ECU Health CEO and Brody School of Medicine Dean Dr. Mike Waldrum named to AAMC’s Board of Directors
Dr. Michael Waldrum, dean of East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine and chief executive officer of ECU Health, has been named to the board of directors of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). He joins 18 other medical school and health care leaders from across the nation and Canada named to the board, including representatives from Yale School of Medicine, Georgetown’s School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School.
“It is an honor to be named to the AAMC Board and to work with my colleagues in academic organizations across the national landscape to chart a healthier future for our communities and region,” Waldrum said. “Academic health care drives innovation, produces clinical excellence, and creates a teaching environment that helps train the providers of tomorrow. I look forward to continuing to collaborate alongside national leaders and focusing on how we can best support our students, faculty and academic rural health care.”
The AAMC leads and serves America’s medical schools and teaching hospitals and individuals employed across academic medicine, including more than 191,000 full-time faculty members, 95,000 medical students, 149,000 resident physicians, and 60,000 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in the biomedical sciences. This year, the Association of Academic Health Centers and the Association of Academic Health Centers International merged into the AAMC, broadening the AAMC’s U.S. membership and expanding its reach to international academic health centers.
Dr. Waldrum, who was first appointed to the AAMC Board of Directors in November 2020, will begin his new term Nov. 15 and will also serve as chair of the AAMC’s Council of Teaching Hospitals and Health Systems.
“This is such an important time in our industry and as chair of COTH, I look forward to bringing premier academic health systems together to define solutions that strengthen our health care workforce, support our students, advance research and address disparities, specifically in rural communities,” Waldrum said.
The AAMC is a nonprofit association dedicated to improving the health of people everywhere through medical education, health care, medical research and community collaborations. Its members comprise all 155 accredited U.S. and 16 accredited Canadian medical schools; approximately 400 teaching hospitals and health systems, including Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers; and more than 70 academic societies.
ECU Health Beaufort Hospital – a Campus of ECU Health Medical Center – is featured in a new documentary from the BBC. Produced by BBC StoryWorks Commercial Productions for The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), this documentary follows the Sodexo/ECU Health partnership, which shares a common goal to improve the health and well-being of the people and communities we serve.
Nearly one-third of food produced around the world ends up as food waste. Sodexo implements its WasteWatch program across all ECU Health hospitals to reduce food waste, drive cost efficiency and positively impact the environment. WasteWatch is Sodexo’s key initiative to achieve its objective of reducing 50 percent of food waste within its operations, covering 85 percent of its raw material costs. ECU Health Beaufort Hospital hosts one of the most efficient, highly successful Sodexo WasteWatch programs, producing very low amounts of food waste, which saves money and drives positive impacts on the environment.
The Beaufort team has been using the WasteWatch powered LeanPath program since August 2020, and they use the data and insights to put in place specific actions that have positive impacts for the environment. Team members tailor portions cooked each day based on data collected to reduce excess food, which helps preserve resources and reduce food waste.
“Taking care of our community and environment by doing our part to help reduce waste are values that our partnership with Sodexo helps us meet,” said Lou Montana-Rhodes, vice president of experience at ECU Health. “We are proud to recognize our food and nutrition team members at ECU Health Beaufort Hospital and all across eastern North Carolina for their commitment to leading the way in reducing food waste and bringing quality care to those we serve.”
ECU Health is proud to collaborate with Sodexo to bring high quality food and compassionate care to our patients.
With our continued focus on the imperatives of quality, experience and finance, ECU Health’s transplant program at ECU Health Medical Center has consolidated their treatment and office spaces into the newly renovated 3 South. The area is now known as the 3 South Transplant Clinic.
The transplant program performs an average of 80 to 100 living and deceased donor kidney and pancreas transplants per year. Patients that are seen in the clinic include pre-transplant (patients being evaluated for transplant), living donors and post-transplant. This program and the services offered have continued to grow over time, but have been limited by clinic space. To enhance patient and team member experience, the pre- and post-transplant clinics have now consolidated into one, centrally-designed space on 3 South, as they have been operating in separate clinics at the Cancer Center and ECU Physicians.
