Medical blog » Mission

On a medical mission Rotarians bring help, education to farmers in …

admin — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 16:02:00 +0000

On a medical mission Rotarians bring help, education to farmers in Nigeria
From lancing boils and extracting infected teeth to making fuel discs from garbage and eyeglasses from bicycle spokes, Libertyville Rotarians have made an impact in Nigeria.
Nurse Teri Dreher, Dr. Anthony Collins and his 11-year-old daughter, Shea, and Bob Zamor recently returned from Umuagwo, Nigeria, where they spent an intense two weeks providing care and instruction for hundreds of rural subsistance farmers and their families. They were part of a mission sponsored by Hands and Hearts International, an organization dedicated to improving the health and well-being of disadvantaged people worldwide.
They were part of a contingent of 13 missioners from Illinois, Wisconsin and California who went to Africa with $250,000 worth of donated medicines and an equal amount of medical supplies. Libertyville Rotary donated a suction pump and those going packed their carry-on luggage with Tylenol and other over-the-counter medical supplies.
The need was dramatic, but it was “a phenomenally successful trip,” said Dreher, who has been there six times in the last five years. The Libertyville resident is a nurse at Cancer Treatment Centers of America at Midwestern Regional Medical Center, Zion.
Dreher was nicknamed the “Puss Queen” because of the number of boils she lanced. “They would scream bloody murder when it was done, but we hugged afterward,” she said. The crowds were drawn to the small hospital because people knew the drugs were real. (A nearby state has the largest fake drug-maker in the world.)
“They know the meds are real,” she said. “We had 875 patients register on the first day,” she said. Women and children were treated first while some patients waited three days to be seen. A total of 3,200 people were treated, including 250 dental patients and 60 surgical cases.
A team headed by Tom Rodriguez of Waukegan bought mahogany, which is abundant and inexpensive there, to make an operating table and two dental chairs that were covered in Naugahyde, a vinyl-coated fabric.
At Wednesday’s Sunrise Rotary meeting Collins, a dentist with offices in Mundelein, showed off a tooth that had been extracted which had a tumor nearly the size of a golf ball attached to it. He said the trip was nerve-wracking, but fulfilling all the same because so many people needed care.
“You got used to the arguments and the fights just outside the door because they were fighting for care,” said Collins. Former Libertyville Fire Chief Bob Zamor said trying to do triage, deciding who gets care first — or at all — was heart-breaking.
“One day we got all the men in a circle. I had 30 tickets (for an appointment) and 150 men there. I’ve never done anything that hard in my life. The guy who didn’t get a ticket had to wait until next year,” said Zamor. Some won’t make it until then.
Another part of the mission was to help residents who grew just enough food for themselves to live better. They were taught how to make fuel discs by mixing grass, paper garbage and water, and then compressing them.
The Rotarians also brought kits to make bicycle-spoke eyeglasses. In 15 minutes, with lenses from China that were sawed in half, a pair that could be sold for $2 could be made for 25 cents.
“We wanted to give local youth skills to start their own businesses,” said Dreher. In Nigeria there are both very rich and very poor people, but no middle class.
Shea helped the adults, but also made friends with local children, climbing trees and holding races with them. That was fun, but “it was hard to get used to all the bugs,” she said.

