WakeMed Physician Michele Casey, MD, spoke to WTVD this week about the signs, symptoms, and treatment of tick bites and related illnesses.

Preventing tick-borne illnesses can be as simple as using insect repellent before you venture into wooded areas.

Check your body and your children, particularly in the groin area, after you have been out for long periods of time.

The Dos and Don’ts of removing a tick:

• DO use fine-tipped tweezers.
• DON’T use your fingers.
• DO grab the tick at the part that is stuck in your skin.
• DON’T grab the tick around its bloated belly.
• DO gently pull the tick straight out until it lets go of your skin.
• DON’T twist and turn the tick.
• DO put the tick in a jar or ziplock bag and place it in the freezer for possible identification later.

Champ served as WakeMed’s president and chief executive officer from 1983 to 2003. The county’s only trauma service and a freestanding Children’s Emergency Department, both located on Raleigh Campus, were two of the dedicated services established under Champ’s leadership.  Today, Raleigh Campus is home to Wake County’s only Level I Trauma Center, and the Raleigh Campus adult and Children’s Emergency Departments are collectively the busiest emergency departments in the state.

When Champ joined WakeMed in December 1983, it was a 576-bed hospital system with one full service acute care hospital. Under his leadership, WakeMed grew to a 752-bed multi-facility health care system with specialties in cardiology, orthopaedics, trauma, women’s and children’s services and neurosciences featuring a 68-bed physical rehabilitation hospital, a 114-bed full service community hospital in Cary, and smaller facilities in Fuquay-Varina and Zebulon.

Also during his tenure, WakeMed established the county’s only trauma service, the state’s first dedicated Children’s Emergency Department, North Carolina’s busiest heart center including a hotel for patients and their families, a pediatric intensive care unit, and an outpatient facility in northern Wake county that would become the location for the state’s first stand-alone emergency department.

Champ’s two decades of leadership laid the foundation for future innovations, including the addition of a Children’s Hospital, the advancement to a Level I Trauma Center, construction of three full-service, stand-alone emergency departments, as well as the addition of many inpatient beds, new services and outpatient facilities throughout the system.

Scully is currently in eighth place and needs your help to become a finalist.

Log on to www.herodogawards.org and click here to vote for him in the service dog category. Voting ends on June 30. If he is the top vote-getter, Scully will walk the red carpet and be recognized at a star-studded awards show on October 2, 2012 when the winning Hero Dog will be announced.

Scully, a lab/golden retriever mix, was nominated by Canine Companions for Independence for his work helping patients who have recently suffered a stroke or brain injury. Along with his handler, Elizabeth Penny, Scully provides therapy by letting patients groom, walk or feed him and serves as “pure motivation”, especially for pediatric patients.

Created two years ago, the Hero Dog Awards celebrate the contributions of our four-legged friends who offer a comforting paw during times of need, protect our communities, and serve as first responders during emergencies.

The real winners are the patients of all ages Scully helps at Wake Med. Just recently, Scully helped a spinal cord injury patient and his 3-year-old daughter reconnect as she adjusted to the reality of his injury.  Scully has also helped patients improve their memory and word retrieval, their socialization skills, balance, and range of motions. Patients who have worked with Scully often experience more self-confidence and the motivation to participate in daily activities.

Created two years ago, the awards celebrate the contributions of our four-legged friends who offer a comforting paw during times of need, protect our communities, and serve as first responders during emergencies.

Scully, a Lab/Golden Retriever mix, was nominated in the “service dog” category by Elizabeth Penny, his handler and a licensed/certified therapist at WakeMed. He helps patients who have suffered a stroke or brain injury with articulation of speech; provides physical therapy by letting patients groom, walk or feed him; and serves as “pure motivation”, especially for pediatric patients.

He wears a special vest that identifies him as a service dog. When you see a dog wearing such a vest, please remember that the dog is working. Do not pat the dog. Service dogs like Scully get lots of love and attention from the patients they help and the family who cares for him.

“Some people say Scully is built like a linebacker, but has the temperament of a kindergarten teacher – unflappable and endlessly patient,” Penny wrote in Scully’s nomination. “The impact that he has had on my patients and my co-workers has been profound.”

To vote for Scully, visit www.herodogawards.org until June 30 and select the “service dogs” category from the pull-down menu. Scully’s photo is in the middle, a third of the way down the page.  The top vote-getter will be named “First Place Category Winner” and “Finalist” for that category. You can vote once a day!

A second round of voting will be held from July 3 to October 5 to help determine the grand prize winner. A judging panel consisting of celebrities, animal care professionals, and other advisors will also help choose the winner.

The real winners are the patients of all ages Scully helps at WakeMed for three hours a day, five days a week. He has helped patients improve their memory and word retrieval, their socialization skills, balance, and range of motions. Patients who have worked with Scully often experience more self-confidence and the motivation to participate in daily activities.

