Mount Sinai South Nassau ‘Soiree Under the Stars’ Gala to Raise Funds for Expanded Cardiac Care for the South Shore

Whiting Turner Construction Management Executive Named Corporate Honoree; Cardiovascular nurse, cardiac rehabilitation specialist also to be honored; Jeffrey Feil receives ‘Heart of the Hospital’ special award

Philip Shuman, Vice President of The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company, will headline Mount Sinai South Nassau’s 2025 “Soirée Under the Stars” as the corporate honoree of the hospital’s annual fund-raising gala, which will raise funds to support the hospital’s growing cardiac program.

The gala will be held Saturday, October 4, at The Lannin in Eisenhower Park starting at 6:30 pm.
 
Jeffrey J. Feil, a longtime benefactor of the hospital and a Rockville Centre resident, will be recognized with a special “Heart of the Hospital” award for his many years of support.

The theme for the gala is “Bringing Heart Home.” Its focus is to raise funds to support the expansion of Mount Sinai South Nassau’s cardiovascular services to provide advanced cardiac care, including open-heart surgery, for residents of the South Shore. Nine new operating rooms in the new Feil Family Pavilion are set to open early next year, paving the way for more complex procedures to be performed at the Oceanside campus. This will save patients from having to travel to Manhattan or to the North Shore.

Two long-time staff members of the hospital’s comprehensive cardiovascular services, Debbie Jonason, RN, assistant nurse manager of Cardiac Catheterization, and Arthur Golbert, senior cardiac rehabilitation exercise physiologist, will also be honored. They will be presented with the hospital’s Mary Pearson and Cupola Awards, respectively.

The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company is the construction manager for the Feil Family Pavilion, Mount Sinai South Nassau’s transformative four-story patient care pavilion, which saw its first patients in March with the opening of the modernized and expanded Fennessy Family Emergency Department. The Fennessy Family Emergency Department underwent a $50 million renovation, $13 million of which was funded by donations from the community.

Mr. Feil, both personally and through the Charitable Lead Annuity Trust established by his late parents, Gertrude & Louis Feil--is the hospital’s largest individual donor. “The Feil Family Pavilion is the cornerstone of a $500 million capital program that will significantly improve health care for the South Shore,” said Adhi Sharma, MD, Mount Sinai South Nassau’s President. “Our strong collaboration and shared vision with Mr. Shuman and The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company made it happen on time and within budget. And our patients will benefit for decades to come. Whiting Turner and Phil delivered a beautiful new patient pavilion.”

“We are also incredibly grateful for the generous philanthropic support of the Feil family. It is our shared commitment to ensuring that the communities we serve have convenient access to the health care they need and deserve that makes this ‘Heart of the Hospital’ award so meaningful and special,” Dr. Sharma said.

“There is no one more dedicated or deserving of recognition than Jeffrey Feil when it comes to helping us fulfill our mission of advancing care on the South Shore,” said Tony Cancellieri, co-chair of Mount Sinai South Nassau’s advisory board and a member of the Mount Sinai Health System Boards of Trustees. “He has been there for us every step of the way.”

With more than 27 years in construction, all with Whiting-Turner, Mr. Shuman has built a distinguished career in health care construction. Most recently, he led Whiting-Turner’s collaboration with Mount Sinai and HOK, successfully navigating the complex challenges of the Feil Family Pavilion. Whiting-Turner consistently ranks within the top 10 health care contractors nationwide. For more than two decades, Mr. Shuman has brought vision, precision, and partnership to the health care sector, helping clients realize spaces that serve and heal. From his early work on advanced research laboratories to leading nearly 50 health care projects encompassing nearly 1 million square feet, Mr. Shuman has become a recognized leader in the field. His leadership, integrity, and dedication continue to shape and improve health care environments.

The Mary Pearson Award, named in honor of the hospital’s founding administrator, is presented annually to an individual for extraordinary effort and individual contributions that significantly advance the hospital’s commitment to the community. 

Ms. Jonason has dedicated more than 25 years to Mount Sinai South Nassau and compassionate patient care. After joining the hospital’s nursing staff in 1998 and serving as a nurse manager of surgical step-down and medical/surgical units, Ms. Jonasson took on the role of a staff nurse in the Cardiac Catheterization Lab in 2002.

Today, Ms. Jonason serves as assistant nurse manager of Cardiovascular Services, a position she has filled since 2011 with her trademark commitment and devotion to patients. Thanks to Ms. Jonason’s work and collaboration with physician leadership and advanced care providers, Mount Sinai South Nassau has received numerous awards for cardiovascular care, including a “High Performing” rating in heart failure and heart attack by U.S. News & World Report, a Healthgrades Coronary Intervention Excellence Award, and “four-star achiever” from the American College of Cardiology.

“Ms. Jonason has been a steady influence on the quality of the care we provide as well as the ongoing expansion of the cardiovascular services provided by the hospital,” said Stacey Conklin, MSN, NI-BC, MHCDS, NE-BC, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer. “I speak for our entire patient care team when I say that I am truly grateful to work with Ms. Jonason, who is a true example of giving all that you can to help the patient and to help your team and colleagues succeed.”

