Stay Healthy

PROTECT YOUR VISION AGAINST THESE MYTHS

Eye experts don’t want you to take your ability to read this text — with or without squinting — for granted. Here are their biggest tips on how to protect your peepers.

As an emergency physician on the frontlines of the COVID-19 epidemic who also works at the Fraum Center for Restorative Health, I am seeing my two passions—stem cell therapies and emergency medicine— intersect in this pandemic. Stem cells are not usually part of emergency medicine, but they are rapidly coming to the forefront. 

 
At Pinnacle Medical Group, Dr. Audrey Klenke, plastic surgeon and principal of Pinnacle Medical Group, and her staff have creatively expanded their services to support local hospitals during the COVID-19 crisis. To take some of the burden off emergency rooms, Pinnacle Medical Group reached out to Beaufort Memorial, Hilton Head and Coastal Carolina Hospital to offer to treat minor skin injuries including lacerations (cuts that may require stitches) and burns. 


“Our hope is to divert patients from the emergency room to our office in an effort to save the hospital beds, emergency personnel, and supplies available for potential COVID-19 patients,” Klenke said.

Elective procedures at Pinnacle Medical Group are being rescheduled; dermatology, cosmetic and medical spa consultations are being offered via telehealth. Patients who have more serious issues such as skin cancer are still being seen in person. Laceration repair and minor skin-injury services are available at Pinnacle’s Bluffton office at 7 Mallet Way and Beaufort office at 1096 Ribaut Road.

Pinnacle Medical Group is the locally owned and operated parent company of Pinnacle Plastic Surgery, PURE Medical Spa and Beaufort Dermatology.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA BRINGS HEALTH ADVICE TO THE LOWCOUNTRY, VISITS VOLUNTEERS IN MEDICINE

Bringing advice for a long and healthy life, celebrity neurosurgeon and medical reporter Dr. Sanjay Gupta visited Hilton Head Island on Feb. 11 as part of the new Lowcountry Speaker Series. He also stopped in at Volunteers in Medicine Hilton Head Island Clinic. 

Gupta has won multiple Emmy awards for his work as CNN’s chief medical correspondent. He is a practicing neurosurgeon at Emory University Hospital and the associate chief of neurosurgery at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. 

STUDIES WARN OF DANGERS OF ‘SILENT HEART ATTACKS’

Not all heart attacks are dramatic events; some are so-called “silent heart attacks” that cause serious damage and increase risks of cardiac death but don’t cause typical symptoms. These cardiac events are especially dangerous because without adequate knowledge, patients cannot make the same lifestyle changes as their counterparts who know about their heightened cardiac risks.

Yet a study from Finland and Iceland found that 10-year rates of cardiac death and complications like congestive heart failure were the same for patients who had experienced silent myocardial infarction as for those who had experienced heart attacks. A second study based on autopsy results found that a full quarter of subjects had cardiac scarring associated with silent heart attacks. 

ALTERNATIVE AND COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE GROWS

Integrative medicine combines standard care with complementary or alternative medicine to treat diseases and ensure wellness of body, mind and spirit. And it’s growing in popularity. 

Complementary medicine is a group of diagnostic and therapeutic disciplines that are used with conventional medicine, like the use of aromatherapy after surgery to help lessen a patient’s discomfort. Traditionally, complementary medicine hasn’t been taught or used in Western medical schools or hospitals, but some of its practices are increasingly being recommended by mainstream doctors. 

The challenge: to expand services, improve outcomes and control costs

While presidential candidates and lawmakers heatedly discuss the future of health care in America, hospital administrators are exploring innovative ways to provide more accessible and affordable medical care to the communities they serve. 

Much of their focus has centered on reducing expenses in an industry where cutting-edge procedures, technology and medicines are being introduced every day, driving up the cost of treatment. 

HERE’S WHEN TO VISIT EACH

Illnesses can strike at any time — in the middle of the night, during the weekend or while at work. How do you know what kind of care you need? Should you call your primary care physician, go to an urgent care facility or head straight to the emergency room? What about receiving care via video or phone? Here’s a primer on the different types of care. 

MEMORY MATTERS SEMINAR TO FOCUS ON BRAIN-HEALTHY LIFESTYLES

Memory Matters has come a long way since it was founded in 1997 to support the Lowcountry caregivers of people diagnosed with dementia.