SARANAC LAKE — As a prostate cancer survivor, Miles Carver is using his personal experience and first-hand knowledge to help urology patients at Adirondack Health.
“I’m able to relate to all of the experiences a patient goes through during cancer and answer any questions to help them get through that initial cancer diagnosis,” he said.
While Carver has spent most of his professional life in medicine, it was his diagnosis and excellent care by former Adirondack Health urology providers Dr. Irwin Lieb and Physician Assistant Thomas McBride that brought him back to medicine after retiring in 2018.
Carver currently works in Adirondack Health’s urology service as a medical office assistant, but before joining the organization, he built himself an impressive resume in medicine. Carver said it was his love of photography that led him to start a career as an x-ray technician while serving in the U.S. Army. Having been born in France as the son of a career military officer, he said the Army was a natural choice for him.
After serving eight years in military healthcare, Carver began a career in civilian healthcare, continuing as an x-ray technician before advancing to managing cardiac catheterization, electrophysiology, and interventional radiology labs. Upon returning to the region in 2010, Carver headed a cardiac catheterization lab, and went on to start his own cardiac consulting business in 2012. He moved on to serve as a senior consultant for hemodynamics at Siemens Healthcare, and eventually retired in 2018.
Shortly after retirement came Carver’s cancer diagnosis and treatment, which took place at Adirondack Health. Following surgery in Syracuse and a couple years of radiation treatments, Carver had some time off and decided to go back to school to earn an Associate’s of Health Services Management degree.
As Carver and one of his providers here, Tom McBride, got to know each other, McBride learned that Carver had earned a new degree and suggested that he come to work for Adirondack Health’s urology service. That day, McBride and Carver met with human resources and started to set his new employment in motion. His first day working for Adirondack Health came in the summer of 2022.
Carver said having chosen to receive his medical care at Adirondack Health for years and bringing his mother there to receive care gave him all the insight he needed to know that Adirondack Health would be a great place to work. It impressed him so much that he continues to commute more than an hour each day, from Lyon Mountain to Saranac Lake.
“It’s the people here,” he said. “It’s a different sort of healthcare. It’s not house calls, but it’s house-call-like healthcare. It’s that feeling. Most of my patients I talk to, the reason they come here is they love the people and the atmosphere.”
Having worked for large health systems in New York City and Chicago, Carver said Adirondack Health doesn’t have that “big hospital, factory-type feel,” but he said you feel like you’re getting the same level of care much larger hospitals provide.
Carver said cardiac health, the field in which he spent most of his career, is often viewed as the premier profession and the most talked about, but he feels urology also makes a major difference in people’s lives.
“Our patients come in with all kinds of life-altering issues, and we’re able to make a huge impact in their daily lives,” he said.
Carver said Adirondack Health’s new urologist, Dr. Jonathan Riddell, and Physician Assistants Melanie Fortin and Patrick Larkin are all great additions to the urology service, which has expanded to include pediatric urology thanks to Dr. Riddell’s expertise. Adirondack Health hopes to continue expanding pediatric urology services in the future.
“Dr. Riddell is a great asset and great at what he does,” Carver said. “He’s also my physician.”
When he’s not working, Carver regularly combines his love for photography with his love for the great outdoors.