Susan Evans

The Triangle Business Journal (TBJ) honored 25 local professionals this year with Health Care Hero Awards, including four from WakeMed.

All four WakeMed finalists – Susan Evans, Rosemary Kenny, Dr. Duncan Phillips and Tiffany Young – won in their respective categories. The winners were announced on Thursday, March 22 at a special dinner at the Raleigh Marriott City Center.

Dr. Duncan Phillips

Winners were nominated by their peers and selected by a TBJ-appointed committee. All winners have made significant contributions to health care in this community.

“Our winners this year represent another class of exceptional heroes,” said Bryan Hamilton, publisher of Triangle Business Journal. “Whether serving those in need or working on breakthrough innovation in health care, these winners are changing people’s lives.  We thank each of our finalists for their years of hard work and passion to make a difference.”

Susan Evans, RN, IBCLC, is the coordinator for WakeMed Mothers’ Milk Bank. It is one of only 10 milk banks in the country, and for several years, was the only one on the east coast. Evans admits to getting teary-eyed when she talks to a mom who wants to donate her milk after her baby has died.

Rosemary Kenny

Rosemary Kenny is a volunteer in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), where she conducts hearing tests for premature babies. Kenny says she is motivated by the importance of identifying babies who need hearing assistance, so that “we can give them the very best possible start in life.”

Dr. Duncan Phillips is a pediatric surgeon who also helps to coordinate care delivered by other surgical subspecialists within the WakeMed system. If Dr. Phillips could change one thing about health care in America, he says it would be to guarantee all children equal access to specialty medical care, no matter where they live, the language they speak, or what their parents do for a living.

Tiffany Young

Tiffany Young works as a triage, charge, and trauma nurse in the Children’s Emergency Department. Her work has taken her around the globe, including to Haiti, where in 2010 she led a team in providing mobile medical clinics to rural areas. She also trained 50 Haitian doctors and nurses and opened a Cholera Treatment Center, which treated more than 10,000 people.

The Garner Town Council approved this week a special use permit for the facility and agreed to rezone the 20-acre site across from the Agri-Supply store, according to the Raleigh News & Observer.

The 50,000-square-foot facility will feature a 14-bed emergency department and lab services, and include physicians’ offices. It will also serve as the base for medical helicopter operations and create about 150 jobs.

An estimated 12,000 to 15,000 people could be treated in the emergency department in the first year. That number could jump to 27,000 by the end of the facility’s first decade in operations.

Learn more.

The adventure of learning to stand, walk, and reach that shiny object way on the top shelf can prove irresistible. But these adventures can be dangerous and even downright deadly if the proper precautions are not taken.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) estimates that between 2000 and 2010 there were at least 245 deaths related to tip-overs of furniture, televisions or appliances among children ages 8 years and under. Most of these deaths, 90 percent of them, involved children younger than age 6. In 2011, the CPSC identified this issue as one of the top hidden home hazards.

Kids can be seriously injured or killed as a result of climbing onto, falling against or pulling themselves up on shelves, bookcases, dressers, TV tables, and other furniture.

Here are some tips for keeping your home safe:

• Fasten top-heavy or unstable furniture to a wall using brackets, screws or wall straps.
• Keep heavier items on lower shelves or in lower drawers.
• Don’t keep remote controls, candy or other tempting items on unstable stands or tables.
• Teach children not to climb or jump on furniture.
• Push the television as far back as possible from the front of its stand.

Kids are also in danger of suffocation if they become accidentally trapped in a cabinet, toy chest or laundry machine. In 2007 alone, there were 3,270 injuries to children ages 2 to 14 involving toy chests. Always supervise children around any confined space and keep the doors closed and locked.

Toy chests that meet voluntary standards set by the CPSC are equipped with lid supports that hold the lid open in any position. The standards also call for ventilation holes to prevent suffocation. If you have a toy chest with a lid that doesn’t stay open, the CPSC recommends you remove the lid or install a spring-loaded lid support.

Safe Kids Wake County works to prevent unintentional childhood injury, the leading cause of death and disability to children ages 1 to 14. Safe Kids Wake County is a member of Safe Kids Worldwide, a global network of organizations dedicated to preventing unintentional injury. Safe Kids Wake County was founded in 1996 and is led by WakeMed Health & Hospitals.

For more information about home safety, call 919-350-8364 or visit www.safekids.org.

Siobhan Davis is the WakeMed Injury Prevention Representative and Safe Kids Wake County Coordinator.

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Eighty-two cases of the contagious disease were recently confirmed in Alamance County.

Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, is a bacterial disease which leads to severe coughing that can cause people to make a whooping sound as they gasp for breath.

The Tdap vaccine, which protects against tetanus, diphtheria, and whooping cough, lasts for about 10 years and is recommended for all adults, but especially for those who are around vulnerable populations such as young children and the elderly.