Previously, the transplant team worked in separate clinics, sometimes limited to three rooms. 3 South Transplant offers 18 patient exam rooms, which in addition to consolidating space for patients, will also help to shorten wait times for new referrals and follow up appointments.
Another benefit of 3 South is the accessibility of team members such as dieticians, social workers, pharmacists, nurses and physicians, which provides patients the accessible support of various teams of health care workers critical to patients’ transplant journeys.
Lastly, this consolidation allows for expansion of potential future services such as phlebotomy, expanded pharmacy services, infusion services and vascular access.
In 2022, as we build the future of ECU Health, the exceptional care and services we provide have a positive impact on the communities of eastern North Carolina that we serve through our considerations of patient quality and experience.
For more information on transplant services at ECU Health, visit the transplant section of our website.
The Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University has experienced recent success in recruiting a diverse group of patients to participate in clinical trials for new medications and treatments.
Data shows that from March 2019 to March 2020, 202 patients participated in oncology clinical trials in ECU’s Division of Hematology and Oncology; 50 percent of them represented races other than white. The following year, 419 participants were accrued, and 56 percent represented races other than white. That year, 50 percent of clinical trials participants were Black or African American.
“Our patient population, as well as Brody’s mission, has led to our success,” said Susan Eubanks, clinical trials nurse specialist in Brody’s Division of Hematology and Oncology. “Part of our core values is to cultivate a clinical environment of robust learning, innovation and discovery. There have been trials with participants here in eastern North Carolina that have led to new treatments in diseases and in some cases where there were few options.”
Now, researchers and providers hope to build on that momentum for future clinical trials studies.
Providers and researchers in the school continue to seek minority participants in clinical trials for new and potential pharmaceuticals — and to collect invaluable information on how some treatments impact patients of various races.
Doctors want to ensure that the drugs they are studying match the demographics for all the patients who could rely on those medicines in the future — by including people from a wide variety of backgrounds and races in the studies.
“We all agree that as much as possible, the drugs we give should be approved through clinical trials that match the demographics they will be prescribed to,” Eubanks said. “There has been chemotherapy that has shown promising results in one country but doesn’t carry the day in another. So, overcoming this disparity — whatever the cause — is essential.”
One of the latest innovations in oncology is the use of immunotherapy, the treatment of disease by activating or suppressing the immune system. Data that reviewed participation in those trials showed that less than 4 percent of participants in key immune therapy trials were African American.
“This is a problem,” Eubanks said. “Given the low representation we can’t predict if there will be a differences in outcomes related to differences in response from tumor biology. It is not highly understood why we see differences in drug efficacy and toxicities among different ethnicities, but it drives the point home, we need to do all we can to include the best representation of our population when bring new therapies to market.”
Dr. Darla Liles, professor and division chief of ECU’s Division of Hematology and Oncology, said diseases like prostate cancer and colorectal carcinoma see more African Americans impacted than other races, and the diseases begin earlier in those patients as well.
“Also, the distribution of the DNA mutations are different across races,” she said. “We might have a drug that works wonderfully well in Caucasians but not so well in African Americans or Hispanic individuals because of these different DNA changes. But we only know that if enough minorities participate.”
Recruiting challenges
Even with the critical need for data that better illustrates potential patient outcomes, recruiting minority participants in clinical trials can be difficult.
“Accruing to clinical trials in general is difficult, but minorities are typically underrepresented in clinical trials,” Eubanks said. “This can be an access issue, a reluctance issue and, at times, both.”
There can be many reasons recruiting minority participants to clinical trials can be a challenge, Liles said, but keeping those reasons in mind and understanding that they vary from person to person help build trust.
