Oregon Health & Science University is in the early stages of creating what is expected to be the first graduate medical education program primarily based in Central Oregon.
Read more at the St. Charles website:
https://www.stcharleshealthcare.org/news/first-medical-residency-program-works-central-oregon
Oregon school buildings closed early in the coronavirus pandemic because we know children are drivers of respiratory virus spread, even if they are less likely to show symptoms of COVID-19. In the months since then, our understanding of the disease and its effect on kids has continued to evolve, but it remains far from settled. This virus has been with us for less than a year, and good science takes time.
We do know this: Schools cannot eliminate every risk of infection, even with rigid hygiene and physical-distancing measures, masking enforcement, and important upgrades to ventilation systems — all of which require significant investments in a time of budget cuts. Teachers and students will get sick. Families will get sick. Some will die. Survival does not mean complete recovery: We are seeing potentially long-term health impacts on adults recovering from COVID-19, and we do not yet fully understand the effect on children.
Read more here.
Hospital board claims members of medical staff support standing gag order
By Erik Lukens, The Bulletin Editor
If your doctor believed St. Charles Bend was providing inadequate patient care, should he or she be able to say so publicly? If you answered in the affirmative, you’re in for a disappointment.
The reason, ironically, is a code of conduct, which is the sort of thing that ought to reassure patients.
Members of the hospital’s medical staff must sign such a code annually in order to retain their hospital privileges. The medical staff consists of advanced-practice providers like physicians, physicians’ assistants and nurse practitioners, according to medical staff president Tim Carney. Some of them work for the hospital, and some do not. ...
To read the entire editorial, click title or here
Perspective in July 5 NEJM by Torree McGowan, MD, St. Charles Medical Group
"I remember the day I first met you. It was a quiet Sunday, early in the morning. I heard a commotion out by the check-in desk, and your mom’s scream: “My baby’s not breathing!” The first time I saw you was in your mom’s arms. Heartbreakingly, you weren’t snuggled like a baby should be, or even limp. Your tiny body was twitching, seizing. The cold clinical term “decorticate posturing” that flashed in the physician part of my brain seemed too rigid to be applied to your chubby toddler arms. ...
Click title or here to read rest of an ultimate dilemma
Lynn McDonald practiced medicine in Bend for 27 years. His wife, Jan, said he excelled in the often-chaotic, fast-moving environment of an emergency room.
“The great thing about emergency room medicine, which seemed to fit him, was because he was a really good diagnostician," she said, "he would say that he really enjoyed trying to figure it out.”
But by the early 2000s, his wife says, Dr. McDonald began saying he no longer enjoyed the job. He worked all the time.
“He would come home, and he would be exhausted, emotionally exhausted — even to the point of being somewhat sarcastic," she said. "You could tell that he really did not love who he was.”
McDonald tried to change his career by investing in a residential development called The Shire, where the homes had thatched roofs and the tool sheds looked like hobbit holes. It was whimsical, his wife said, and it made him happy. But then came the crash of 2008. McDonald eventually killed himself.
“I think he was getting burned out big time the last six years of his life,” she said.
Anxiety, Exasperation, Exhaustion, Depression, Burnout, and Suicide in Healthcare Professionals
The program is now set for St. Charles - Bend Center for Health & Learning, after Epic was convinced to allow use of the Center during the month that had the entire facility reserved. We will now start at 5p on Thursday, November 2 with:
! Small-group sessions with experts from Rayleigh-Durham, Indiana University, Eugene and OHSU, followed by
!! Dinner and our keynote speaker Dike Drummond from Seattle and continue the next morning with
!!! Grand Rounds at 7p with experts from Eugene and Epic, and conclude immediately after with
!!!! Small-group sessions with experts from Eureka, University of Washington and Central Oregon between 8 and 9a.
Woody is back home from Mosul, Iraq, after two months of volunteering on the front lines to take care of families injured by the Syrian war. "Home" is all relative. Read the report to realize the difference.
Click title for full report
April 10, 2017 Opioid Overdose Epidemic: What is a Clinician To Do?
Not only is the State of Oregon the only state to have had a reduction in the opioid overdose mortality rate, the rate in Central Oregon is lower than the rest of the state and has shown, as of 2015, no evidence for an increase that has affected the rest of the West and the rest of the United States. Rates of opioid overdose deaths, hospitalizations and opiate prescription overall and of <120 morphine equivalent doses in Deschutes County have all declined by 7% to 47% during recent years.
Jessica LeBlanc, MD (pictured), Kim Swanson, PhD, and Kym Garrett, LAc reviewed methods medical professionals can utilize to prevent the national opioid epidemic from affecting our community.
Click title for Central Oregon data and presentation materials
Please acknowledge this source when citing this information
Out State Representative and COMS member, Knute Buehler, MD, updates progress in Oregon after his bill allowing pharmacists to dispense oral contraceptives passed in 2015.
Click title or here to read the editorial
February 6, 2017
Donald Girard, MD (pictured), Emeritus Professor and Past Associate Dean of Graduate Medical Education, OHSU, as well as past Chair of Oregon Medical Board, and Amanda Borgess, Executive Director. Greater Metropolitan Portland Medical Society, described the success of their Medical Professional Wellness Program, following the accomplishment of a similar program in the Lane County Medical Society. COMS and the St. Charles Healthcare System have decided to embark mutually on a similar program in Central Oregon. The planned program will be readily accessible at the convenience of the provider, confidential, free to the provider, private and minimally constrained by record keeping.
Click title for information re: Oregon Coalition for Medical Professional Wellness
