Medical Matters Weekly Features Expedition and Mountain Medicine Expert
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Medical Matters Weekly Features Expedition and Mountain Medicine Expert

BENNINGTON, VT—June 23, 2021—Southwestern Vermont Health Care’s (SVHC) Medical Matters Weekly with Dr. Trey Dobson, a weekly interactive, multiplatform medical-themed talk show, will feature Nicholas Weinberg, MD, an emergency physician at Dartmouth-Hitchcock and a member of the organization’s Wilderness and Austere Medicine Fellowship faculty, on its June 30 program. The show will air live at 12 p.m.

The show is produced with cooperation from Catamount Access Television (CAT-TV). Viewers can see Medical Matters Weekly on Facebook at facebook.com/svmedicalcenter and facebook.com/CATTVBenningtonThe show is also available to view or download a podcast on www.svhealthcare.org/medicalmatters and on Youtube.

Dr. Weinberg received his medical degree from the University of Vermont College of Medicine and completed his residency in Emergency Medicine at Albany Medical Center in New York. In addition, he completed a fellowship in Emergency Radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is board certified in Emergency Medicine. He has worked at Dartmouth-Hitchcock since 2017.

Dr. Weinberg has completed a Diploma in Mountain Medicine (DiMM) and is in the process of completing his Fellowship in the Academy of Wilderness Medicine (FAWM). He has worked as a Wilderness EMT instructor, and his fieldwork has taken him from the Peruvian Amazon, where he practiced tropical medicine, to the Everest region of Nepal, where he specialized in treating high-altitude illnesses in climbers and trekkers. Most recently, he worked as the ships physician on a traditional square-rigged sailing ship crossing the Indian Ocean from Indonesia to South Africa and as the physician for the National Park Service for several seasons on an upper mountain rescue patrol on Denali/Mt. McKinley in Alaska. In addition to his interests in adventure and travel medicine, he is also an avid mountaineer, ice climber, rock climber, backcountry skier, paddler, and offshore sailor.

After the program, the video will be available on area public access television stations. On CAT-TV, viewers will find the show on channel 1075 at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, 1:30 p.m. Monday, 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 7:30 a.m. Friday, and 7 p.m. Saturday. GNAT-TV's Comcast channel 1074 airs the program at 8 a.m. Monday, 9 p.m. Wednesday, and 1 p.m. Saturday.

Upcoming guests include:

  • 12 p.m. Wednesday, July 7: Jeffrey Parsonnet, MD, infectious disease physician at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health, will share his work as leader of the organization’s post-acute COVID syndrome (commonly referred to as “long haulers”) program.
  • 12 p.m. Wednesday, July 14: Becca Filson, FNP, of SVMC’s Hospital Medicine, and Lisa Downing-Forget, MD, of SVMC Internal Medicine, will discuss diversity and inclusion at SVMC and in the healthcare field.
  • 12 p.m.  Wednesday, July 21: Rosalind Case, PhD, of Monash University about the psychological aspects of healthcare choices
  • 12 p.m. Wednesday, July 28: Kelsey Dueland, of the Project Against Violent Encounters in Bennington.

To contribute questions in advance of each week’s show, please e-mail wellness@svhealthcare.org or post to Facebook with #SVHCMedicalMattersWeekly.
 
About SVHC Medical Matters Weekly:
Medical Matters Weekly is an interactive, multiplatform guest-driven talk show hosted by Dr. Trey Dobson. It provides a behind-the-scenes perspective on health care, including topics like behavioral health, food insecurity, equitable care, and the opioid crisis. The show is produced in partnership with Catamount Access Television (CAT-TV) and is broadcast on CAT-TV, Greater Northshire Access Television, Facebook Live, YouTube, and podcast platforms. 
 
About SVHC:
Southwestern Vermont Health Care (SVHC) is a comprehensive, preeminent, healthcare system providing exceptional, convenient, and affordable care to the communities of Bennington and Windham Counties of Vermont, eastern Rensselaer and Washington Counties of New York, and northern Berkshire County in Massachusetts. SVHC includes Southwestern Vermont Medical Center (SVMC), Southwestern Vermont Regional Cancer Center, the Centers for Living and Rehabilitation, and the SVHC Foundation. SVMC includes 25 primary and specialty care practices.
 
SVMC has earned several prominent distinctions. Most recently, SVMC received the American Hospital Association’s Rural Healthcare Leadership Award for transformational change in efforts toward healthcare reform and its fifth consecutive designation within the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s (ANCC) Magnet Recognition Program®. It ranked fourth in the nation for healthcare value by the Lown Institute Hospitals Index in 2020 and is one of Vermont’s Best Places to Work. SVMC earned an ‘A’ for hospital safety from the Leapfrog Group for two years in a row. During the pandemic, SVMC and both its skilled nursing facilities, the Centers for Living and Rehabilitation in Bennington, and the Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation at Hoosick Falls, earned perfect scores on a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services evaluation meant to determine the ability to prevent transmission of COVID-19 and other infections.
 
Southwestern Vermont Medical Center provides exceptional care without discriminating on the basis of an individual’s age, race, ethnicity, religion, culture, language, physical or mental disability, socioeconomic status, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression. Language assistance services, free of charge, are available at 1-800-367-9559.

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Emergency Department: Open, Ready, Safe. 

The last 3 months have been a uniquely challenging experience in the SVMC Emergency Department (ED) and emergency departments and hospitals all over the country and the world. I am very proud of all our staff has done and continues to do to ensure safe care for patients during this era of COVID-19. We are grateful that cases of COVID-19 in our area have been the lowest in the U.S. and have decreased even further over the past several weeks. We are also heartened to see that patients who had been avoiding the ED are now confident to return to get the care they need.

It may be surprising to hear that over the past few months, the sickest patients we have seen in the ER have not had COVID-19. Many people have refrained from seeking care for serious medical problems due to the fear of being exposed to the virus, assuming that the hospital was not a safe place to be and not recognizing the seriousness of their symptoms. The most challenging moments of the past several months have involved critically ill patients who tried to stay away for far too long due to fear of being exposed to COVID-19. We have had many sad moments trying to care for those who waited until it was too late for us to help with conditions that could have been easily treated if presented sooner.

One might expect that the greatest challenges related to the pandemic were those needed to adapt our facilities and procedures and the work of caring for sick COVID-19 patients. SVMC is fortunate to have built a strong foundation of safety and infection-prevention methods over many years, which made this transition much easier. Still, when it became apparent that we were going to see COVID-19 cases coming through our doors, we implemented many COVID-specific changes very quickly.

From day one our staff have all been fully trained to use protective equipment effectively, to focus on cleaning and disinfecting, and to move patients safely through the new areas created to keep them safe. We also spaced the waiting room chairs to allow for plenty of distance and initiated drive-by testing to keep potentially contagious people outside and away from other patients.

We immediately increased our standard of protective equipment we use. For example, all staff who relate with patients now wear both a mask and protective shield, which is a proven and effective strategy to prevent transmission. Those staff who work with patients with respiratory or other contagious symptoms also wear a gown and advanced respirators developed in cooperation with Mack Molding in Arlington. They look strange, but they help us deliver care safely.

We also quickly built special spaces and units in the hospital to treat and segregate patients with respiratory symptoms who might be contagious from those with other routine medical problems. Outpatients with symptoms that could be related to COVID-19 are directed to a spacious area called the Respiratory Evaluation Center. There they can be taken to a safe treatment space called a negative-pressure room without encountering any patients who are using the ED for other reasons or any staff who are not fully equipped with protective gear. There are similar, safe, negative-pressure units for those who require treatment in the ED or hospital.

Our hard work paid off. We have treated a number of COVID-19 patients in our ED and, as far as we know, not a single staff member was sickened in relation to their work here, and no patients have contracted COVID-19 while under our care. With our current procedures and drastically declining COVID numbers, we are confident that we can continue that trend. Furthermore, SVMC recently received a perfect score on a rigorous survey specifically designed to judge our ability to prevent transmission of COVID-19. At this time our ED is safer than just about any other public place you could go.

My goal in writing today is to communicate that SVMC’s Emergency Department is open, ready, and safe. If you need emergency care, we are here and we can care for you safely. Please do not defer emergency care until it is too late for us to help. While many symptoms can represent a serious medical problem, the most concerning are chest pain, difficulty breathing, fast heart rate, confusion, high fever, intense headache, drooping face, dehydration, or weakness. Of course, with any other symptom you feel indicates a serious problem, come in right away or call 9-1-1.

For us, spending time with patients and connecting on a personal level is the best part of our jobs. We take pride in our life-saving role in our communities and the work we have been able to do during the pandemic, but we cannot help if you do not come in. Please don’t hesitate to get the care you need when you need it.

Adam Cohen, MD, is a board-certified emergency medicine physician at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center. He also serves as the chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine and the medical director of SVMC’s Emergency Department.

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