Healthy Times

Mercy Memorial Hospital System will hold its annual free skin cancer screening program from 3:30 to 6 p.m., Tuesday, May 14 at the Corporate Connection Office, 901 N. Macomb St., Suite 1.
No appointment is necessary, and four dermatologists will perform the skin cancer screenings. Each participant will receive a copy of the doctor’s observations during the screening to take home with them. The program is open to all members of the community on a first-come, first-seen basis.
Skin cancer affects one in five Americans, but if detected and treated early, it has a 99 percent cure rate.
Make checking your skin a daily habit. Watch for spots that are changing, growing, oddly shaped or those that may itch or bleed. If you notice a spot with any such symptoms, call your primary care physician or a dermatologist for a more thorough examination. Protect yourself every time you are out in the sun with protective clothing and a good sunscreen product. Avoid tanning beds.
For more information about the free skin cancer screening program, call (734) 240-4162.

Mercy Memorial Hospital System (MMHS) is sponsoring a free mammogram screening day on Saturday, May 4, for qualifying Monroe County residents.
The screening is by appointment and is from 7:45 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. in the Women’s Health Center at Mercy Memorial Hospital, 718 North Macomb St. A limited number of appointments are available. To schedule an appointment, call (734) 240-8440.
Qualifying clients must be female, 40 or older, Monroe County residents, uninsured or underinsured with a demonstrated financial need. Women who are younger than 40 might qualify if they have a physician order indicating the medical necessity for the mammogram screening.
In addition to the free mammogram screening, clients have the opportunity to learn more about breast health, the importance of monthly self-exams and annual mammograms. All mammograms are performed by qualified technologists and the films are read by board certified radiologists.
The event is made possible through donations from the community to the Women’s Health Center Fund.

The first robotic removal of a prostate gland at Mercy Memorial Hospital System took place at the end of January, hospital officials say.
Dr. Khaled Shahrour and Dr. Samay Jain used the hospital’s da Vinci robotic surgery system to remove the cancerous gland while preserving healthy tissue and nerves, and maintaining urinary continence and sexual function.
For most patients, a prostatectomy using the da Vinci system will involve less blood loss and less need for transfusion during surgery; a lower risk of complications or wound infection; fewer days with a catheter; less pain and an overall faster recovery and return to normal activities. In addition, most patients will experience better cancer control, faster return of erectile function and better chance for return of urinary continence.
The hospital acquired the da Vinci system two years ago and has been using it mainly for gynecological cases.
Dr. Shahrour said the prostate surgery was a success and the patient is having a favorable outcome. In addition, he was very complimentary of the Surgical Services Robotic Team, which is a dedicated team who works with each robotic-assisted surgery at MMHS.
“The team very much cares about their patients and routinely goes above and beyond their jobs,” he said. “Research has shown that hospitals with dedicated robotic teams have better outcomes.”
“Patients have the very best cancer care right here in Monroe,” Dr. Shahrour said. “Patients have top notch care with fellowship-trained surgeons who perform minimally invasive surgery just around the corner.”
Dr. Shahrour received his medical degree from McGill University in Montreal. He completed a residency in urology at the University de Montreal, and a fellowship in robotics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Dr. Jain received his medical degree from Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. He completed a residency at Washington University, St. Louis, and a residency at Hackensack University Medical Center, Hackensack, N.J.
Both physicians practice at 730 North Macomb Street, Suite 300, Monroe. The telephone number is (734) 240-4240.

Numerous Web sites are available to rate just about any service or product: restaurant food, hotel service and even a pediatrician’s care. However, a new poll from the University of Michigan shows that only 25 percent of parents say they consider doctor rating Web sites very important in their search for a child’s physician.
But the latest University of Michigan Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health did show that younger parents, those under 30, were more likely to say that online doctor ratings are very important. And mothers were more likely than fathers to say that those ratings are very important.
“More and more families are going online not only to find out about medical conditions but also in their search for the right doctor for their child. What we found in the poll was that the perceived importance of online ratings appears to differ widely based on factors such as parent age and gender,” says David A. Hanauer, a primary care pediatrician and clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at U-M. Hanauer collaborated with the National Poll on Children’s Health regarding this study of doctor rating Web sites.

