be a flight nurse. At the time, the forerunners of Saint Joseph Hospitals in Lexington and London operated their own medical flight service. Karin  said her father played a role in her choice. 

“He influenced me with the transport aspect — that it’s not just that emergency rooms don’t fix everything, but it’s a process from the time somebody picks a patient up until the time they bring them in here,” she said. “It’s important to start the process to try to have better outcomes of survival with a patient.”

When Karin stopped flying after 27 years, Saint Joseph London was her choice as a home base for nursing. 

“I wanted to be part of people who were progressive and demanded nothing less than excellent care and compassion and the values that we have,” she said. “That’s why I came back here.” 

She became a clinical educator “so I could continue to educate and advance with the care…. I just continued my dad’s vision for this hospital.”

Karin  said her father would have appreciated all the advancements that have been made after his retirement and passing, she said. 

“He would be so proud to know that London has gotten their Level III trauma certification, the neonatal intensive care unit and all the accomplishments. He would just be so proud because that was his foresight — that’s what he was looking for in this area of the state.”

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