Health reform a joint mission

admin — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 10:37:29 +0000

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama and his team have signaled that they plan to work jointly with Congress to overhaul the healthcare system, rather than produce a separate White House bill that would be sent to Capitol Hill, according to people involved in healthcare strategy discussions.
The Obama team is determined to avoid the mistakes of the early 1990s, when the Clinton White House created a healthcare policy team that had more than 500 members and spent months secretly developing a 1,342-page proposal with minimal input from Congress. A lack of investment among congressional leaders helped doom the bill, which never even went to a vote.
Obama and his team – headed by former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, who will serve as a bridge to Congress – have already begun privately engaging with congressional leaders and have emphasized that they intend to work more collaboratively on healthcare than the Clintons did, said the two leading Democratic senators on healthcare reform.
“Congress did not want to be told what to do,” said Max Baucus, the Senate Finance Committee chairman, whose committee will determine whether a healthcare overhaul is fiscally feasible. “They’re very cognizant of that and they don’t want to make the same mistake.”
“The only way for this to work is to have both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue working hand-in-glove,” Senator Edward M. Kennedy, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said in a statement. “And all signs are that’s how it will proceed. It’s not Congress or the White House, it’s both together.”
Len Nichols, a health economist at the New America Foundation and the senior manager of health policy at the White House budget office in 1993 and 1994, said he believed the Obama team would probably set broad parameters but let Congress work through the details and write the legislation, giving guidance both privately and publicly on what would or would not be acceptable to the president.
“That is the right strategy,” he said. “Clinton tried the alternative, which is to go write it yourself in a hotel room and drive it up there and plop it down” before Congress, he said. “It didn’t work too well. Daschle was here and he paid attention – he knows you can’t do that.”
Daschle’s low-key style and legislative background contrast sharply with his counterparts in the Clinton administration – Ira Magaziner, a consultant charged with running the healthcare reform effort, and Donna Shalala, an academic who served as Clinton’s secretary of health and human services – had little political experience and few relationships on Capitol Hill upon which to draw.
Daschle “has an excellent working relationship with the people who used to be his colleagues, and I think that there is going to be a balance that involves give and take, so that the administration and the congressional leaders on the various committees develop a joint direction for their proposal,” said Ron Pollack, president of Families USA, a left-leaning healthcare advocacy group who has spoken with the transition team and has been working closely with staff on Capitol Hill.

Mission medical staff elects new leaders

admin — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 19:01:37 +0000

– Mission Hospital’s 700-member medical staff has elected Dr. Alan Baumgarten chief of staff and Dr. William Hathaway as vice chief of staff.
Baumgarten is a member of the Asheville Family Health Center specializing in family practice and nutritional medicine. He was elected vice chief of staff at Mission in 2007.
Hathaway is a cardiologist and has been on the medical staff at Mission since 1999. He serves on the quality committee of the board of directors of Mission Health System as cardiology service line leader for heart services and as medical director of the Mission cardiac catheterization laboratory.
The elected positions are a four-year commitment, with the vice chief of staff elected to succeed as chief of staff, and each position serving two years.

US medical mission to continue despite NPA threat

admin — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:56:23 +0000

MANILA, Philippines -
Unfazed by threats from the communist New People's Army (NPA), United States troops will push through with their civic mission in Capiz in Western Visayas.
reported that Capt. Renante Besa, Army 3rd Infantry Division spokesman downplayed the threat of NPA attacks.
“There's no problem with the medical mission,” he said, adding the threats are “usual” and “expected.”
About 141 troops from the Army's 3ID are involved in the joint military exercise, which will run until February 20.
Balance Piston 09-1 involves 11 training events, which includes civic action programs.
Besa said the 31 US trainers conducting the training will also be joining the medical-dental mission to be held in Agloloway and Jaena Sur villages in Jamindan town.
Last week, two units from the NPA figured in a misencounter in Buri village in Tapaz town. The military claimed the NPAs were on their way to harass the training exercises.
But he said security for the US troops have already been arranged with the Philippine National Police and Jamindan Mayor Ethel Jinon, who will also be joining the civic mission.
Also, he said barangay officials and residents in the area are helping the Armed Forces of the Philippines monitor the presence of the rebels.
“We also constantly conduct security patrols in said barangay,” Besa said.
He said villages where the medical-dental mission will be conducted are situated in the periphery of Camp Macario Peralta, where the joint military exercises are held.
“So I believe there would be no problem. That is why security is not a problem,” he said.
“Training is (going) smoothly as planned. We are prepared for whatever threat,” he added.
– GMANews.TV

