Featured Image: Alyssa Bogert and her daughter, Cora.

When Alyssa Bogert’s daughter, Cora, began experiencing fever and abdominal pain in early 2025, she initially assumed it was a common childhood illness. Although there was a closer emergency room to their home in Berks County, Alyssa chose to bring her to the Isaacman Family St. Luke’s Children’s ER in Bethlehem—a decision that would prove lifesaving. At the time, Cora was 2 years old.

Eric Eustice, DO, an emergency room specialist, was on duty at the Isaacman Family St. Luke’s Children’s ER, which is in the St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital. From the outset, Alyssa felt their concerns were taken seriously. Dr. Eustice listened carefully, asked thoughtful questions, and chose to pursue additional testing to rule out more serious conditions, she says. That decision led to a CT scan, which revealed cancer – stage 4 neuroblastoma. “We were expecting him to come in and say that her appendix had to come out, but he instead said what no parent wants to hear,” Alyssa recalls. “It’s cancer.”

In that moment, everything changed. Cora was quickly transferred for specialized care, and now at 3 years old, Cora is doing well thanks to her treatment. Her family remains hopeful for the future.

Looking back, Alyssa firmly believes that the attentiveness and persistence of the Isaacman Family St. Luke’s Children’s ER team saved her daughter’s life. She credits the Isaacman Family St. Luke’s Children’s ER not only for its clinical expertise, but also for the staff’s compassion and willingness to listen—qualities that made all the difference during an uncertain and frightening time. “When Dr. Eustice told us what the CT scan showed, he delivered the news so sensitively and caringly. It was like he wasn’t a doctor at that moment but just a person who was here to help us,” she says.

Alyssa remains deeply grateful for the care her daughter received and emphasizes the importance of trusting parental instincts. She also highlights the value of having access to such high-quality pediatric emergency care, even if it means going a little farther from home.

The experience left a lasting impression on the Bogert family. Without the expert care that the Isaacman Family St. Luke’s Children’s ER provided Cora, Alyssa says, “we still might not have her.”

About St. Luke’s

Founded in 1872, St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network with annual net revenue of more than $4.5 billion. With 23,000+ employees at 16 hospital campuses and 350+ outpatient sites, it is the Lehigh Valley’s biggest employer.

The Network’s service area includes 11 counties in two states: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey. St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital is based at the Bethlehem Campus.

Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke’s is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania. In partnership with Temple University, the Network established the Lehigh Valley’s first and only four-year medical school. It also operates the nation’s oldest continuously operated School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 60+ fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with 550+ residents and fellows.

In 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ranked St. Luke’s #1 – ahead of Houston Methodist and Mayo Clinic, two of the nation’s most prestigious institutions – as the nation’s top health system for quality, safety and patient experience. This objective recognition, based on public data reported to the government, reaffirms St. Luke’s preeminent position as THE BEST OF THE BEST among the most respected health care systems in the United States.

St. Luke’s has been named a Leapfrog Group and Healthgrades Top Hospital and a Newsweek World’s Best Hospital. It is the only Lehigh Valley-based health care system to earn Medicare’s five-star ratings (the highest) for quality, efficiency and patient satisfaction. In 2025, the Network earned straight A’s from Leapfrog across all of its acute care hospitals. It has earned 100 Top Hospital designations from Premier 11 years in a row, including in 2021 when its flagship University Hospital was identified as THE #1 TEACHING HOSPITAL IN THE COUNTRY. Utilizing the Epic electronic medical record (EMR) system for both inpatient and outpatient services, the Network is a multi-year recipient of the Most Wired award recognizing the breadth of SLUHN’s information technology applications such as telehealth, online scheduling and online pricing information.

Information provided to TVL by:
Sam Kennedy