By Christian Kirkpatrick Special Writer
The champagne was cold, and the jazz hot, for this year’s “A November Night,” presented by the Auxiliary of University Medical Center at Princeton. Called “The Gatsby Gala,” the event drew nearly 350 guests — most dressed as flappers, their escorts in black tie — to the Palace at Somerset Park.
The address may have been Somerset, but the ambiance was strictly West Egg, Long Island, the magnificent home of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s best-known character. Guests drifted through a suite of rooms, past magnificent Gothic-style fireplaces, under crystal chandeliers and through rooms of gilt and inlaid furnishings. Behind every potted fern or arrangement of calla lilies, one expected to see Gatsby waiting for Daisy, his unattainable love.
“We tried to replicate the opulence of the roaring ‘20s,” said gala co-chair Pat Peach of Princeton. Sue Burton of Montgomery agreed, adding that she was very happy to co-chair with Ms. Peach, with whom she has worked on benefits before.
“Every year, our ‘November Night’ gets better and better,” said Pat Newman, Auxiliary president. “This year we came out of the tent and into the palace!” added Auxiliary member Marci Bauman, referring to the countless ‘November Nights’ in which tents housed guests.
Profits from “The Gatsby Gala” and from all Auxiliary events held during 2007 will fund new technology for UMCP’s Maternity Program. It will buy a nurse/patient communication system, systems for monitoring the health of mothers and babies, neonatal diagnostic equipment, and equipment for newborns.
Obstetrics increasingly relies on technology likes this, said Dr. Allan Friedman, chairman of the Princeton HealthCare System, of which UMCP is a part. These systems will be used in the medical center’s current facility and in its new one, once it is built.
About 20 staff members who work with expectant mothers and their newborns were on hand Saturday night. They included Esta Desa, a labor and delivery technician living in Princeton, and Joan Saccenti, a nurse from North Brunswick, who started working at the medical center in 1972. Her fellow nurse and Montgomery resident Ann Marie Maldarelli — who was born in Princeton Hospital, the forerunner of UMCP — began working there in 1973. Ms. Saccenti and Ms. Maldarelli care for about 200 uninsured prenatal patients each year in the hospital’s outpatient clinic.
Labor and delivery technician and Burlington resident Nancy Honickman works in the Department of Labor, Delivery, Recovery and Postpartum. She said that proceeds from “The Gatsby Gala” will go to a very good cause. New technology will allow her department to improve its already high standard of care.
According to the gala program, UMCP’s maternity program is ranked among the top 5 percent throughout the United States.
How will the hospital continue to earn such good marks? asked Barry Rabner, CEO and president of Princeton HealthCare System. He said that the organization is spending between $10 and $15 million a year on UMCP’s current facility to keep it up to date.
At the same time, Mr. Rabner is deciding how best to configure the new facility being planned for construction. He said he had recently asked the nearly 1,000 doctors associated with Princeton HealthCare System to tell him what is working well and what to avoid in the new location.
“The hospital is a wonderful addition to our community,” commented Ed Matthews, chair of UMCP’s board of trustees. “It provides extraordinary service, and I’m looking forward to enhancing the satisfaction we provide in our new facility on Route 1.”
Corporate sponsors of “The Gatsby Gala” included Bristol-Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, Hilton Realty, Betsy and Jeffrey Sands, Hok/Hillier, The Glenmede Trust Company and Princeton Radiology.