Brody’s mission draws heavily on a theme of access for all: to a medical education, to health care, and to resources that can sustain health and wellness. That’s one reason access to clinical trials in the medical school is vital to the study and approval of novel treatments.
“Part of our commitment to the health care of all eastern North Carolinians is ensuring the pharmaceuticals and treatments that we study are safe and effective for every patient who may need them in the future,” said Dr. Michael Waldrum, Brody’s dean and CEO of ECU Health. “Our efforts to widen the participant base in our clinical trials programs reflects the importance of thorough and inclusive studies that yield results that we are confident meet our mission.”
Liles said that people are more likely to trust providers and those running clinical trials if they feel they share common bonds with them.
“Several times when I presented a trial to a patient, afterwards the CRA has told me that they went to high school with the patient or knew them from church,” she said. “Being able to relate to the people who are treating you is essential.”
Education is key as well, Liles said.
“When I offer a trial to a patient, I often understand this is starting a conversation over several visits to ensure patients know about and understand what they are signing up for,” she said. “The consent forms for clinical trials are jam-packed with important information about the treatments, and sometimes people use that as a starting point for knowing what to ask about their treatment. I never regret giving a patient a consent form and talking to them about a trial. Even if they eventually decide not to do it ,they are better informed by participating in the process.”
Eubanks said the COVID-19 pandemic and reluctance by some to take the vaccine are a reminder of how to approach building trust in clinical trials.
“We must think beyond just education in the office,” she said. “We must reach people where they are.”
One way Brody is working to reach many different patients is having trials open for a variety of specialty care areas.
“The biggest step is understanding your population and having trials open for the specialty areas you see,” Eubanks said. “Brody has trials open with many specialties. In adult hematology/oncology we use databases and the tumor registry when approached about upcoming trials to help us determine if a trial is potentially feasible in our area. We also have the benefit of having local resources such are the University and Medical Center Institutional Review Board (UMCIRB) and leaders such as our associate dean for research and graduate studies, Dr. Russ Price, that provide expertise and infrastructure needed to offer clinical trials.”
Liles uses word of mouth to share clinical trial opportunities to patients.
“I often tell my patients about new and innovative trials that are on the horizon, even if they do not fit the criteria for the trial,” she said. “I think it is important for patients to understand that there are new things being developed all the time. Education is our best way to ensure patients know about and participate in trials.”
Liles also believes the combination of specialties and resources in the creation of the ECU Health brand will have a positive impact on the clinical trials program. With close to 1.4 million people in the system’s service area, there is promising potential to reach people through improved infrastructure for research opportunities.
Read more from ECU News Services.
A team from the Brody School of Medicine’s Internal Medicine Residency Program won first place and the Osler Cup in the American College of Physicians Doctor’s Dilemma competition.
Coached by Dr. Lacy Hobgood, clinical associate professor in East Carolina University’s Department of Pediatrics, the team competed for three days against some of the world’s brightest medical residents, including teams from the United States, Canada, Central America and the Caribbean. Drs. Alex Bradu, Omar Khdeir and Swethaa Manickam earned the right to compete at the national level by first winning the North Carolina chapter’s competition.
Past winners of the ACP Doctor’s Dilemma competition include the India chapter, Albert Einstein Medical Center, Indiana University School of Medicine, Northwestern University and the Mayo Clinic.
Khdeir said Doctor’s Dilemma is the biggest competition based on knowledge of internal medicine, featuring as many as 60 teams each year in a friendly but highly competitive environment. The format is similar to the television show “Jeopardy,” with each game consisting of a set of questions teams must buzz in to answer, and a final round in which they must wager their points before seeing the question.
“We wagered all of our collected points in the final dilemma and got the question right,” Khdeir said. “After we won, we took turns calling our parents on speakerphone. Seeing our parents and siblings proud and happy was the biggest award.”
Dr. Herb Garrison, associate dean for graduate medical education, said the team’s performance on the national stage reflects the quality of medical education at Brody and also helps enhance its reputation.