Mission Hills hospital seeks permission to resume expansion project

admin — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 22:54:54 +0000

The hospital treated 17 passengers in the Sept. 12 Metrolink crash, which killed 25 people. Seventeen more patients were treated for injuries and illnesses from last month’s wildfires. But on Tuesday, Kurcz said 23 of the hospital’s 31 emergency room beds were already occupied.
“God forbid, if today was the Metrolink day, we wouldn’t be able to do that,” she said.
Already, the hospital is regularly turning away ambulances, she said. Although there are other hospitals that can receive the patients, she said the time it takes to reach an emergency room can be critical.
“It’s really about saving people’s lives, because time is life,” Kurcz said.
The new wing would add 101 beds to the 250-inpatient facility, roughly half of them for emergency patients. At a time of deepening unemployment, the project would also create 250 permanent jobs and put back to work the 150 construction workers sent home since the court order was issued, said Kerry Carmody, the hospital’s chief executive.
He said the building was about 20% complete and put the cost of the construction delay at about $250,000 a month.
Attorney Ted Franklin, who represents the project’s opponents, accused planners of failing to provide sufficient parking for the new wing, to address the likely increase in traffic or complete a full analysis of the greenhouse gas emissions that would result from the expansion — contentions disputed by Carmody.
Franklin said, “No one has said this isn’t a good project and that it shouldn’t go forward, but you can’t do it without some solution to the problems.”
He accused the hospital of continuing to add to the structure’s steel frame in violation of the Oct. 2 court order, saying residents had seen construction workers at the site as recently as Monday.
Carmody said the only construction that had taken place since the judge’s ruling was what city officials agreed was needed to stabilize the structure during the delay.
Franklin countered that the hospital had made no mention during the approval process of a potential danger to patients or passersby during the construction phase, which he said should also have been analyzed. But Carmody said it was the suspension of construction that was causing the potential hazard.
“All we are doing is what is called buttoning down the building, so that should a seismic incident happen in the next month that we don’t have construction, the steel structure that has been built won’t collapse,” he said.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s appointees on the city Planning Commission voted last year to approve the hospital expansion. But Franklin urged the City Council to demand an extra environmental review, a process that typically takes at least a year.
Eight of the council’s 15 members voted for the review, two votes shy of the 10 votes that, under city law, are needed to overturn the commission’s decision. But a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge concluded that, under state law, the project could not proceed without the approval of a majority on the council.
Judge Thomas I. McKnew Jr. ruled Oct. 2 that the hospital must stop work until the council either approves the project by at least eight votes or orders an environmental impact report. The council has not set a date to revisit the issue. Officials at the mayor’s office were not immediately available to comment Tuesday.
Zavis is a Times staff writer.

Mission Manor students gear up for fitness contest against Phoenix …

admin — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:25:27 +0000

Medieval arist, mad skills
They are 300 students on a mission.
Get fit, teach others about eating smart – and win the rematch of the Operation Tone Up contest against a Phoenix school they beat last year.
All the students in the third, fourth and fifth grades at Mission Manor Elementary School spend 20 to 30 minutes a day four days a week exercising.
They also have fitness lessons integrated into their reading, writing and math classes.
“The goal is to fight childhood obesity and give students the information they need to make good choices,” said fourth-grade teacher Kristi Hamblen.
Students report going home and having siblings do push ups and squats with them.
Others yell at older brothers and sisters for eating junk food.
“I had a parent come in and tell me the son said they shouldn’t buy Hot Cheetos® anymore because they were empty calories and had no nutritional value,” Hamblen said.
“Children this age don’t always have the opportunity to choose the foods they eat,” the teacher said, “but this way they are getting to know what their bodies need for the different things they do all day. They learn they need carbs to give them energy and protein to rebuild their muscles. They know why they need six to eight glasses of water a day. They learn how their metabolism works.”
The program runs from Sept. 27 to Dec. 4 and culminates in a final showdown Dec. 12. This year it will be at Castles N’ Coasters in Phoenix.
It will be Mission Manor, 600 W. Santa Rosa St., versus R.E. Miller Elementary from Phoenix. Last year, the school in Tucson’s Sunnyside Unified School District, won, 15-14. The scores are based on exercises and academic information on fitness, done in a Family Feud game show-type setup.
This year, Hamblen said, they are working out even more and studying even harder so they won’t have such a nail-biter finish.
Meanwhile, there are many benefits beyond the obvious weight loss and muscle toning the students – and the teachers – are seeing from the jumping jacks, squats, jogging in place, sit-up and push-ups – “and not the girl push-ups, either – even for the girls,” the teacher said.
Hamblen said she has data to support that students are doing better in school since they have been in the fitness program. “I can’t say absolutely that it’s because of the program, but the fourth-grade AIMS scores last year were higher and it was the only grade to make so much of a gain.”
Plus, “their confidence level increased,” Hamblen said. “A middle school asked them to come and they weren’t afraid to go and show those kids how to work out.
“It also has given them opportunities for public speaking, and they have written commercials in class. They’ve learned to read nutritional labels.”
Only 15 to 20 students will participate in the final showdown, but everyone has to do his or her best, because the 15 or 20 aren’t chosen until the last week – and they’re chosen at random, she said.
After the contest in Phoenix, the program is over. It’s only one semester long. But it doesn’t end at Mission Manor, Hamblen said. “We continue it because we can’t imagine just letting that go. The kids that need to lose weight are losing weight. The exercise is helping all of them focus on school and do better on their test. We keep it up.”

