As we emerge from this COVID haze, it is a great time to get your children caught up on their routine immunizations. If your child is eligible for a COVID vaccine (currently, those 12 years and up), now is also a great time.
As a mother of three, I will list the three reasons I think vaccines are so important, and why I have chosen to vaccinate my children (ages 11, 9, and 6) on time: (more…)
As a nurse at a local hospital, Jeanne Leach has worked with families caring for loved ones with a health emergency. On a Friday night in October, while leaving their daughter’s house, her husband, Jim, walked down the front steps, tripped over a pumpkin, and fell and hit the corner of a step and was knocked unconscious.
“He lost his footing and struck his head so hard that he was bleeding through every orifice in his head,” she recalls. “There was blood everywhere. It was awful.” (more…)
A reflection from Amy Mensch, RN, Program Manager, Outpatient Psychiatry for Mental Health Awareness Month
Every year, May is identified as Mental Health Awareness month. I don’t know if there has ever been another year when it feels more relevant and significant to stop for a moment and consider mental health and what that means. The past year has been extremely difficult. Challenges at work, struggles at home, confusion, divisiveness, isolation, and fear have visited us daily. For those of us working in mental health, we’ve seen a magnification of all the things we knew were already a problem for the patients we serve, as well as ourselves and our family members; increase in suicide rates, increase in acuity of psychiatric symptoms, increase in substance use, and increase demand for services. (more…)
Are you ready, in the case of a traumatic life-ending event, to donate parts of your body to save someone’s life, if your own life was at an end?
April is Donate Life month. Donate Life month serves to create awareness about how registering to be a donor is an incredible act of kindness and bravery. Donate Life month also honors those who saved and enhanced lives through the selfless act of donation. (more…)
With many of us staying inside most days, especially during the winter months, managing a healthy weight can be more challenging than ever. We asked Dr. Galloway-Gilliam from our new Comprehensive Weight Management Clinic about some of the best ways to manage our weight when we’re spending most of our days indoors.
Remember when the first Friday of February, during National Heart Month, was designated as Go Red for Women and they had the little red dress pin? ( I still have and love that pin!) And now we are asked to wear red on the same day to raise awareness of heart disease for all? (more…)
In 2018, two million people in the US suffered from an opioid use disorder and more than 130 people died every day from opioid-related drug overdoses. This remains an ongoing problem and as a result, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced a plan to combat the opioid crisis. This plan focuses on prioritizing the advancement of better practices for pain management and improving access to these therapies and services. (more…)
Because of a shortage of emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and paramedics on a state and national level, Hennepin EMS has had to get creative to recruit. The new Hennepin EMS Paramedic Training Program has recruited 24 EMTs (the path to becoming a paramedic starts as an EMT), which started in mid-December, to embark on the rigorous seven month training program. (more…)