“They competed against the best residents from around the world in a test of medical knowledge and speed and emerged as the winning team,” Garrison said. “In addition to demonstrating the type of great physician trainees we have at the Brody School of Medicine and ECU Health, this win provides us a huge recruiting advantage as other schools will take notice and want to send their best medical students our way. … I couldn’t be more proud.”
The Internal Medicine Residency Program is an integral part of the Brody School of Medicine and the ECU Health Medical Center. The Department of Internal Medicine includes nine subspecialty divisions and serves the Greenville and Pitt County area as well as 29 surrounding counties.
Read more from ECU News Services.
Younger people are increasingly suffering from strokes according to medical experts at ECU Heath. While risk of stroke increases with age, health care teams have seen an increase in strokes in young people, partly due to a combination of COVID-19, an increase in consuming processed, sugary and fatty foods as well as smoking and vaping.
“With COVID-19, we have noticed an increase in strokes, especially in younger populations,” said Dr. Shailesh Male, stroke medical director, ECU Health Medical Center. “During the peak of the pandemic, my colleagues and I noticed that young patients who do not have vascular risk factors were having strokes. COVID-19, like other infections, increases the risk of forming blood clots and, in turn, can lead to higher risk of strokes.”
Strokes are considered the heart attack of the brain. A stroke occurs when a blood clot compromises blood flow to the brain. This leads to loss of brain function, manifesting in symptoms including: weakness or numbness on one side of your body, slurred speech or difficulty understanding others, blindness in one or both eyes, dizziness and/or a severe headache.
Risk factors for stroke can be broken down into two categories: modifiable and non-modifiable.
“We like to focus on the modifiable risk factors, the ones that you can change,” said Dr. Male. “These include hypertension, cholesterol, diabetes, smoking, physical inactivity and obesity.”
The increase in younger people having strokes are mostly attributed to modifiable risk factors. The rise in popularity of e-cigarettes and vaping has largely been in younger populations. Smoking reduces the amount of oxygen in the blood, makes the heart beat faster and raises blood pressure. Additionally, younger people are generally less healthy than previous generations in terms of diet and exercise.
“Processed, fatty and sugary foods are increasingly becoming a regular part of our diets at a younger age,” said Dr. Male. “This combined with an inactive lifestyle increases almost all risk factors including obesity, diabetes, high blood sugar, hypertension and high cholesterol.”
Non-modifiable risk factors include older age, gender (men face higher risk of stroke), family history, genetics and even race. According to The Office of Minority Health, African Americans are 50 percent more likely to have a stroke than non-Hispanic whites adult counterparts and 70 percent more likely to die from a stroke.
“African Americans have higher incidences of hypertension, diabetes and high cholesterol, which in combination, increases the risk of strokes,” said Dr. Male.
It is important to discuss risk factors with your primary care provider. If you have had a stroke, your doctor may prescribe preventative medications to address risk factors like blood thinners, cholesterol medication or blood pressure medication. Additionally, lifestyle changes such as exercising more and eating healthier foods are proven to lower your risk of stroke.
“With great treatment options now widely available, it is important to remember, time is of the essence,” said Dr. Male. “The sooner we implement treatment, the better the odds that the patient will recover to their baseline. The benefit of early treatment is preventing long-term disability.”
If a stroke is not caught quick enough, long-term disability and health issues are possible. Most commonly, patients may lose strength on one side of their body or have problems speaking.
The acronym B.E. F.A.S.T. can help quickly identify the signs and symptoms that you or a loved one may be experiencing a stroke:
- B – Balance problems
- E – Eye issues like blindness or seeing doubles
- F – Face drooping
- A – Arm weakness
- S – Speech slurring
- T – Time to call 911
Dr. Mike Waldrum, ECU Health CEO and dean of the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University was recently named to Business North Carolina’s 2022 Power List. ECU Chancellor Dr. Philip Rogers was also named to Business North Carolina’s 2022 Power List in the Education section.
