From Hollywood to Drexel Hill: Locally Raised Musician, Valerie Broussard, Makes Unexpected Stop at DCMH

Pictured from left to right are James Giannone, D.O., DCMH general surgeon; Monae Madison, patient care technician; Valerie Broussard; Erika Wenner, R.N.; Rebecca Deuchar, nurse director of the DCMH Emergency Department; and Kim Chambers, R.N.

When Drexel Hill-born singer/songwriter Valerie Broussard came home for the holiday, the last place she thought she’d end up would be a hospital Emergency Department. But in the early hours of Thursday, Dec. 21, that’s exactly where she was.

Broussard had been feeling unwell for days leading up to her trip home from Los Angeles. Battling what she thought was a common cold, the accomplished musician – who has been featured on TV (“Riverdale”) as well as the big screen (Marvel’s “Inhumans”) – waited it out as long as she could. But when her abdominal pain did not subside, she went to the Emergency Department at Delaware County Memorial Hospital – coincidentally, the hospital she was born at.

“Everyone in the ER was so good to me and caring,” Broussard says. Her medical team performed tests, and once they had a diagnosis they delivered it with a little bit of humor and a lot of compassion: “They said, “Surprise – you have appendicitis,” Broussard recounts, “but you’re going to be fine.” Next thing she knew, she was in the capable hands of DCMH general surgeon Jamie Giannone, D.O., who performed a laparoscopic appendectomy.

Broussard’s visit was a homecoming in more ways than one. She was born at DCMH and cared for in the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). When she arrived at DCMH last week, Broussard learned that the woman registering her in the Emergency Department was also in the NICU at the same time she was. “I thought, this feels like home,” she says.

Appendicitis surgery requires a short post-procedure hospital stay. As brief as her stay was, Broussard was thankful for the team who cared for her on the hospital’s 5 West Med/Surg Unit. “My nurses on the fifth floor were amazing,” she says, “so kind and caring. They took really good care of me.”

Now on the mend, Broussard is en route back to California – where she is working on her debut album.

“I’m so happy I wasn’t in LA when this happened,” she says. “I’m glad I was home with my friends and family. I’m glad I was at DCMH.”