The Cupola Award, established in 2015, honors a deserving hospital employee who goes beyond their duties and lives by the hospital mission to promote excellence in health care.

For 25 years, Mr. Golbert has helped thousands of South Shore residents requiring cardiac rehabilitation as part of their treatment plans to overcome heart disease. It was Mr. Golbert’s passion for health and fitness that inspired him to leave a career that began in mortgage banking, real estate, and building materials to enroll in postgraduate studies at Adelphi University to earn a Master’s degree in Exercise Physiology. 

During his graduate studies, Mr. Golbert completed an internship at the South Nassau Communities Hospital’s Center for Cardiac Rehabilitation (now Mount Sinai South Nassau Center for Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehabilitation). Following graduation, he joined the Center as a full-time staff member, eventually becoming the Senior Exercise Physiologist. Always an example to his patients, Mr. Golbert has completed 76 marathons including 50 marathons in 50 states and is looking forward to running marathons in Canada and Europe.

“Since the day he joined the program, Mr. Golbert has been an essential member of our team and an inspiration to our patients, helping them recover, rebuild, and reclaim their health through encouragement, example, and expert rehabilitation treatment plans,” said Laura Righter, RN, Vice President of Operations. “I am certain that our patients will agree that he is a deserving and honorable recipient of this award.” 

“It takes an entire team of dedicated professionals to provide high-quality care on a consistent basis,” added Dr. Sharma. “Ms. Jonason and Mr. Golbert are model team players, and they have been vital to Mount Sinai South Nassau’s tradition of going above and beyond to provide cardiology and cardiovascular services to our patients. They treat patients like their own family members, and it shows in the loyalty they have developed among patients and fellow staff.”

Funds raised by the Soirée will support Mount Sinai South Nassau’s plan to advance its cardiovascular services. This includes the introduction of advanced cardiac surgical services including adult open-heart surgery, pending final state approval of the hospital’s Certificate of Need application, as well the expansion of its interventional cardiology program to add an additional Cardiac Catheterization and Electrophysiology Lab and a new CT-angiography lab to its cardiovascular center.

The open-heart cardiac program at the Oceanside campus will be overseen by surgeons and clinical leaders from the world-renowned Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital in Manhattan. Top surgeons from Manhattan will be onsite in Oceanside to perform the advanced cardiac procedures. The Mount Sinai Hospital’s cardiac program was ranked No. 2 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report for 2025-26, making it the most distinguished program of its kind in the metro area, outranking any existing cardiac programs on Long Island. The U.S. News rankings are based on objective data like patient outcomes and survival rates. 

When providing balloon angioplasty in an emergency, Mount Sinai South Nassau consistently completes the procedure in under an hour, averaging 58 minutes, which is 32 minutes faster than the national standard door-to-balloon-time benchmark of 90 minutes. (Door-to-balloon time is the time measured in minutes from the moment the patient walks in the door to the point where the artery in the heart is reopened with a stent procedure.) Mount Sinai South Nassau’s cardiac catheterization lab is a recipient of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses gold-level Beacon Award for Excellence.

This year’s Soirée will include an expanded cocktail reception starting at 6:30 pm and a sit-down dinner that will feature an array of food choices, unlimited top-shelf open bar, passed hot and cold hors d’oeuvres, and an opportunity to mingle with the hospital’s key supporters, staff, board leadership, and administration. The evening also will include dancing to music from a 10-piece live band. For more information about the Soirée, to purchase tickets, or support the event as a sponsor, call Mount Sinai South Nassau’s Development Office at 516-377-5360 or visit www.southnassaulifesaver.org.

About Mount Sinai South Nassau
The Long Island flagship hospital of the Mount Sinai Health System, Mount Sinai South Nassau is designated a Magnet® hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) for outstanding nursing care. Mount Sinai South Nassau is one of the region’s largest hospitals, with 455 beds, more than 900 physicians and 3,500 employees. Located in Oceanside, New York, the hospital is an acute-care, not-for-profit teaching hospital that provides state-of-the-art care in cardiac, oncologic, orthopedic, bariatric, pain management, mental health, and emergency services and operates the only Trauma Center on the South Shore of Nassau County, along with Long Island’s only free-standing Emergency Department in Long Beach.

In addition to its extensive outpatient specialty centers, Mount Sinai South Nassau provides emergency and elective angioplasty, and offers Novalis Tx™ and Gamma Knife® radiosurgery technologies. Mount Sinai South Nassau operates the only Trauma Center on the South Shore of Nassau County verified by the American College of Surgeons as well as Long Island’s only free-standing, 9-1-1 receiving Emergency Department in Long Beach. Mount Sinai South Nassau also is a designated Stroke Center by the New York State Department of Health and Comprehensive Community Cancer Center by the American College of Surgeons; is an accredited center of the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Association and Quality Improvement Program; and an Infectious Diseases Society of America Antimicrobial Stewardship Center of Excellence. 
For more information, go to www.mountsinai.org/southnassau.