This yearly list names the most influential leaders in the state of North Carolina across various industries. The awarded leaders are nominated for this list based on their influence as strong leaders.
“This recognition represents the tireless work ECU Health team members do every day to serve the region and educate the future physicians for North Carolina,” said Dr. Waldrum. “At ECU Health, we strive to become a national model for rural health delivery by providing high-quality care to the region we proudly call home. Our regional health care organization, combined with the Brody School of Medicine, strengthens our shared mission to improve the health and well-being of eastern North Carolina. ECU Health will continue to innovate and provide high-quality care to those we serve.”
We are proud to have strong leadership moving ECU Health forward to meet the joint mission of improving the health and well-being of eastern North Carolina by training the providers of tomorrow, collaborating with community partners to solve complex issues and bringing clinical innovations that improve the lives of those who proudly call this region home.
To read the Business NC Power 100 List article, please visit https://businessnc.com/2022-power-list/.
It’s a natural evolution for two organizations that have worked together for years.
“This announcement has been 40 years in the making,” said Dr. Michael Waldrum, Vidant Health CEO and dean of East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine.
“We are super excited for this name change, said Vidant team member Carol Ramirez, RN. “I think it’s going to be a really, really good change for eastern North Carolina.”
“This is not a moment to sit idle,” said ECU Chancellor Philip Rogers, upon the announcement of the joint operating agreement in January 2022. “It is instead a moment to launch an innovative solution for rural health care delivery and education in eastern North Carolina. And that is exactly what we aspire to do with this announcement.”
With a logo reveal that followed in April and a transition to ECU Health that will begin in May, it is an exciting time for eastern North Carolina.
“As with any change, there is a lot of angst about ‘what’s the future for me as an individual within the organization,’” said Jason Higginson, executive dean of the Brody School of Medicine at ECU. “I think one of the key things, our guiding principal, is the people within the organization are equally important to achieving the mission as anything. So, as we look to the future, we are trying to ensure that everyone in the organization is valued and that their contributions are honored.”
It’s a process that will take months to complete. The Vidant Health logo will be phased out over the next two years, replaced by ECU Health on everything from building signage and vehicles to organizational websites and social media channels.
“There is a plan to roll that out,” said Dr. Waldrum at the logo announcement in April. “And today we are showing the brand but beginning in May you’ll start seeing that happen and that will evolve over time.”
These changes will unfold across hundreds of locations in 29 counties. A visual unveiling of a forward-focused partnership benefitting those who serve — and are served by — the health system and the Brody School of Medicine.
“I think it’s awesome that two of the biggest entities here in town have collaborated to support and help the whole eastern North Carolina,” said Vidant team member and social worker Robinque Willis-Brown. “So together, I know they can make a great difference.”
In 2000, Millie Shinn developed an ulcer on her right heel. A complication of Shinn’s Type 1 diabetes, the ulcer continued to grow, requiring Shinn to seek treatment and ultimately, a heel reconstruction.
When that did not heal properly, she said she knew amputation was a possibility, though she wasn’t willing to accept it yet. Fast forward to February of 2002 and Shinn was still in bandages from the surgery. After a trip to the Emergency Department, Shinn met with her doctors and they decided it was time to amputate her right leg below the knee.
“My husband was with me and even the nurse that was taking care of me, we were all just bawling before the surgery,” Shinn said of her experience before her first amputation at Vidant Medical Center (VMC). “It was not something that I thought would happen to me … I really wasn’t sure what to expect.”
She said she was motivated after her first surgery to get moving and was lucky to have the opportunity to use an early post-operative prosthesis, or EPOP, which helped her to get out of bed and moving around on a prosthetic limb sooner than she would have without one.
The EPOP was used while she was still healing and about three months after her first surgery, she was fitted with a permanent prosthetic limb. In September of the same year, ulcers began to show up on her left foot. She knew right away how it would end.
