Hoag Hospital

Televangelist Oral Roberts, known for his powerful preaching style and emotional fund-raising appeals, was hospitalized in stable condition Wednesday after undergoing an emergency medical procedure to clear an artery. Roberts, 74, is expected to remain hospitalized at Hoag Hospital for about a week. "Mr. Roberts successfully underwent a coronary angioplasty and is now in the coronary care unit of Hoag Hospital in stable condition," Dr. Subbarao Myla, his cardiologist, said in a statement.

A Huntington Beach woman was hospitalized early Saturday after she was shot in a thigh by an unidentified gunman firing from a car. Police said Erika Spencer, 19, was taken to Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach by her parents shortly after midnight. Officials at Hoag Hospital refused to release Spencer's condition, but police said it was not a life-threatening wound. According to police, Spencer and her girlfriend were returning home when two cars appeared in the 9100 block of Mediterranean Drive.

A man accused of killing a Newport Beach doctor has pleaded not guilty to murder in Orange County Superior Court. Stanwood Elkus, 75, of Lake Elsinore, pressed against the third-floor courtroom's cage Friday to listen to his public defender, Jennifer Nicolalde, and shouted his responses to the judge. He stands accused of shooting and killing Ronald Gilbert, a urologist, at Orange Coast Urology, 520 Superior Ave., near Hoag Hospital, on Jan. 28. He also faces sentencing enhancements for allegedly lying in wait and using a gun to cause death.

Patricia Hoag, a local philanthropist who helped spearhead her family's efforts to battle cancer and other diseases, died after a long illness Thursday morning at the hospital bearing her name. She was 73. Hoag and her late husband, George Hoag II, had worked closely to support programs at Hoag Hospital, which George Hoag co-founded in 1950.

Hoag Hospital has received a $25,000 grant from the Nancy Reagan Foundation for research on the effect of heredity in developing cancer. The Richard J. Flamson Heredity Screening program, a division of the hospital's cancer center, helps people identify and understand their risk for developing hereditary cancers. Heredity plays a role in 10% or more of all cancers, hospital officials said.

Hoag Hospital officials have asked the California Coastal Commission to delay consideration of the hospital's long-range expansion plans until next month. The controversial proposal to construct hospital facilities on about two acres of cattail-choked wetland near Coast Highway has generated opposition from the planning staff at the Coastal Commission, which has recommended that the full commission reject the plan.

As a psychiatric registered nurse, I am concerned about the decision to close Hoag Hospital's Mental Health Services unit as was discussed in The Times (March 18). Mental health services are an integral part of the healing process for many individuals suffering from such stress-related conditions as cardiac, hypertensive and gastrointestinal problems. Long-term debilitating illnesses, such as cancer and gerontological problems, require psychiatric intervention and rehabilitation.

* Victoria Wilson has been named vice president of hospital services for Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach. She is in charge of several of the hospital's major service lines, including Hoag Heart Institute, Hoag Cancer Center, imaging services, rehabilitation services and the clinical laboratory. Before joining Hoag, she was assistant administrator at St. Bernardine Medical Center in San Bernardino.

An environmental group has filed a lawsuit against the California Coastal Commission in an effort to reverse the panel's approval in February of an expansion plan by Hoag Hospital. The lawsuit contends that the commission should not have approved the 20-acre hospital development because the project is not consistent with the terms of the California Coastal Act, which was designed to protect and preserve wetlands. The development would result in the loss of about two acres of wetlands.