Mission Hills hospital seeks permission to resume expansion project

admin — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 23:09:47 +0000

The hospital treated 17 passengers in the Sept. 12 Metrolink crash, which killed 25 people. Seventeen more patients were treated for injuries and illnesses from last month’s wildfires. But on Tuesday, Kurcz said 23 of the hospital’s 31 emergency room beds were already occupied.
“God forbid, if today was the Metrolink day, we wouldn’t be able to do that,” she said.
Already, the hospital is regularly turning away ambulances, she said. Although there are other hospitals that can receive the patients, she said the time it takes to reach an emergency room can be critical.
“It’s really about saving people’s lives, because time is life,” Kurcz said.
The new wing would add 101 beds to the 250-inpatient facility, roughly half of them for emergency patients. At a time of deepening unemployment, the project would also create 250 permanent jobs and put back to work the 150 construction workers sent home since the court order was issued, said Kerry Carmody, the hospital’s chief executive.
He said the building was about 20% complete and put the cost of the construction delay at about $250,000 a month.
Attorney Ted Franklin, who represents the project’s opponents, accused planners of failing to provide sufficient parking for the new wing, failing to address the likely increase in traffic and failing to complete a full analysis of the greenhouse gas emissions that would result from the expansion — contentions disputed by Carmody.
Franklin said: “No one has said this isn’t a good project and that it shouldn’t go forward, but you can’t do it without some solution to the problems.”
He accused the hospital of continuing to add to the structure’s steel frame in violation of the Oct. 2 court order, saying residents had seen construction workers at the site as recently as Monday.
Carmody said the only construction that had taken place since the judge’s ruling was what city officials agreed was needed to stabilize the structure during the delay.
Franklin countered that the hospital had made no mention during the approval process of a potential danger to patients or passersby during the construction phase, which he said should also have been analyzed. But Carmody said it was the suspension of construction that was causing the potential hazard.
“All we are doing is what is called buttoning down the building, so that should a seismic incident happen in the next month that we don’t have construction, the steel structure that has been built won’t collapse,” he said.
L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s appointees on the city Planning Commission voted last year to approve the hospital expansion. But Franklin urged the City Council to demand an extra environmental review, a process that typically takes at least a year.
Eight of the council’s 15 members voted for the review, two votes shy of the 10 votes that, under city law, are needed to overturn the commission’s decision.
But a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge concluded that, under state law, the project could not proceed without the approval of a majority on the council.
Judge Thomas I. McKnew Jr. ruled Oct. 2 that the hospital must stop work until the council either approves the project with at least eight votes or orders an environmental impact report.
The council has not set a date to revisit the issue. Officials at the mayor’s office were not immediately available to comment Tuesday.
Zavis is a Times staff writer.