She asked what her options were and her providers told her they could continue to clean her ulcers and try to heal her foot for as long as possible. But she told the doctors to move ahead with amputation again.
“I said, ‘I’ve done fine with one fake leg, I’ll be fine with two.’ And that’s what we did,” Shinn said. “It was not circulation issues, it was nerve issues. Circulation was always good I just didn’t have any feeling and had lots of nerve damage.”
Her left leg amputation was also a below-the-knee amputation and she said, like her first amputation, she recovered quickly. Since she knew what to expect the second time around it was not as traumatic an experience—for her. It wasn’t as easy for her son to accept, and at that time, there was not an amputee support group in eastern North Carolina.
Eastern North Carolina Amputee Support Group
Vidant’s amputee support group, officially called Eastern North Carolina Amputee Support Group, came together for the first time in March of 2006 thanks in large part to Shinn and Helen Houston, an occupational therapy clinical specialist at Vidant Medical Center.
Shinn, who lives nearly two hours away from Greenville and made the drive monthly to help lead the support group, said the first meeting had about eight people. The numbers and traditions have grown along the way, and 16 years later the group continues to meet. COVID-19 means they connect virtually on the third Monday of each month from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.
Shinn said she estimates that nearly 500 people have joined a meeting a one time or another. She has seen the importance of the meetings for her fellow amputees, especially those in the early stages.
“I think it’s very important because they can see us and realize that there is a life afterwards,” Shinn said. “Yes, it has changed my life and yes this is like a death in your family and a death to you because you’ve actually lost a part of yourself. It’s going to be a part of your life, but it doesn’t have to be a controlling part of your life.”
Houston said she has loved her time participating in the group and looks forward to the meeting each month and interacting with people she now considers family. Houston has also helped lead the group since its inception.
She said the conversations each month are inspiring to her and a reminder of why she chose a career in therapy.
“It’s my responsibility, together with recreational therapy, to bring the people that have had recent amputations and are in rehab right now to the group,” Houston said. “We let them see other people that are a little further along than them and let them ask questions. I can answer their questions all day, but I have two legs, so my experience carries limited weight.”
The group frequently has guest speakers including doctors, massage therapists, highway patrol officers, politicians and prosthetists. Shinn said sometimes people will join the group just once to get a few answers to questions that they have and will not return, but she said that as long as people are getting the help they need, the group feels like it is doing its job.
Houston and Shinn both recalled how meaningful it is to include caregivers, family and friends of amputees in the support group sessions. They even shared that in a few cases, after an amputee has passed, spouses and friends continue to attend the sessions to share their insights and past experiences with the group.
“It’s really neat and it’s become like a family,” Houston said. “For me, who is from South Africa, and who doesn’t have family here, to see the same people every month for 16 years, they know me better than I know myself. We’ve been through all kinds of stuff together.”
Occupational Therapy Month
Along with Limb Loss and Limb Difference Awareness Month, April is also Occupational Therapy Month. While occupational therapists play crucial roles in many areas across the health system, supporting amputees is a special responsibility.
Houston said in the acute care setting, occupational therapists are often the first people helping to get amputees out of bed. From there, it’s about teaching patients how to do all the things they are used to doing, but in a different way. This includes bathing, dressing, grooming, transferring to and from a toilet, and to and from a tub.
She said patients typically need three months for their wounds to heal and their residual limb to be shaped, before they get a prosthetic limb. They would initially be at a wheelchair level—or wheelchair and walker level—for some time during their recovery.
“In inpatient rehab, amputees practice self-care tasks, but they also address what we call instrumental activities of daily living,” Houston said. “That is not just self-care but also taking care of the things in your environment. So that would be things like cooking, grocery shopping, money management, medication management, yardwork and starting to access the community, including returning to driving.”
She described the stages after this as getting people back to doing whatever occupied their time before their amputation and educating them on different ways to do so. Houston mentioned a study of healthy adults that showed it takes at least two days to regain strength from each day spent lying in bed.
