Author Archives: Robyn Marlow

By Robyn Marlow

Heart Health

There is a lot to love about the shortest month of the year.

Every year, we celebrate February — National Heart Month – by offering $125 heart screenings. Mississippi has the highest mortality rate due to heart disease in the country. We wanted to do our part by making heart screenings affordable and easy to get.

This full Heart Healthy Screening includes a CT scan of your heart to get a complete calcium scoring. It also includes ultrasounds of your carotid arteries in your neck and of your abdominal aorta that goes through the back of your heart, through your abdomen and down your legs. Lastly, our test includes a complete ABI (ankle-brachial index) to check your blood pressure throughout your extremities.

Introducing Dr. Mike Mattingly

What’s more, this month we have opened our hearts to our new Pediatric and Fetal Cardiologist, Dr. Mike Mattingly. He comes to North Sunflower Medical Center through our partnership with the Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine where Mike continues to serve as the Medical Director of Pediatric Cardiology.

Dr. Mattingly joins Dr. Gene Hutcheson, who has been our cardiologist in residence for several years. Many will remember Dr. Hutcheson for a story CNN’s State magazine did featuring the amazing care he provides to our North Sunflower Medical Center patients.

Dr. Mattingly graduated cum laude from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and received his Medical Degree (M.D.) from the University of Miami. He completed his Pediatric internship at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego before serving two years with the Marines in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina and deploying in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Dr. Mattingly is a two-time recipient of the Uniformed Services University Resident Teacher of the Year in Pediatrics and directed the medical student Pediatric Core Clerkship at the hospital. We are all excited to have him serve children in Mississippi and help expand access to underserved areas for pediatric cardiology patients.

Offering comprehensive heart health with amazing cardiologists like Dr. Mattingly, and Dr. Hutcheson – and $125 comprehensive heart screenings – is our love letter the Mississippi Delta.

By Robyn Marlow

Looking back, 2018 was another big year for North Sunflower Medical Center. As things have grown around Ruleville, our little North Sunflower family continues to blossom – ready to meet the needs of this vibrant community.

New Faces

In addition to our NSMC Med Spa growing to include a bunch of new services, we were excited to bring on a raft of exceptional health care professionals:

• Dr. Ray Rodriguez, MD, JD, MPH, MBA – Director of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology
• Megan Flint, FNP-C — Sunflower Rural Health Clinic
• Jess Hodnett, MSN, FNP-BC, APRN — Sunflower Rural Health Clinic
• Dr. Degail Hadley, DO — Sunflower Rural Health Clinic
• And Dr. Nicholas Jew, Hand Specialist, joined our team through our partnership with MS Sports Medicine
• As well as dozens of other valuable members of our hospital and professional services teams.

Awards & Honors

Our exciting growth is getting noticed. In 2018, the Delta Business Journal’s Best of the Best named the NSMC Pharmacy the Best Pharmacy.  The Sunflower Eye Station was named Best Eye Care Professionals.  And the Sunflower Rural Clinic was named Best Rural Clinic. Federal Communications Commissioner Brenden Carr visited North Sunflower to discuss the future of telemedicine in rural areas. And physical therapist Carmen Cooper-Oguz was named the UMMC Alumni of the year.

For those of us inside the North Sunflower family, we wished Judy Simmons, Brenda Smith, and Henry Lewellyn off to a very happy retirement. We were proud of Alice Pyles, our NSMC Leader of the Year; Bret Willingham, our First Class Service STAR of the Year; and Kimberly Eastland, honoree of the first-ever Billy Marlow Award of Excellence.

Lip Sync Challenge

Our Ruleville PD LipSync Challenge video reached over 275,000 people!!! Watch it again below.

Looking Ahead

We have big ideas brewing for 2019.  We have plans to expand several critical service areas and look forward to continuous improvement in our patient satisfaction surveys.  Ruleville is more than just a service area for us.  It’s our home.  And we are immensely proud that the people of this amazing community continue to make us their health care provider of choice for another year.

Holiday Health: How to Make it Thru the Next 27 Days Without Losing Your Cool

By Stephanie Edwards

For a lot of us, the Holidays are synonymous with big movie sequels. There’s Home Alone 2, The Santa Clause 3 and FIVE different Die Hard Sequels. So this year North Sunflower Medical Center is bringing you Blue Christmas II: How To Survive The Holidays.

