A LIFELINE ON THE NORTH SHORE 

Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute comes to Northwestern Medicine Catherine Gratz Griffin Lake Forest Hospital.

To see a family member whisked away in an ambulance is bad enough. But when a son or daughter, mother or father, husband or wife, is transported from a nearby facility to one in the city, that distance only heightens the stress and uncertainty of an unsettling situation. In April of 2025, along with her parents, husband, and sister-in-law, Catherine Bernardi watched as her brother was taken by ambulance from Northwestern Medicine Catherine Gratz Griffin Lake Forest Hospital to the Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute in Streeterville. It was a day she’ll never forget.

As a member of The Women’s Board of Northwestern Medicine Catherine Gratz Griffin Lake Forest Hospital, Bernardi co-chairs the group’s annual benefit held at Shoreacres in Lake Bluff on April 18. As the months-long preparations for the event began, she assumed proceeds would benefit the hospital’s addition of two new inpatient pavilions. In October, the hospital was renamed Northwestern Medicine Catherine Gratz Griffin Lake Forest Hospital in honor of philanthropist Kenneth C. Griffin’s mother and in recognition of his generous philanthropy for Northwestern Medicine. “Then, just a few months ago,” Bernardi shares, “we learned the proceeds from the event will be dedicated to advancing surgical excellence and cardiovascular care. This means we are expanding capacity in Lake Forest, so more patients in our community can receive the advanced care they need, closer to home. When I heard that, I couldn’t believe it. I had to leave the room. The fact that patients requiring serious cardiac care will no longer have to be transported out of Lake Forest really hit home for me, because that night, when we had to see my brother leave, not knowing his fate, was so traumatic for us. And knowing that families will no longer have to endure that, it’s an amazing gift.”

Last April, Bernardi’s brother and two friends were playing at Conway Farms Golf Course. On the third hole, his buddies noticed something odd about his drive, but they shrugged it off. Two swings later, their friend was on the ground. “They called 911 and, with the guidance of medics over the phone, started CPR and continued until the paramedics arrived,” recalls Bernardi. The paramedics administered immediate defibrillation with an automated external defibrillator, shocking his heart twice. He was transported to Catherine Gratz Griffin Lake Forest Hospital Emergency Department, where he was put into a medically induced coma to keep his body still and calm to prevent any further injury and placed on a ventilator. “The interventional cardiologist told us that one of his main arteries was 100 percent blocked,” Bernardi explains. “He performed a procedure to try to clear the blockage, but it was unsuccessful.”

That same night, Bernardi’s brother was transferred to the critical care unit of Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute in Chicago. After five days in a coma, he miraculously started to wake up. Three weeks later, while still in Chicago, he underwent triple bypass surgery and had a defibrillator implanted. It was rough going, but as Bernardi reports, “Today, my brother is back to himself, which is nothing short of a miracle.”

Once only available in downtown Chicago, the expertise of the Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute—nationally recognized by U.S. News & World Report for top performance in heart failure care and renowned as an innovative center of cardiovascular medicine for delivering pioneering treatments and heart disease research—will soon be available on the North Shore.

This enhancement of services is the latest chapter in the institution’s accelerating commitment to cardiovascular care. Launched as part of Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute only a decade ago with a handful of physicians, the cardiology program at Catherine Gratz Griffin Lake Forest Hospital has grown into a thriving and expanding program that sets new standards for excellence, has treated more than 50,000 patients, and expects to have 20 cardiologists on staff by 2026. As the hospital continues to advance its cardiovascular care, families will no longer have to endure the heartbreaking uncertainty Bernardi experienced as she saw her brother driven away that April night. “In the scheme of things, that moment may sound silly,” says Bernardi, “but to be suddenly separated, without any glimmer of an outcome, is extremely tough. It’s such a gift to our community to now have advanced cardiac care right in our backyard.”