AKRON, Ohio – An Akron native has returned to his hometown and is now helping to lead Hospice of the Western Reserve in what he calls a “full-circle” moment.

John Mastrojohn III said in an interview with cleveland.com that he first became impressed with his new employer in the early 1990s, when he did a clinical rotation at the Hospice of the Western Reserve while completing graduate programs in business and nursing at Kent State University.

“I was really amazed at the care that the organization was providing, and in particular, the patient population I worked with were patients with AIDS,” Mastrojohn said. “At the time, it was really difficult for many people because a lot of folks didn’t really understand exactly how that disease was transmitted, so there was a lot of fear about caring for AIDS patients.”

Now 58 and an innovator in his field, Mastrojohn is back at Hospice of the Western Reserve, which provides palliative and end-of-life care, caregiver support and bereavement services in Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage, Stark and Summit counties.

Here is his account of his meandering route to his new job:

About a year after the clinical rotation, he was working in emergency medicine at Summa Health System when he got a call from Hospice of the Western Reserve asking if he could run a new AIDS-specific program.

“Without being overly dramatic, it really changed my life,” Mastrojohn said. “It changed the direction of my career, for sure.”

Mastrojohn worked for a few years as the leader of Hospice of the Western Reserve’s AIDS Team, comprised of nurses, social workers and other caregivers. In 1998, he returned to Summa to start their hospice and palliative-care program.

In 2004, Mastrojohn took a yearlong sabbatical from Summa to participate in a Fulbright fellowship in Hungary.

“I worked with a team there, in southwestern Hungary, and we developed hospice services there,” he said. “It was a relatively new concept for home-based hospice care in Hungary, so that was my project and did that for an academic year.”

He worked for Summa for about another year, then moved to Alexandria, Virginia, to work at the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. Mastrojohn took up several roles during his 13 years there, including chief operating officer. He was also executive director of the National Hospice Foundation.

But at the beginning of 2019, Mastrojohn began to feel like it was time to come home.

“My parents live in Akron still – actually, in the same house where they’ve lived for 60 years, in Firestone Park,” he said. “I just thought, ‘It’s time to be back with them, back with the rest of my family.’ I had no idea what I was going to do, but I just knew it was time to return.”

Through a series of “bizarre and fortunate” events, Mastrojohn said he ended up speaking with Hospice of the Western Reserve CEO William Finn, and he eventually interviewed for the position of chief innovations officer.

“I feel, in many ways, that my whole career has come full-circle,” Mastrojohn said. “I just feel really, really fortunate.”

Mastrojohn, who also holds a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Akron, lives with his family is West Akron, and said it is “wonderful” to be back home.

He serves on the boards of Grace House Akron, which provides care to terminally ill people who are indigent, homeless or abandoned, and Pet Peace of Mind, which trains volunteers to care for the pets of hospice patients.

He is on the advisory board of Global Partners in Care, a nonprofit organization that promotes collaborations between hospices around the world to share ideas, educate and fundraise.

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