Mission Manor students gear up for fitness contest against Phoenix …

admin — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 23:25:52 +0000

Medieval arist, mad skills
They are 300 students on a mission.
Get fit, teach others about eating smart – and win the rematch of the Operation Tone Up contest against a Phoenix school they beat last year.
All the students in the third, fourth and fifth grades at Mission Manor Elementary School spend 20 to 30 minutes a day, four days a week, exercising.
They also have fitness lessons integrated into their reading, writing and mathematics classes.
“The goal is to fight childhood obesity and give students the information they need to make good choices,” fourth-grade teacher Kristi Hamblen said.
Students report going home and having siblings do push-ups and squats with them.
Others yell at older brothers and sisters for eating junk food.
“I had a parent come in and tell me the son said they shouldn’t buy hot Cheetos anymore because they were empty calories and had no nutritional value,” Hamblen said.
“Children this age don’t always have the opportunity to choose the foods they eat,” the teacher said, “but this way they are getting to know what their bodies need for the different things they do all day. They learn they need carbohydrates to give them energy and protein to rebuild their muscles. They know why they need six to eight glasses of water a day. They learn how their metabolism works.”
The program runs from Sept. 27 to Dec. 4 and culminates in a final showdown Dec. 12. This year it will be at Castles N’ Coasters in Phoenix.
It will pit Mission Manor, 600 W. Santa Rosa St., versus R.E. Miller Elementary from Phoenix. Last year, the school in Tucson’s Sunnyside Unified School District, won, 15-14. The scores are based on exercises and academic information on fitness, done in a Family Feud game show-type setup.
This year, Hamblen said, they are working out even more and studying even harder so they won’t have such a nail-biter of a finish.
Meanwhile, there are other benefits beyond the obvious weight loss and muscle toning the students – and the teachers – see from the jumping jacks, squats, jogging in place, sit-ups and push-ups – “and not the girl push-ups, either – even for the girls,” the teacher said.
Hamblen said she has data to support that students are doing better in school since they have been in the fitness program. “I can’t say absolutely that it’s because of the program, but the fourth-grade AIMS scores last year were higher and it was the only grade to make so much of a gain.”
Plus, “their confidence level increased,” Hamblen said. “A middle school asked them to come and they weren’t afraid to go and show those kids how to work out.
“It also has given them opportunities for public speaking, and they have written commercials in class. They’ve learned to read nutritional labels.”
Only 15 to 20 students will participate in the final showdown, but everyone has to do his or her best, because the 15 or 20 will not be chosen until the last week – and they’re chosen at random, she said.
After the contest in Phoenix, the program ends. It’s only one semester long. But it doesn’t end at Mission Manor, Hamblen said. “We continue it because we can’t imagine just letting that go. The kids that need to lose weight are losing weight. The exercise is helping all of them focus on school and do better on their test. We keep it up.”

Owen on fitness mission

admin — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:13:30 +0000

Newcastle striker Michael Owen is doing everything possible to return to peak physical condition, according to Chris Hughton.
Owen is feeling his way back to action following a groin injury and he featured from the bench in last weekend’s defeat at Fulham.
The 28-year-old is again expected to be named among interim manager Joe Kinnear’s substitutes when Wigan arrive at St James’ Park on Saturday.
But assistant boss Hughton insists Owen is on the right track for a return to the first XI in the near future.
“He is in good shape,” Hughton told
. “As each week goes he is getting fitter.
“He is working hard on the training pitch and he can’t do anymore, from a fitness point of view, to put himself in the frame.”

