On this West Virginia Morning, we begin a new series called “Now What? A Series On Parenting.” In this ongoing, occasional series, we’ll talk with experts and explore the age old question, “What’s best for the baby?” Also, beavers are coming back to West Virginia – we learn why.
On this West Virginia Morning, we begin a new series called “Now What? A Series On Parenting.” WVPB reporter Chris Schulz recently welcomed his first child and is grappling with how much there is to learn. In this ongoing, occasional series, we ask experts what they think parents – both old and new – need to know to best raise their children.
In this first installment, we talk with Dr. Adriana Diakiw, an assistant professor of pediatrics at West Virginia University (WVU), to explore how discussions between grandparents and new parents reveal just how much advice around what’s “best for baby” has changed in just one generation.
Also, in this show, a familiar species is coming back to West Virginia. Jack Walker spoke to conservationists about how they’re preparing for new arrivals.
West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.
Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.
Eric Douglas is our news director and producer.
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Residents and university students in Shepherdstown will have access to a new health care facility starting next month.
WVU Medicine East announced this week that its new medical office building is expected to open mid-September.
The facility will provide new health care opportunities for people living in Shepherdstown and students at Shepherd University. It will offer primary and specialty care and have x-ray and laboratory services.
“We are excited to provide high-quality healthcare services in the Shepherdstown area,” said Aaron Henry, vice president of ambulatory operations for WVU Medicine East. “We have plans to add more primary care providers as the practice grows and will offer a number of our specialty services such as behavioral health and cardiology on a rotating basis.”
Up until now, people in the Shepherdstown area, with the exception of one primary care office, have had to drive anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes to receive medical care.
“The fact that Shepherdstown only has one primary care physician is why opening a medical facility there is so important,” said Teresa McCabe, vice president of Marketing and Development at WVU Medicine East. “[We are] pleased to be able to offer Shepherdstown residents improved access to primary and specialty health care services.”
The new WVU Medicine East location will staff two family medicine physicians and a pediatrician, according to a press release, and offer “walk-in” hours once it opens.
Additionally, the building will include a space for the WVU School of Medicine Eastern Campus to establish a teaching kitchen that will offer healthy cooking classes for patients as well as medical students in the MedChefs program, according to McCabe.
WVU Medicine operates more than 100 University Healthcare clinics, including physician offices, in the Eastern Panhandle region.
They also operate two hospitals in the area – Berkeley Medical Center and Jefferson Medical Center. These are the only hospitals available to residents in Jefferson and Berkeley counties other than the Martinsburg VA Medical Center.
Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from Marshall Health and Charleston Area Medical Center.
Health officials and pediatricians are concerned that some children could fall behind on vaccinations during the pandemic, even though funding is available to pay for vaccines for children who are uninsured or underinsured.
Public health experts are worried that parents may be reluctant to bring their children to the doctor, for fear of exposing their family to Covid-19, but not vaccinating children could lead to outbreaks of diseases like measles.
According to a Centers for Disease Ccontrol and Prevention report, health officials have seen a decrease in vaccine orders for childhood diseases since March. This concerns public health experts, including Dr. Cathy Slemp, State Health Officer and Commissioner of Department of Health and Human Resource’s Bureau for Public Health.
“If children fall behind on vaccinations during the pandemic, we could face a second crisis with an outbreak of vaccine-preventable disease,” Slemp said.
The Vaccines for Children Program is a federally-funded program through the CDC that provides free vaccines. Families who qualify for Medicaid, are uninsured or underinsured, may apply for funding assistance to receive vaccines, which can help prevent up to 16 diseases.
For more information about the Vaccines for Children Program, parents can ask their child’s pediatrician, or contact the state’s Office of Epidemiology and Preventive Services hotline, 1-800-642-3634.
Doctor Pamela Murray is is the chief of adolescent medicine at West Virginia University. In the next installment of our occasional series “Windows into Health Care,” Kara Lofton talks with Murray about the role adolescent specialists play in West Virginia, and how treating the child most effectively, sometimes means getting the whole family on board.
LOFTON: When we think about medicine, we usually think about pediatrics and then we think about adult medicine. I mean, what is young adult and adolescent medicine and kind of, how does those differ from those other two ends?
MURRAY: I look at it as something that’s both integrative and kind of developmental, in that there are aspects of what we do that overlap with some other things. So, we do a lot of reproductive health. There are parts of it that overlap with endocrinology or hormone doctors. We see – we’re often the eating disorder if not experts – we do know a lot about anorexia and bulimia and binge eating disorders and often deliver care like with behavioral health specialists, therapists and psychiatrists to treat those problems. So we tend to look at the whole patients and we tend to kind of keep weaving all those things together till we kind of figure out the puzzle, hopefully.
LOFTON: Why do you like working with this population?
