Baby Emily was the first.  It was seven years ago -- August 29, 2003 -- when Dr. Andre Kasko held her in his arms and Hi-Desert Medical Center's Special Additions Birthing Center, which the doctor helped build from the ground up, announced its first birth.

  

Today, the grade-schooler still visits Kasko, who helped her mom, Rachel, give birth to her.  The family moved away from the Morongo Basin, but has returned three times so Kasko could serve as obstetrician for the arrival of Emily's brothers.

  

It's a look at life that never fails to awe the doctor.

  

"It is a continuum, from when I see the little 5-millimeter bean shape in the ultrasound, to when the baby is born, to when she is running around my office, answering questions and asking for candy," the doctor says during a quick break in his Joshua Tree office.

  

Sometimes, as many as five generations of a family will be present in a birthing room.

  

"I get to see life at the extremes -- at the beginning and at the end.  I guess I'm lucky," he says.

  

With days that begin at 6:30 a.m. with elective cesarean sections at the hospital in Joshua Tree and end some 14 hours later with deliveries and then evening rounds, Kasko is adamant about sticking to a schedule - as much as possible when babies are his business.

  

"Be prepared" easily could be his motto.  "We try to plan and monitor the patients so there are no surprises," Kasko says.  "You try to control whatever is controllable."

  

His days are regimented: major surgeries followed by minor surgeries, rounds, clinic work, quick trips back to the hospital to check on women in labor, lunch meetings, back to the clinic then back to the hospital for more deliveries and finally rounds again.

  

Of course, the unpredictable can rear its head at any moment in the doctor's line of work.  While Kasko and his staff can calculate delivery times and even time the deliveries themselves to some extent, an emergency can walk through the doors at any time.

  

"Then we start anew," he says with a smile.

  

When he's not at the hospital, Kasko is usually in his office just across the highway, where the waiting room is filled with expectant mothers and the curtained-off exam areas echo with the aqueous churning of fetal heartbeats.

  

Kasko moves from belly to gleaming belly, checking ultrasound readouts and reassuring mothers-to-be about their pain and early contractions.

  

"My goal is really being personally involved in my patients' care, because I know I can make a difference," he explains.

  

Kasko's first patients were a far cry from the women and babies he now treats.  He started out as a veterinarian in Czechoslovakia.

  

As a boy in communist Eastern Europe, Kasko saw his father jailed in a Soviet gulag for being "too capitalist," and didn't want his own children growing up to the same fate.

  

"In a communist country, it is very different.  Sometimes you'd have to do things you wouldn't agree with, rather than be red-flagged," he says.

  

"As I was growing up, America was everybody's dream," he recalls.  "It was a country you would die to get to."

  

By the time he was in his early 20s, Kasko was working as a veterinarian and he wasn't precisely wanting for anything -- except freedom.  His job, even his future, felt prescribed for him.

  

"Even though I was fine, there was no opportunity to grow out of that box," he says.

  

He immigrated to the United States in 1980 as a graduate student who spoke little English, and depended on his steadfast belief in hard work and anticipation. 

  

"When I got to America, I was well prepared.  I had my basic science education and I was willing to work hard," he says.  "You've got to be willing to work hard."  That work ethic paid off, and Kasko earned his Doctor of Osteopathy degree in 1991.  After a residency at Riverside County Medical Center, he was recruited to a San Bernardino County facility and then back to Riverside County Medical Center to start up its facility in Moreno Valley.

  

A fellow physician suggested he check out Hi-Desert Medical Center's plans for a new birthing center.

  

He was happy where he was, but, "They were persistent and they eventually talked me into it.  How often in your life do you get to open a brand new OB center?"  Today, Kasko is proud of the center and excited about a coming expansion.

  

"It's beautiful!" he says, gesturing to the surgery set-up.

  

He has acquired a following of patients, like Emily's mom, and has impressed a tough crowd -- the nurses in the unit.

  

"He's amazing," Special Additions Director Karmolette O'Gilvie says of Kasko.  "He remembers small details about his patients.  I'm not talking just patients in labor; from pre-natal to post-partum, he remembers, and his patients love him."

_______________________________________________

     

Doctor Kasko currently serves as Chief of Staff at Hi-Desert Medical Center.

	For contact information about Dr. Kasko!
	For information about the Special Additions Birthing Center and the services it provides!