Farinola active in creating hospice

Tuesday, Nov. 19, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Services for Dr. Gerard Vito Farinola, who helped create hospice services in Clark County and founded the first local Open Heart Golf Tournament, were to be held today.

Farinola, a 22-year Las Vegas resident and retired physician who died Saturday in a local hospital, was to be remembered in a 3 p.m. ceremony at Palm Mortuary, 7600 S. Eastern Ave.

Born April 19, 1909, in Bari, Italy, Farinola came to the United States with his family when he was a child.

A graduate of the Medical College of Virginia at Richmond, Farinola was a veteran of the U.S. Army Medical Corps.

He came to Las Vegas in 1974 and was a member of the Columbia Sunrise Hospital Community Advisory Board, as well as other boards and committees for the facility.

After helping to establish hospice care for terminal cancer patients in Las Vegas, Farinola served on the board of directors for the Nathan Adelson Hospice in 1983.

An avid golfer and a member of the Sunrise Country Club, Farinola started the Open Heart Tournament at the Desert Inn County Club in 1981, which benefited the American Heart Association.

In New York, Farinola was a charter member and past president of the Nassau County Family Practice Association, and, in the mid-1950s, was president of the Nassau County Medical Society. He also was a member of the Rockville Links in Rockville Center.

Farinola is survived by his wife, Mary Ellen Farinola; one daughter, Sandra Morgan of Greenwich, Conn.; one sister, Irene D'Amura of Bethel, Conn.; and two grandchildren.

DONATIONS: In Farinola's memory to the American Heart Association, 6370 W. Flamingo Road, Suite 1, Las Vegas, NV 89103; the American Cancer Society, 1325 E. Harmon Ave., Las Vegas, NV 89119; or the Nathan Adelson Hospice, 4141 S. Swenson St., Las Vegas, NV 89119.