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Robert M. Biter |
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Photo by Brevin Blach
FROM THE FIRST WAIL OF A NEWBORN to the final breaths of a dying woman, Robert Biter helps women celebrate life at both ends of its fragile cycle. As department chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas, Biter helps women usher new life into the world. And as founder and president of Her Heart’s Wish, he grants the wishes of terminally ill women, easing their transition out of this world.
Six years ago, Biter was completing his residency at Penn State Hershey Medical Center when he met Beth, a young mother dying of ovarian cancer. After coming to terms with her condition, Beth expressed two final wishes: to bake cookies with her children one last time and take a weekend trip with her husband. Biter mobilized other residents and nurses to make Beth’s wishes a reality just days before her death. But before she died, Beth revealed another wish: for other terminally ill women to enjoy the same opportunity to fulfill one last desire of the heart.
In 1999, Biter founded Her Heart’s Wish, a charitable organization that has granted hundreds of wishes in nearly all 50 states. A 19-year-old girl met her idol, musician Dave Matthews; a 51-year old woman swam with dolphins; an Encinitas woman was reunited with a sister living in London. The volunteer-run national organization receives five to 10 requests per month from women told they have less than two years to live. No wish has ever been refused.
“I’m invited into an extraordinary moment in the lives of these women,” says Biter. “Each day we are given an incredible opportunity to appreciate life and its fragility. It’s my responsibility to honor those final, indelible moments.”
Committed to “helping people live while they are dying,” Biter, 35, initially thought he would focus on end-of-life care. Then he delivered his first baby.
“Delivering babies offers the perfect balance for me,” he says. “That very first minute—like the very last minute—of a person’s life is a powerful moment that can be terrifying but equally beautiful.”
Her Heart’s Wish operates with very little overhead. The organization (herheartswish.org) relies on T-shirt sales and other grass-roots fund-raising activities—some nontraditional. Biter wrote, produced and acted in the play Strangers, performed in October to benefit Her Heart’s Wish and Scripps Encinitas.
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