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Hernando Today

Obstetrician's Legacy Lives On

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By TONY MARRERO Hernando Today

The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 10, 2008

BROOKSVILLE - In 1986, a young woman and her husband moved from New York to Brooksville, unaware that the woman was in fact a mother-to-be.

The husband had given up insurance after leaving his job, and the couple decided to go without coverage for a while until he found one. Two weeks later, they found out they were expecting.

Dr. Jose R. Berrios delivered a healthy girl. But he never delivered a bill.

"I thought we were just going to have to make payments," Robin Petrie, whose daughter Jennifer is now legal drinking age, recalled Tuesday. "But he'd heard our story. He did not charge me a single penny. He was such a sweet man."

Petrie's daughter is one of likely several thousand babies Dr. Berrios delivered since he came to Brooksville in 1968 and before he stopped delivering around 1991. He would continue to practice gynecology until he retired about nine years later.

Dr. Berrios died Sunday at his home while recovering from a stroke. He was 74.

He was a "family man" who died surrounded by loved ones and fulfilled by the knowledge that he helped start or grow so many of the county's families, said one of his daughters, Esther Watson of Land O'Lakes.

Childbirth "is a happy time and an important time, and he enjoyed that," Watson said.

Dr. Berrios did more than deliver babies. He went on to serve as chief of obstetrics and chief of staff at Lykes Memorial Hospital, which later became Brooksville Regional, on Ponce de Leon Boulevard.

"He did excellent work for obstetrics in this county," said Dr. Jorge Escamilla, who ran Harvard Medical Clinic right across the street from the hospital. Berrios joined Escamilla in 1968. "He was a fine person and a fine obstetrician and gynecologist."

Dr. Berrios had a knack for making women feel comfortable during what could often be a very uncomfortable time, said Carol Trayer, a nurse who worked for him for 18 years starting in 1978.

"His patients came first, no matter what," said Trayer, whose grandson was among the last Dr. Berrios delivered. And, she said, "He treated staff like family."

A firm believer in Lamaze birth practices, Dr. Berrios asked Trayer to become certified to teach courses around 1979. She did, making her among the first here in the county to do so, she said.
Trayer recalls other firsts that Dr. Berrios helped to bring about.

She suggested that fathers be allowed in the operating room during cesarean section births. One day Dr. Berrios came to her and said that a husband would be allowed to accompany his wife during the procedure that day.

"It went beautifully," Trayer recalled.

Dr. Berrios got the first birthing suite at Lykes, making it the first in the county.

And he encouraged the hospital to start sibling classes to help children get ready for their new baby brother or sister.

"He really did change the way obstetrics was practiced in Hernando County," Trayer said.

A native of Puerto Rico, Dr. Berrios earned his undergraduate degree from Tulane University and his medical degree from the University of Puerto Rico. He interned at Detroit Memorial Hospital and Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.

He served as a physician at Homestead Air Force Base before moving to Hernando County with his wife Zaida, who survives him.

Other survivors include two sons, Jose of St. Petersburg and Edwin of Fort Myers; daughter Dennisse Morley of Brooksville; two sisters, Blanca Berrios-Ohler of Hamilton, N.J. and Maria Berrios of Brooksville; and eight grandchildren.

The family will receive friends from 6 to 8 p.m. today at the Brewer & Sons Funeral Home, 1190 S. Broad St. A funeral mass is set for 10 a.m. Thursday at St. Anthony's Catholic Church, 20428 Cortez Blvd., Brooksville.

Reporter Tony Marrero can be reached at 352-544-5286 or lmarrero@hernandotoday.com.

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