MURRAY: I think I like working with family systems and seeing how people can – if you can help people work together in ways that may not be obvious. I enjoy, kind of the people, the challenges, and trying to sort of listen to their stories so I can help them figure out how they can feel well and do well. You know, our appointments are set up so especially initially, but even at follow up visits, we have a lot more time and so we often get to sort of put the pieces of a puzzle together that I think in a busier primary care practice doesn’t happen.
And I remember working with somebody who [we] both used to supervise an adolescent medicine clinic because he had done that, but was working in a private practice at the same time. And I said like “what would you have done with somebody who had a really involved story?” And he said, “I would have had them come back four times before I ever could reach the same understanding of the problem.” And that I think about that a lot.
LOFTON: Is there anything that you see in West Virginia or, you know, from your Appalachian clients that is different or unique than we might see in other parts of the country?
MURRAY: I think the frequency and degree of obesity. And you know, we would call them co-morbidities – all the other parts of your body that aren’t working as well. When that’s a problem, it is really quite striking. I mean, before coming here I worked not far away. And, and those were issues, but really not to the degree that I see them here.
They don’t move their bodies much in part because things hurt more, you know. So, adults would say “my joints and my back.” I think sometimes people can complain and then we can try to help them get them moving. But I think sometimes they’ve gotten so used to just being deconditioned and not finding a way to move more that you don’t know how much of a problem it is. We know like, in the long term, your blood vessels in your heart, I treat a lot of kids for hypertension. Most all the time it’s associated with obesity. There are menstrual problems. So there’s probably not a system in the body that’s not affected by it.
But there are also a lot of the problems – I used to think – this is what adult doctors do. Right? These are the complaints you get when you’re middle age. But I think there are really real in these young adults. And I also think that – I think one of the special things about working here – kind of the more positive side – is how engaged families are. And sometimes in adolescent medicine, depending where you practice, you may just see kids alone and it’s really rare to see a parent. I think in a lot of urban areas, kids go in, they come on their bus, they go home. And it’s really rare to not have one and sometimes many family members with a kid. And I think particularly for issues around obesity, you’re more successful when the family is on board. And I think almost every teenager I’ve seen who’s been successful losing substantial amounts of weight, there is always a parent who, if you ask, says “well if it was good for him or her I thought I’d do the same thing too.” And they’ve often been similarly successful but sometimes they don’t tell you unless to ask.
Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Marshall Health, Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.
If you look at the data, West Virginia has enough pediatricians to cover the number of children here. What there aren’t enough of is many pediatric specialties such as pediatric allergists, neurologists or rheumatologists. And that’s forcing many families like the Laxtons to seek care out of state.
Lori Laxton met me at McDonalds in Beckley. When her daughter was four she began having trouble with her kidneys.
The closest pediatric urologist was at the University of Virginia Medical Center – 3.5 to four hours away from her home in Pineville.
A few years later, her son was diagnosed with general epilepsy. The closest neurologist was in Charleston – almost two hours away. Although closer, that experience didn’t go well.
“He pretty much looked at us and said your son will have seizures. Get over it and go on,” said Laxton.
Laxton didn’t accept that diagnosis and ended up driving farther for a second opinion. That experience went better so she continued making the three-four hour trip with her son.
A pediatric cardiologist based in Morgantown, Larry Rhodes, said pediatric and adult subspecialties are totally different ballgames.
“There’s really a lot of difference between – let me just use peds cardiology as an example – what we take care of as pediatric cardiologists is not the same thing as that adult cardiologists take care of…The only thing we really share is the word cardiologist – we’re really two completely different specialists,” said Rhodes.
In 2014, Rhodes set up a specialty pediatric clinic in Summersville. Twelve days a month about ten different pediatric specialists now come to the central part of the state to see patients. He also helped grow the number of pediatric cardiology clinics across the state to eight.
“My ultimate goal would be that no child would leave West Virginia for care,” said Rhodes. “But there are some specialties that we don’t have and sometimes the wait time to get in to see a specialist in some of these specialties that only have one or two providers is prohibitive.”
Sending specialties out to communities helps bridge the gap. But Rhodes points out, travel eats into how much time physicians have to actually see patients. So efforts to expand in-state access to specialists include improving access to telemedicine services. Those efforts are hindered by a lack of reliable statewide broadband.
“So we kind of put it together with duct tape – we do the best we can and if get to some place where we can do you know telemedicine and then we have the patients they have to come some distance to get there,” he said
But ultimately if we can improve broadband access, that could help solve the problem, he said. Giving patients better access and more choice.
Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation, Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.
Nimish Metha has been a pediatric emergency medicine doctor at Women and Children’s Hospital in Charleston for more than 16 years. Kara Lofton talked with Metha about what it’s like to work in the ER, what items he wouldn’t have in his own home after seeing children come into the hospital with injuries and how he’s seen the opioid epidemic impact the pediatric population.
Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation, Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.