The time between Thanksgiving and New Years is a time of joyous celebration and time spent with family. But as we said 2016, the holidays can also be a time of great stress and anxiety. Here are a few tips on how to keep up your holiday health thru the next 27 days without losing your cool.

“Everything in Moderation. Including Moderation.”

It’s expected that we are all going to pick up a couple of unwanted extra pounds over the holidays. There’s a seemingly endless supply of fattening treats around the office and at home. A slip in the diet is to be expected. But try to limit your indulgences to a few bites of your favorite treats. That way you can enjoy all your savory holiday snacks and still keep your diet under control. By keeping yourself active – and moderating your indulgences – you can easily shed that couple of extra pounds you gained over the holidays in January.

Don’t Give Yourself a Guilt-Trip for the Holidays

Have a realistic idea of what you want your holidays to be. The memories you take away for the Holidays should be the time you spend with your loved ones – not spending time and money finding the perfect gift for children and grandchildren in your life. And if you are dreaming of a White Christmas here in Ruleville (unless there is a freak snowstorm) you probably need to adjust your expectations.

Don’t Over Schedule

Time spent in the car driving from shopping – to another holiday party – to a distant relative’s house is a time that cannot be spent connecting with your family and friends. Pick and choose the holiday events you want to take part in, and don’t schedule a time for yourself.

Get Plenty of Sleep

Getting less sleep over the holidays can lead to increased stress, weight gain, and depression over the Holidays. This can be a difficult time to get the sleep necessary to stay healthy. If you have guests in from out of town, you might stay up later than usual entertaining or get up early to get a jump on your Holiday tasks. That makes it hard to get the seven hours of sleep needed to maintain proper circulation, fight off disease or just to rejuvenate the body and mind.

The Holidays – when drinking alcohol and overeating is more common – can be a time when sleep apnea can become a real issue for many of us. We recommend trying to keep a regular sleep schedule, turning off electronics, reading before bed or writing down anything on your mind that may keep you from relaxing before bed. If you do think you are suffering from Sleep Apnea, call the NSMC Sleep Center. For a lot of patients, December is a good time to get checked. Especially those who have already paid their insurance deductible throughout the year. You can reach any of the outstanding professionals at the Sleep Center of NSMC by calling (662) 756-1742.

We hope you find these holiday health tips useful. Have a Merry Christmas and a very Happy Holiday season from everyone at North Sunflower Medical Center.

September 11^th brings a rush of emotions to every American who can remember exactly where they were on that fateful morning. Like everyone else, our first thoughts about this solemn day are for those who lost their life.  Because of our love for this community, our second thought is to celebrate our first responders.

Shane Floyd is systems and network administrator here at North Sunflower Medical Center.  AND, he is also the assistant fire chief for the LSR Volunteer Fire Department located here in Sunflower County.   As a certified volunteer firefighter, he is also a medical first responder/EMT and a member of the Sunflower County search and rescue group.

Family of First Responders

Shane’s wife, Michelle Floyd, also works at North Sunflower Medical Center in outpatient services. After going on so many emergency calls with Shane, Michelle decided to become a certified first responder just over 5 years ago.

“When the tones go, if we have coverage at the hospital, we both go,” Shane told us.  “You don’t see a lot of women who climb out of the rig on an emergency call, but she is 5’3”.  With her size, she can climb into a wreck to stabilize the patient.”

Shane has been working in volunteer fire departments for over 20 years — since not long after he got out of high school. When he wanted to move back to Ruleville, he got to talking with our CEO, Sam Miller. “Sam is a former firefighter and paramedic, so he is incredibly supportive of what we do.”

With just over 30 first responders covering the 72 mile stretch of Sunflower County, Shane says it can feel like 10 jobs. But only one job pays their bills – their jobs at North Sunflower. We are deeply grateful to have Michelle and Shane working so hard to keep our community safe.  And we are prouder still they have chosen to be part of the NSMC family.

Ruleville PD LipSync Challenge Video

This is a bit on the lighter side, but have you seen our First Responder Lip Sync video?  We love it!

