Media Advisory - Potential Stories

During the holidays, it can be difficult to find non-holiday stories. Here are some possibilities. If you are interested, email me to arrange an interview.

Protect Yourself From Head Injuries.
Whether you're into roller blades, skateboards, extreme sports or just driving down the interstate, an accident can change your life forever if you sustain a serious head injury.
A surgeon with Carilion Neurosurgical Care is available to talk about protecting yourself to avoid serious disability.












In addition, Carilion neurosurgeons can discuss

• Sports-related head injuries, when to get back into the game after a concussion
• Breakthroughs in brain tumor treatment
• Carpal tunnel syndrome
• Spinal fractures and spinal cord injury (when is surgery useful to treat pain from back injuries?)
• Surgical treatment for Epilepsy and Parkinson's Disease
  

High profile medication overdose in California could boost the use of medication bar code systems.

Actor Dennis Quaid and his wife recently filed a lawsuit related to a mix-up that caused their twins to receive a medication overdose. Apparently a pharmacy tech placed vials containing 10 units and 10,000 units of the medication in the same drawer.
Bedside bar code technology, used by Carilion hospitals for the past few years, can prevent such accidents.

Hospital Emergency Rooms unprepared for children.

A study by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that most hospital ER's are not well prepared to treat children. Only 6% of the hospitals who responded to the survey had all the recommended medicine and equipment. Fortunately here in Western Virginia, the Carilion Clinic Children's Hospital features a Pediatric Emergency Department. Our specialist in pediatric emergency medicine, Lisa Uherick, MD, can talk about our focus on peds emergency care. She could also talk about holiday and post-holiday injury prevention.

Peanut Allergies Striking Younger Children

A Duke University study finds that children are being exposed to peanuts at a much younger age, and are having allergic reactions much earlier as well.

This despite recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics that children avoid peanuts until age 3. Contact me to arrange an interview with a Pediatric Allergy Specialists.









Carilion Clinic Rehabilitation Using Christopher Reeve Exercise Cycle
One of the challenges people with spinal cord injuries face is maintaining muscle tone, in hopes that one day researchers will find a way to repair the injury. Following his accident, Christopher Reeve used the ERGYS 2. Carilion Rehabilitation Services now has an ERGYS 2 that is being used by area patients. We can arrange an interview with a rehabilitation specialist and a patient currently using the machine. Check out video from the ERGYS 2 site here.






Carilion Family Medicine Recognized for Improving Childhood Immunization
The American Association of Family Physicians Foundation and Wyeth Vaccines have given Carilion Family Medicine a 2007 "Most Improved" award for their work to increase the number of children receiving vaccinations. Carilion used data from its electronic medical record to identify children whose vaccines were not current.