The new MI Healthier Tomorrow campaign is urging state residents to try to lose 10 percent of their body weight, saying it could cut health care costs by $357 million.
For more info on how to participate, visit www.michigan.gov/mihealthiertomorrow on the Web.

Mercy Memorial Hospital System soon will become a training ground for new doctors.
To help meet anticipated future demand for physicians, the hospital next year will launch a Family Medicine Residency Program. The three-year graduate program, under the direction of Dr. Susan Hulsemann, is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.
The program, which will start in July, will expose resident physicians to 26 different medical and surgical specialties. In addition, the program will promote the American Academy of Family Physicians concept of the personal medical home as the place individuals receive acute, chronic, and preventive medical services.
The medical home concept, being embraced widely by the medical community, is designed so that patients can be assured of care that is accessible, comprehensive, integrated, patient-centered, safe, scientifically valid, and satisfying to both patients and their physicians.
Upon graduation from the new MMHS program, the resident doctors become board-certified family physicians.
Family medicine residency programs are deemed essential becauses researchers recently projected in the Annals of Family Medicine that the United States will need 52,000 additional primary care physicians by 2025, a 25 percent increase in the current work force, to address the expected increases in demand.
About 33,000 more physicians are expected to be needed due to population growth, another 10,000 due to the aging population, and another 8,000 due to insurance expansion.
Dr. Hulsemann brings nearly 20 years of experience in caring for patients and families and 12 years in family medicine education to the hospital program. She became involved in medical education following residency, and served as assistant director, associate director and the program director for Mercy Health Partners Family Medicine Residency Program in Toledo. She lives in Monroe and is the medical director of Faithworks, a medical clinic designed to serve the working uninsured population of Monroe County.

Mercy Memorial Hospital System is emphasizing to patients that it does not purchase products or supplies from the New England Compounding Center (NECC), a Massachusetts company connected with a tainted drug that’s caused deaths and illness due to fungal meningitis.
The Emergency Department physicians at Mercy Memorial have fielded questions from patients for the past two weeks and have assured them that hospital does not purchase products and/or supplies from the company in question, hospital officials said.
The product implicated in the outbreak is Methylprednisolone Acetate, a steroid that is primarily used for epidural back injections. The outbreak has affected 308 patients and caused 23 deaths in 17 states, including Michigan.
MMHS also has no history of purchasing this item or any items from the New England manufacturer, according to Jackie Swearingen, a hospital spokeswoman.
The Food and Drug Administration is advising health care professionals to follow up with patients who were administered any injectable medication from or produced by New England Compounding Center, including injectable ophthalmic drugs related to eye surgery or a cardioplegic solution purchased from or produced by New England Compounding Center after May 21.
Patients who might have received these drugs after May 21 should watch for potential symptoms of infection and to contact their health care provider if they exhibit symptoms. Symptoms include fever, headache, stiff neck, nausea and vomiting, sensitivity to light and altered mental status.
Symptoms for other possible infections may include fever; swelling, increasing pain, redness, warmth at injection site; visual changes, pain, redness or discharge from the eye; chest pain, or drainage from the surgical site (infection within the chest).

A new study shows that taking a multivitamin once daily can help prevent cancer in men.
It provides the first hard evidence of what has been suspected for some time.
Read the article here.

Mercy Memorial Hospital System’s Cancer Connection will be the beneficiary of an Italian Dinner and Raffle with Chef Mario Pace from 5 to 7 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 13 at Grace Lutheran Church, 630 N. Monroe Street. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for kids 6 to 10 years-old and free for kids under 6. Call the Cancer Connection at (734) 240-5400 to purchase tickets.

Michigan and Ohio are among the states that received shipments of a back pain medication that has been connected with an outbreak of meningitis, but no meningitis cases have been reported in the two states so far. For more info, click here.