The video has been viewed over 120,000 times on Facebook and another 2,300 on Youtube.  Not bad for a town with 3,200 residents. We are so proud of our police, firefighters, paramedics and all of our first responders who keep Ruleville safe.

by Robyn Marlow

If you hadn’t noticed, the North Sunflower Pharmacy dispenses a lot more than life-saving medicine. They also make a point of dispensing a lot of life-saving information as well.

One of the things Pharmacy Director Mike Gilbow brought with him when he joined the North Sunflower family seven years ago was a strong interest in connecting with the community. He believes that’s one of the important ways North Sunflower can help provide better care to its patients.

“On average, a person sees a doctor between two and three times a year,” Mike told us. “Over that same year, most patients will see a pharmacist an average of 35 times per year. By working directly with their doctors, that gives us an opportunity to help serve them better. That’s just Patient Outreach 101.”

When Mike owned a pharmacy in Drew, and later a co-owner of a pharmacy in Belzoni, he knew he wanted to be part of the Good Neighbor Pharmacy network. They are a network of 3,500 independent pharmacies nationwide, who run monthly patient outreach campaigns providing important information about everything from Alzheimer’s to Colorectal cancer screenings.

Free ChildPrint ID Kits

It was important to Mike that North Sunflower continue to work with the Good Neighbor Pharmacy team to continue better serving our patients. This month, we are working with them to provide Child ID Kits as part of August’s Child Safety Month.

“This is our most popular campaign of the year,” Mike told us. “I took one kit for every grandchild when our family went on vacation last week. It just gave me such peace of mind knowing I had those with me, should anything happen”.

Nationally, Good Neighbor Pharmacies gave out 87,000 Child ID kits. We understand that the way this year’s campaign is going, they will give out even more this year. We even had to order more kits after we gave away so many.

by Robyn Marlow

You know that big boulder that rolls out of the cave chasing Indiana Jones into the jungle? This Thursday’s blood drive is a lot like that.

Of course, we would never compare something as life-and-death serious as giving blood with a 1980’s adventure movie – even though it is a pretty good movie. Stay with me for a second.

This Thursday, Mississippi Blood Services is holding a blood drive here at North Sunflower Medical Center from Noon to 6:00 p.m. Mississippi Blood Services provides lifesaving blood to over 60 hospitals across Mississippi – including North Sunflower. Just to keep up with the demand for blood they provide to cancer patients, car accident victims and hundreds of other medical procedures, they need to collect between 250 and 300 pints (or units, as they call them) every day just to keep up with demand.

That’s a big boulder to stay in front of.

And currently, Mississippi Blood Services is facing a critical blood shortage. We spoke with Emily Austin at Mississippi Blood Services. She told us that a good amount of the blood they receive is given at high schools throughout the state. “In the summer, when the students and teachers are away, many of their donors are off enjoying their summers. But the need for blood never takes a vacation. Every 2 seconds, someone in Mississippi needs a pint of blood.”

Like I said, it’s a big boulder.

This past spring, we did a video about Dana Whitfield Kirk. She had their life saved after a car accident, thanks to the blood given at a blood drive just like the one we are having on Thursday from noon to 6:00.

Click HERE to learn more about Dana’s incredible story.

Please consider taking an hour out of your day to help save a life.

What: Mississippi Blood Services Blood Drive
Where: North Sunflower Medical Center
When: Thursday, July 26, Noon to 6:00 p.m.

This week is one of our favorite events of the year. Birdies and Backhands started several years ago as a way for all of us to get together as a community and do something active together. We hoped it might raise a little bit of money for the North Sunflower Foundation, but mostly, we were just looking for a way to do something healthy together.

The deadline for four-player golf scramble and tennis tournament sign-up is today, May 29 at 5:00 pm. Registration for the ladies’ mixer and tennis tournament is Thursday, May 31, at 3:00. Warmups are at 3:30 and the first round starts at 4:00. The shotgun start for the golf scramble tees off at 1:00. Both events take place at the Cleveland Golf and Country Club.