Plans for new UCSF Mission Bay Hospital to go to regents for approval

admin — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:36:06 +0000

UCSF Medical Center will be one step closer to breaking ground for a new hospital complex on the UCSF Mission Bay campus when an agenda item on the projects design, budget and environmental certification comes up for approval by the University of California Board of Regents this week.
The new facility is designed as a 289-bed integrated hospital complex with three specialty hospitals for children, women, and cancer patients located on land adjacent to a 43-acre site that is dedicated to biomedical research. The UCSF Mission Bay campus is located south of downtown San Francisco near the Giants ballpark.
The hospital site, a 14.5 acre parcel of land, is strategically positioned to integrate patient care with the existing research campus, strengthening bench to bedside and bedside to bench collaboration among UCSF basic scientists, clinical researchers, and physicians.
The combination of the best in clinical care with the best in health science research at this new facility will make it an epicenter of advancement in health care that will improve patients lives and the practice of medicine in the Bay Area, nationally and around the world, said Mark Laret, chief executive officer of UCSF Medical Center.
The agenda item on the UCSF project will be part of the Regents regular business meeting that will take place Sept. 16-18 on the UC Irvine campus. The item is scheduled for a vote by the committees on grounds and buildings and finance on Sept. 17 and by the full board on Sept. 18.
Regental approval is the last major hurdle before structural plans are submitted to the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development in December of this year. Construction on the hospital complex, which has been in the planning stages since 2002, would begin in 2009 after it receives state approval, with the facility slated to open by early 2014.
The new complex will be the first hospital built from the ground up in San Francisco in 30 years. With a budget of $1.686 billion for the first phase, it is one of the largest building projects in the western United States.
The new Medical Center at Mission Bay will serve as a third major site for UCSF patient care. UCSF Medical Center at Parnassus Heights and UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion will continue to operate, and there are plans to expand certain programs, such as
adult transplant services, neurosurgery and outpatient services, using the space vacated by those who move to Mission Bay.
The new complex also will support UCSFs ongoing commitment to advancing health science education in collaboration with research and patient care, according to UCSF Chancellor J. Michael Bishop, MD.
UCSF has always been a leader in innovation and now we are taking a bold step to further advance that leadership. The new medical center is a key part of the foundation for continuing UCSFs role as a leading center for translational research: we intend to greatly enhance our ability to apply what we discover. Our patients will benefit, and so too will our students, who will be the researchers and clinicians of the future, he said.
The new complex addresses the need to increase UCSF inpatient and outpatient capacity and to comply with state-mandated earthquake safety standards for hospitals. Currently, UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Childrens Hospital treat about 3,400 inpatients and outpatients each day.
Financing is planned to be achieved through a combination of donor contributions, hospital reserves, debt financing and state support. San Francisco businesswoman and philanthropist Diane Dede B. Wilsey is serving as the voluntary chair of the campaign to raise $600 million in private donations. The campaign planning project team also includes business and civic leaders Barbara Bass Bakar, Ronald Conway, Carmen Policy and Richard M. Rosenberg.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to advance health care in San Francisco by creating one of the worlds leading medical centers, Wilsey said. This is a significant investment in our future.
The community has been involved in the hospital planning process from the beginning, when members of the UCSF Community Advisory Group started developing, in concert with faculty and staff, a set of criteria to be used in evaluating site options.
A central feature of the new facilities will be the integration of green practices and sustainable design elements. Each of the hospitals will be certified by the U.S. Green Building Councils Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), the leading industry standard for what constitutes a green building, explained Cindy Lima, executive director of administration at UCSF Medical Center, who oversees the project.
~ Childrens Hospital The 183-bed facility, designed specifically for children and their families, will provide emergency and urgent care services. About 20 percent of hospitalized children at UCSF are treated for cancer and cancer-related issues, and they will benefit from the close proximity of cancer specialists.
~ Womens Hospital The hospital will offer inpatient and outpatient services, specialty surgeries and a 36-bed birth center. Babies born at the facility will have the advantage of being right next door to the childrens hospital should they require follow-up care.
~ Cancer Hospital This 70-bed facility will build on UCSFs reputation as one of the top 10 cancer programs in the country. Specialists will provide inpatient and outpatient care, and serve the unique needs of women and pediatric cancer patients at the adjoining hospitals.
The San Francisco health care architectural firm Anshen + Allen is designing the new complex in association with sustainability experts William McDonough + Partners.
For eight consecutive years, U.S. News & World Report has ranked UCSF Medical Center among the nations top 10 hospitals. In the 2008 survey UCSF was ranked 7th and was the top hospital in the Bay Area. UCSF Childrens hospital also is ranked among the best nationwide, and the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center is one of the largest centers designated by the National Cancer Institute. The UCSF National Center of Excellence in Womens Health is one of the original six programs that earned this designation by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
For more information about the UCSF Mission Bay Hospital project, visit: