Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States, but it does not have to be. The gastroenterologists at San Angelo Community Medical Center are determined to reduce the number of cancer-related deaths due to colon cancer through education, screening and early treatment.

In 2004, approximately 145,000 men and women were diagnosed with colorectal cancer and more than 53,000 of these died from the disease.

“This is so unfortunate because colon cancer is the most preventable and treatable cancer we are facing today,” says Edward Artnak, M.D., a gastroenterologist with Community Medical Associates.

Most colorectal cancers begin from precancerous polyps in the colon and rectum. Fortunately, screening tests can detect these abnormal growths and a physician can remove the precancerous polyps before they turn into cancer.

Screening tests are also beneficial because they can identify a cancerous polyp early when treatment is most effec­tive and the chance for a full recovery is high.

A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that approximately 41.8 million average-risk people age 50 or older have not been screened for colorectal cancer according to national guidelines.

“If everyone began screening tests at the age of 50, we could reduce the num­ber of colon cancer deaths drastically,” says Artnak. “We want the public to know just how important screening is in the prevention and treatment of colon cancer.”

Artnak, along with Robert Danbert, D.O., also a gastroenterologist with Community Medical Associates, are eager to educate the public about this disease and save as many lives as they can.

For more information on colon cancer and colon cancer screenings, call (325) 245-4000.

Helping senior citizens maintain healthy, active lifestyles is nothing new at San Angelo Community Medical Center. Now, with the addition of the Senior Circle Association, there are even more ways for the region’s older adults to get involved.

Senior Circle is a nonprofit organization with more than 70 chapters and 52,000 members nationwide. Any­one 50 years old or better is eligible to join, and member benefits include health talks; in-hospital bene­fits; local busi­ness bargains; discounts on prescriptions, vision care and personal emergency response systems; and more. The $15 annual membership also gets you into social events all year long, as well as exercise pro­grams, travel opportunities and a subscription to Inside Circle, the organization’s award-winning quarterly magazine.

Senior Circle is all about encouraging healthy and active lifestyles for seniors in all aspects of their lives, both at home and in the community. SACMC has had a senior-oriented program in place since 1992, and Senior Circle is just the latest evolution in the hospital’s ongoing out­reach to the older population, says Shonda Sparks, program coordinator.

“Every Senior Circle program is formatted to fit what the community needs, and ours is going to be very health and patient-care related,” Sparks says. “We will be offering new travel opportunities and social events, but keeping all the services we already had in place. Our services and programs are only going to get better.”

Preventative care is a hallmark of SACMC’s Senior Circle, with popular events such as a monthly blood-screening event, which offers anemia, glucose and lipid profile/full cholesterol screenings at a discounted rate.

“We have people who come in every month for those, because they really want to stay on top of those things,” Sparks says. “It makes them feel like they’re taking an active part in their own health care, which is what we’re all about.”

Sparks and her staff also work with Senior Circle members to untangle various Medicare benefits and programs, so that everyone can find the right fit.

“We want to make sure they’re covering all their medications at the cheapest price,” she says. “Most of our members are on limited incomes, so that’s a big issue. Our job is to make that process a lot easier, everything from explaining how Part D works to finding out if he or she is eligible for any assistance. Many people don’t know that they can qualify for assistance which can lower their co-pays, deductibles and premiums.”

From health talks to hands-on assistance, Senior Circle works to ensure the health and well-being of all its members, Sparks adds.

“We’ve been embedded in the community for years, so a lot of people come to us,” she says. “We strive to make sure that when they come in, we make them comfortable. We visit our folks when they’re in the hospital and deliver a meal ticket for that day, so their spouse or a family member can get something to eat on at no charge. Senior Circle is giving us a lot to offer, and we’re working to make sure that there’s even more value for the membership.”
Sign up today by calling (325) 942-5500.

San Angelo’s tiniest citizens are a big deal at San Angelo Community Medical Center.

The hospital provides Level III neonatal intensive care services and is the only health-care provider with a neona­tologist and neonatal nurse practitioner on staff 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Before this service was launched, most low-weight and high-risk infants had to be taken to hospitals in Forth Worth and San Antonio, making an already difficult time even more stressful for new parents and their families.

The six-bed Neonatal Intensive Care Unit cares for babies weighing 2 pounds, 2 ounces or more who are born after 28 weeks of gestation and have no surgical or cardiac complications. The hospital continues to invest in the latest technology for these at-risk infants.
“We cannot exactly replicate the womb,” says Evelyn Ashley, R.N., “but neonatal intensive caregivers such as those at SACMC strive to make our care as womb-like as possible. This commitment is central to everything we do in neonatal intensive care today and sets us apart from other facilities.”

Every baby is special at SACMC, and the hospital’s new Tiny Toes program reflects that. In keeping with the motto “We’ve got your pregnancy covered – from the first trimester until their first birthday,” Tiny Toes works with expectant mothers before, during and after delivery to ensure a safe and happy start for every newborn.

The free program has several benefits, including:
– An attractive certificate featuring the baby’s height, weight and time of birth
– A digital photo of your baby posted on SACMC’s Tiny Toes Web site [parental consent required]
– A personalized ceramic Belly Button with child’s name and birth date
– Infant care seats [available if you do not have one]
– Discounted health club membership for pregnant mother

Tiny Toes is the latest addition to SACMC’s childcare-education programs, which also include pre-childbirth workshops to prepare parents for the hospital experience. Classes on actual childbirth, breastfeeding, baby basics, safety and security, becoming a new dad and being a big brother or big sister are just some of the classes offered.

“It’s a natural extension of what we already do,” Ashley says. “Tiny Toes will have all of our new moms coming back for a year, so it’ll be good for everybody.

A lot of times people get busy after the baby is born, so we don’t get to do as much follow-up as we’d like. This will really help to bring everything together.”

Women usually are the primary health-care decision makers for their families, but often they put themselves last in line for care. Healthy Woman is looking to change that.

The free program offers monthly events to improve the emotional and physical well-being of women. Healthy Woman’s mission is simple: empower women with the knowledge to make informed health-care decisions for themselves and their loved ones.
And while it’s new at San Angelo Community Medical Center, the Healthy Woman program is benefiting from a lot of community support.

“More than 70 percent of the hospital’s employees are women, so they’re very eager to get involved in women’s health issues and work with women in the community. They are so excited to give women a resource, something they can come to and learn how to make positive health choices,” says Sherian Briley, marketing coordinator.

The program also benefits from having a 15-member advisory council that is composed of women from all walks of life, Briley says.

“We asked our advisory council for input early on,” she says. “Based on what we heard, we’re going all the way from educational programs to social activities. The panel wanted a mix, so that’s what we’re going to give them.”
The goal of Healthy Woman is to educate and inform in a relaxed setting, but some sobering statistics show just how much this information needs to get out.

Recent studies show that 80 percent of women are at risk for a heart attack, but only 29 percent realized it; they also didn’t know that heart disease is one of the top killers of women. More women than men have died of cardiovascular disease every year since 1984, according to the American Heart Association.

“A woman’s body is not simply a smaller version of a man’s,” Briley says. “We want the women of San Angelo to understand those differences and make informed decisions about their health care, as well as that of their families.”

Healthy Woman also will take advantage of SACMC’s physicians, having a wide variety of specialists come in to address the monthly gatherings and other events.

“They are a resource we plan to use, definitely,” Briley says, adding, “It won’t be all facts and figures. [We’ll cover] everything from education on weight loss to cooking; we’re even looking at doing a walk or a run. It’s all about being proactive and increasing everyone’s awareness of preventative health programs.”

Register today at www.sacmc.com.

When San Angelo Community Medical Center opened its new Wound Care Center and Hyperbaric Services, everyone involved knew that it would be successful. What nobody expected was a glowing review to the Better Business Bureau.

“One patient recommended us for ‘outstanding business of the year,’ ” says Joe Kasberg, M.D., the center’s medical director. “We’re just a small part of the hospital, but the response has been that overwhelming.”

The center opened in July 2004 and is the first of its kind in San Angelo. SACMC’s diabetes care services and its network of physicians who treat patients with slow-healing wounds work closely with the Wound Care Center. Diabetes and vascular disorders can slow down the healing process of wounds, which can quickly lead to a serious situation in which amputation may be the only option. Constant treatment and mon­itoring is critical, and patients receive that and more at the center.

“Our main focus is to try to find out if these patients have long-term, chronic wounds, and then find the underlying problem,” Kasberg says. “When you address that, they tend to get better.”

Those problems can range from autoimmune issues to medication that prevents proper healing. Once the cause is identified, then everything from the type of dressing used to the treatment of the wound itself can be addressed. That’s key to a plan of action, because the individual often has no idea of the wound’s severity. It’s also why the Wound Care Center is so closely allied with SACMC’s Diabetes Care Center.

“These patients often have poor circulation and little sensation in their feet, so they wound them often and then those wounds don’t heal,” Kasberg says. “We get a lot of referrals from the diabetes center, because they’re very diligent about looking for these wounds and seeing them when they pop up. The earlier you treat these wounds, the better chance of success you’ll have.”

In addition to its regular wound-care treatment regimens, the center features two hyperbaric chambers. Similar to those used for deep-sea divers who suffer from decompression sickness, the chamber is pressurized based on the patient’s needs and delivers 100 percent oxygen for up to 90 minutes. The heightened oxygen intake helps wounds heal more quickly, helps new blood vessels to form and boosts white blood cell counts.

“We don’t use the chambers on every patient; it really depends on their diagnosis,” Kasberg says. “We like to make sure we’re doing good, basic wound care before we go that route because we want to make sure the patient is a good candidate.”

Assessing the patient’s ability to process oxygen is one of many tests a new patient receives at the center, where the staff compiles a complete medical history and list of medications during the initial visit. Other assessment tools include an ankle-brachial index, where the blood pressure near the foot is compared to that in the arm, as well as a full range of photographs for comparison purposes. It’s that attention to detail from the very beginning that has made the center so popular with both patients and physicians.

“We are in the business of saving our patients’ limbs,” Kasberg says. “And we’re here seven days a week, which our patients really appreciate.”

Heart health and cardiac-care issues are at the forefront of most adults’ minds these days, and the cardiology program at San Angelo Community Medical Center stands as a ready resource for treatment, diagnostics and prevention education.

In 2007, San Angelo Community Medical Center invested $5.5 million in the newest technology and intervention treatments, and its state-of-the-art facility helps residents from throughout the region take care of existing problems and, more importantly, prevent them from occurring.

“We can provide diagnostic, stress testing and a whole realm of noninvasive tests,” says Michael Blanc, M.D., who practices cardiology at SACMC. “We also perform the whole spectrum of invasive diagnostic testing, catheterization
and angiography, which can look for arterial diseases in areas other than the heart.”

Much of Blanc’s work these days involves therapeutic catheterization, or the insertion of stents to allow arteries to strengthen and heal.

“We do a lot of things now that are not as invasive,” he says. “We’re able to go into people’s arteries with stents where before we’d have to do bypass surgery. And in the last four years, we’ve had the introduction of drug-coated stents, which actually heal the arteries more effectively. In recent weeks the second generation of those have come out, and they’re even more effective.”

So far SACMC has treated 100 patients with these biodegradable stents, which dissolve in the artery after about six months, and many more people will be given this option in the future. For those patients who need other procedures, however, the cardiac program has all the latest and best equipment for diagnostics and treatment.

“We have ultrasonography, echocardi­ography, a nuclear camera, the cath lab, and we’ll be adding more equipment and services during the next year,” Blanc says. “We’ve also added a new program for vascular screening, which looks for carotid narrowing, peripheral vascular disease and abdominal aortic aneurisms. Its focus is very much on the preventative.”

The cardiac department also is taking part in the national Door-to-Balloon Alliance, which is focused on getting a heart attack patient’s artery open within 90 minutes of the event.

All of this is key as the hospital works to not only treat patients with heart ailments, but also to educate the general public about cardiac care and prevention.

“With increased awareness about heart disease, people are better about coming in,” Blanc says. “Back in 1999, the CDC set a goal to reduce the risk of people dying from heart diseases by 25 percent over 10 years. That goal was met by 2007, so we’ve really had a dramatic impact. But because of the rise in obesity and diabetes, we’re still seeing a lot of people. We want to educate these high-risk individuals so they are better prepared to prevent a serious heart or vascular problem in the future.”

As part of a medical organization that implements patient and community pro­grams like Senior Circle and Healthy Woman, as well as a Diabetes Care Center and Wound Clinic, the cardiac program is able to tap into a network of patients and do some front-end educating, as well as patient follow-up, through its cardiac rehab program.

“We want our patients to get back to a better quality of life after we’ve fixed their heart,” Blanc says. “The surgery is the easy part. The hard part is making the lifestyle changes that will keep them from coming back, or ever coming in. Exercise, diet, it’s all engrained in our program and with the other programs we have here at the hospital.”