Over the years, Birdies and Backhands has turned into a full-day festival. It raises over $10,000 to help pay for new medical equipment, training, and general hospital improvements. What makes us most proud is that – as the event has gotten bigger over the years – Birdies and Backhands is still a great time we spend together as the North Sunflower Medical Center Family.

The signup forms can be found on the North Sunflower Medical Foundation’s Facebook page or by clicking here. OR you can register by calling (662) 719-4147 for golf or (662) 719-6140 for tennis.

If you haven’t had a chance to meet out traveling massage therapist, Rosie Smith, you’re missing out.

Last year, as we were looking to expand the services of our Diagnostic Clinic, we wanted to bring in a massage therapist to help our patients recovering from surgery or injury.  We have found that all different types of patients from all kinds of backgrounds — young and old — seem to benefit from massage therapy.

“Everyone who comes to see me shows up in a good mood,” Rosie like to tell people.  “We create a tranquil setting for people to come and feel better.”

We know how important it is to have women get regular health screenings.  We knew that women need to get more regular cancer screenings.  One way to get them in the door was to offer more services that made a visit to our diagnostic clinic enjoyable.

In the meantime, our physical therapists found that their massage therapy patients were more comfortable, relaxed and able to get healthy faster. Many of them now refer patients directly to Rosie as part of their treatment.

“I love my job. I love the patients and they love me. I always wanted a job where I was helping heal people,” Rosie told us. “I’m from Midnight, Miss. And I work with patients from Belzoni to Cleveland. Most of the men in my family were truck drivers, so being on the road works out great for me. I’m in Ruleville at Sunflower Med Spa every Friday from 10:00 to 3:00. Come by and see me.”

Sunflower Med Spa includes facials, makeup consultations/applications, waxing, Botox, injectables/fillers and massage therapy. To make an appointment with Rosie or anyone at Sunflower Med Spa, please call (662) 756-4000.

Aster Awards

North Sunflower is the winner of five (5!) Aster Awards for healthcare marketing. In addition to being recognized for Photo/Illustration, TV/Video Advertising, Billboard Design, and Flyers, the October edition of our North Sunflower News Blog (this blog, the one you’re reading right now) won the Gold Prize in the blogging category.

That issue highlighted CNN’s State Magazine story of North Sunflower Medical Center’s success in ‘Beating the Odds’ of the health care crisis in rural America.

Carmen Cooper-Oguz: UMMC Alumnus of the Year

You’ve probably heard us say this a lot- the people in our North Sunflower family are amazing. They truly care about our Ruleville community and work every day to provide the best care possible.

Carmen Cooper-Oguz is a remarkable example of that commitment. She serves as our Vice President of Service Line Development and Director of Rehabilitation here at North Sunflower Medical Center. Since joining us in 2004, Carmen has always been a bright spot for so many patients who come to NSMC for physical therapy. They have come to see her as not just a service provider but a caring friend and trusted listener.

Last week, the University of Mississippi School of Health Related Professions named Carmen “Alumnus of the Year”. “Thousands of graduates have walked across the UMMC stage. And, they have gone on to do incredible things in healthcare. But, the Alumni Board of my peers selected me for this award, and I am profoundly honored,” Carmen said.

A Tireless Advocate

In addition to her day job running our patient rehabilitation center, Carmen has been a tireless advocate for rural health care policies in Jackson and Washington thru her work with the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) and the Mississippi Physical Therapy Association (MPTA), lobbying decision-makers to prioritize and protect rural healthcare providers.

“Advocacy for access to healthcare services, particularly for those in rural areas, is my passion. I love what I do. It is an honor to be recognized so prominently by my alma mater for this work”.

This is not the first time Carmen has had her talents recognized far beyond Ruleville. She also was named the 2018 Lucy Blair Service Award from the APTA, 2017 Outstanding Physical Therapy Award from the MPTA, and the 2016 Lynn Phillippi Advocacy for Older Adults Award from the Geriatrics Section of the APTA, among others.

Carmen is just one of many stars we are lucky to have as part of our tight-knit North Sunflower family. We are grateful for the work she does every day to make your patients feel welcomed and valued. We are proud of everyone who has made the choice to be part of our amazing team who make our patients feel like family. Carmen is just one of over 500 NSMC team members who make people throughout the Delta say, “Take me to Ruleville.”