“That’s for someone who has not had surgery and has not had anything wrong with them,” Houston said. “So here at Vidant we help to get patients up the day after surgery. You’re trying to prevent blood clots, and help them mentally adjust to their new life. The longer you lay there and are fearful of ‘How am I going to get up and how am I going to do this?’ the bigger the mountain seems.”
Houston said her experiences with amputees are often the most inspiring.
“It’s really neat. It’s an honor to be part of their journey,” Houston said. “To be a part of one of the patient’s hardest times in their lives and be able to support them and show them a little further down the road, makes coming to work every day extremely rewarding. To be able to show them that they’re not the only ones in their current situation and to help them to problem solve how they’re able to get back to doing whatever is important to them – that is why I became an occupational therapist.”
Resources
It started out as a typical holiday weekend for Dana Parker and her two daughters.
“We had plans to go hang out with my family the next day, for a cookout,” Dana said, about their plans last summer. “Fourth of July is a big holiday in our family.”
But overnight, those plans for a celebration quickly changed.
“I woke up a few times the next morning and thought, ‘Man, the house is really quiet. I’m surprised the girls aren’t up yet,’” Dana said.
Next came a horrifying discovery, as Dana found her oldest daughter Parker unresponsive on their living room floor.
“She’s just covered in vomit. She had definitely aspirated, I can hear it gurgling in her lungs,” Dana said, as she recounted the experience that day. “Her body is cold, I mean it is cold, stiff, she’s not responsive at all.”
Dana then finds herself reeling as first responders hone in on a possible cause. “They just kept saying, ‘Do you think it could be an overdose?’ They’re hooking her up to all these things and they just keep going back, like ‘Ma’am, she’s young, she’s healthy, all of these symptoms point to an overdose,’” she said.
Evidence found on Parker’s cell phone confirmed those suspicions. “In the course of about 25 minutes, she consumed almost 26 shots of alcohol,” Dana said.
“Depending on how old you are, how much you weigh, how much alcohol you’re ingesting, every child is different in terms of the effect it’s going to have on you,” Nicole Belcher, PA-C, a physician assistant at the James and Connie Maynard Children’s Hospital at ECU Health Medical Center (VMC).
In Parker’s case, she consumed enough alcohol for the care team at the Children’s Emergency Department at VMC to warn of an unknown outcome.
“They said, ‘At this point we don’t know if she’ll wake up. And if she does we have no idea what condition she’ll be in,’” Dana said. “She was already on borrowed time. I mean, it is literally by the grace of God that she was even still breathing at that point.”
Breathing then – and thriving now. While minor nerve issues persist, the multi-sport student athlete has made nearly a full recovery. And Dana is grateful for the care her daughter received.
“The little things that they do mean more than what they realize. Just the little kind words and taking the time to ask the questions and to say, ‘Hey, are you ok? Is there anything I can get you?’ I would just love to say ‘thank you,’” Dana said.
Now Dana wants other parents to learn from her family’s experience, and to consider how they talk to their children about the dangers of drinking.
“In her eyes, maybe she was drinking responsibly. She wasn’t out on the street, she wasn’t at a party, she wasn’t driving, you know – she’s in the comfort of her own home. She gets curious, she wants to experiment,” Dana said.
Experts agree.
“Bottom line, is to have the conversation. I think the earlier we walk about it, the better,” said Belcher. “The reality is, they are going to learn it from you, or they’re going to see it on social media, they’re going to see it on television, they are going to see it on the movies. Being able to have that open communication and being able to model safe behaviors with alcohol is the most important thing.”
Resources
April is Alcohol Awareness Month. If you or a loved one needs support, resources or treatment, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) can help.
SAMHSA’s National Helpline is free, confidential and accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week: 1-800-662-HELP.
They also offer an online treatment locator: https://findtreatment.samhsa.gov/
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