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Former Anchor Gives GBMC Patients and Visitors a Friendly Face

October 10, 2023
GBMC Volunteer Auxiliary president and former WJZ anchor Don Scott

For 40 years and four days, Don Scott helped the Baltimore community make sense of what was happening in its neighborhoods. As the lead anchor alongside Marty Bass on WJZ’s morning news show, he informed and entertained, serving as a smiling face to start each morning.

Now, Baltimoreans see that same face in the halls of their favorite hospital. Instead of helping them navigate court cases or traffic patterns, he helps navigate the halls of GBMC. But his favorite part of volunteering at GBMC is turning people around.

“People come into the hospital looking at the floor and they’re thinking about what they have going on,” Scott said. “I say, ‘Can I help you find something?’ They key in on the voice, look up and then they smile. We talk and we take selfies. And then they walk to their appointment thinking, ‘This is fun!’”

Scott began volunteering at GBMC a year after he retired from television news. He knew he wanted to volunteer at a hospital and remembered GBMC from his reporting days. Any time WJZ needed a doctor to serve as an expert on a news item, he knew he could count on a GBMC physician. It also happens to be his community hospital.

“My parents wanted a doctor, and this is the closest I’ve gotten to it,” he joked.

After eight years serving as a greeter, Scott added the title of GBMC Volunteer Auxiliary President to his resume. After serving as vice president for two years and learning from his predecessor Rick Pierce, Scott assumed the presidency in June 2023.

“GBMC does a lot of things right when it comes to volunteers,” Scott said. “They pay attention to us first and foremost. They show appreciation with little favors or lunches, things like that. And Carmen [Baeza, Director of Volunteer Services] also has this unique ability to find someone the perfect fit and that makes the experience of volunteering that much more rewarding.”

As a greeter, Scott often stands at the main entrance, welcoming and directing patients and visitors when they enter the hospital. Since construction for The Promise Project began, that role has taken on a new level of service.

Volunteers recently played a vital role when construction work required the closure of a portion of the hospital’s main corridor. Visitors had to go up one elevator and down another to bypass construction and get back on track. Without the help of efficient and patient volunteers like Scott, they could have been confused and disoriented.

Even with the small inconveniences construction has brought on, Scott looks forward to the Louis and Phyllis Friedman Building and the new main entrance.

“I get to visit a lot of people in the current, small rooms. The size of the new rooms is going to be fantastic,” Scott said. “The open space of the atrium, that’s going to really help patient and visitor morale. As nice as the old main entrance was, the ceilings were low and with the new atrium, the proximity of things you need being close, will be a satisfier.”

Scott and his wife of 51 years, Deborah, even made a gift to support the project because they “wanted to be a part of it.”

Resuming greeting duties in the new main entrance will be different, but Scott will still be making people smile and setting them on the right path for their day, just like he did when he was on air. Another part of his volunteering — and also part of why he loved being a local news anchor — is what he gains from the experience.

“You won’t believe what you get out of volunteering,” Scott said. “Helping someone, even in a little way, just makes you feel good.”

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