NSMC News

By Robyn Marlow In addition to being National Hospital Week, it is also National Nursing Home Week. Mary Rose with the Walter B. Crook Nursing facility – which is part of the North Sunflower Medical Center family – was going a million miles an hour when we talked with her this week. “Every day when I walk in, I go straight to the dining room and talk with all the residents. I want to see how they are doing, talk with them about their families and catch up on how things are going,” Mary told us. “As soon as I’m done with that, I start going room to room, talking with every single resident that lives here.”

That seems like a lot of work, but Mary tells us she can’t wait to get to work in the morning. “I have a smile on my face as soon as I walk in the door.” Working in a nursing home can be a hard job with lots of responsibilities but clearly, Mary loves her job. Walter B Crook is a 60-bed facility with only private rooms, four atriums, in house therapy and great food. Mary told us about the residents that all feel like family to her. “When someone goes home for Christmas of Thanksgiving, we can tell when they come back they are smiling and happy to see us.” If you’ve been to our careers page, you might have noticed, the Family at Walter B. Crook is looking for people to add to the North Sunflower Family. They are looking for an RN Weekend Supervisor, a Licensed Practical Nurse, and a Certified Nurse’s Assistant. We asked Mary what it took to be part of the Walter B Crook family. She said, “If you don’t have a big heart, this is not the job for you.”

Employee Appreciation Day

Tomorrow is a big day around here. For Employee Appreciation day, we wrap up a fun week of celebration with FreeStyle Friday. Wear your ‘Dancing through the Decades’ T-shirt, and join us from 11:00 to 1:00.

You may have noticed, we named Tyler Slaughter RN as Clinical Hero of the Month here at North Sunflower Medical Center. In fact, the award surprised Tyler. “Working night shift, not a lot of people see what you do.” Another reason he was caught off guard was that his time at North Sunflower has been shorter than a lot of people, having just started in July as an extern. “There are a lot of very deserving people who have worked very hard here for several years. Just to get noticed for your hard work is a real accomplishment. It was awesome.” But it was after he was handed the award that a lot of people really started to notice. The folks at Facebook analytics tell us that our post announcing Tyler’s award reached over 25,000 people. The total population of Ruleville is just over 2,600 people. 128 friends and family shared it, with almost 2,000 likes and loves. That’s a lot of people from all over the country saying, “Take me to Ruleville.” Tyler was also surprised to learn he was the Kim Kardashian of Greater Ruleville. “I really don’t spend a lot of time on social media. I guess I have a lot of family and cousins cheering me on.” A mountain of likes, emojis and “Congratulations, T-Slaw” covered his post.

Tyler's Story

Tyler's aunt inspired him to get into health care after doctors diagnosed her with Leukemia when he was a child. “She passed when I was 12. I was always pretty good at science and thought about going to Med School.” But after playing football at Mississippi Delta Community College and then at Mississippi College, he decided that working as an RN was the right career path for him. “I’m from a small place called Mound Bayou, Mississippi. Growing up in a tight community like that, you just want to help bring health care to rural parts of the Delta.” Tyler wanted to give a shout out to the Certified Nursing Assistants who work at North Sunflower. “Our jobs would be 10 times harder without the CNA’s. We could not do our jobs without them.” And … it just so happens, North Sunflower is looking for more CNAs, LPNs, and RNs to join the North Sunflower family. If you are interested in seeing Tyler up close, instead of just following him on social media, go over to our North Sunflower Careers Page and see if there is a job that is right for you.

We love it when people say, “Take me to Ruleville.”  Well, this Spring, Angela Lang of North Sunflower Pharmacy decided to bring Ruleville to people in need. Angela has been volunteering with Baptist Medical Dental Missions Inc. for the past five years, helping bring medical care to people in Honduras.  BMDMI has been conducting missions to Guatemala and Honduras for decades. Angela works with a team led by Dr. Walter Rose and Rev. Jim Woods, who have been leading the same team to Honduras for 38 years. Mike Gilbow got Angela involved. “He went the year before I did.  We go to a different village every year.  Some years we both go and set up a pharmacy for people coming in for care. Sometimes I go by myself,” Angela told us.  “Every year, when I feel like I’m too busy to go, something tells me I need to go.  I don’t know who gets a bigger blessing -- me or the people we treat.” Angela told us the team sets up camp usually in a school where she sleeps on a floor with 10 other women. “If you get a quick shower from a garden hose, you’re lucky to have it.” Angela said the rough and tumble conditions don’t put a damper on things. “Everybody is happy.  No matter the conditions, no one complains or argues. This is one week out of the year, you are there for one common purpose.” The mission is part-aid and part-spiritual.  They bring with them doctors, nurses, dentists, cooks, and construction workers. “As a Christian organization, the mission is to bring people together.  Many of the people we see have never seen a doctor before. They need clothes, food, and treatment for all sorts of things. And we share with them that we are there as part of our faith.” This year, Angela brought along a new recruit, Emory Davis, an employee at NSMC and the daughter of North Sunflower Foundation’s Stacy Davis.  The thought of international travel to a developing part of the world almost scared Emory away before she left. “I nearly missed it, due to some anxiety hearing stories from others who have traveled to that part of the world.  I’m so happy I didn’t.” “The appreciation on the faces of people I distributed food to … many who looked as if they hadn’t eaten in days, touched my heart,” Emory told us.  Seeing and assisting children who received medical, dental and optometry care for the first time made me realize how blessed we are to have it so readily available here at home.” Angela agreed, “I think it’s wonderful for teenagers to go and experience. And Emory did a fabulous job. It was a blessing for her.” Angela told us her own daughter, Peyton Scott, has been part of mission trips in the past and loves it. “She went when she was in high school.  Now she’s in nursing school and she wants to go as soon as she gets out.  People are so appreciative for what you give to them.” Angela said she will continue to go on mission trips “as long as they continue to let me.”  Glad to know, if you can’t make it to Ruleville, there are people like Angela and Emory in the North Sunflower Medical Center Family who are willing to bring Ruleville to you.

By Robin Marlow High School Prom is right around the corner. First responders from all over Sunflower County – including a number of us from the North Sunflower Medical Center family – joined forces to help the Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol and the Mississippi Department of Rehabilitation Services get the word out about their safety initiative, PROM (Please Return on Monday). At an event with Ruleville High School and North Sunflower Academy students at North Sunflower Medical Center, members of the Highway Patrol, Ruleville Police Department, and the Ruleville Fire Department provided a dramatic reenactment of what happens when they all too frequently respond to a deadly crash involving drugs and alcohol. A video of the event can be found by clicking HERE.

An Inspirational Story

The event included an inspirational story by Dwight Owens. He survived being struck by a drunk driver when he was 23. Owens challenged students to know better understand their own self-worth. “I want you to understand how important you are. Know your value. Because when you understand that, peer pressure can’t get to you.” Owens was struck by a drunk driver on his way to school by a drunk driver clocked driving 120 miles per hour. At first, doctors thought Owens was dead. But he went on to become an inspirational speaker, and an advocate fighting against the use of drugs and alcohol. “I’m a victim of someone else’s negligence, Owens said. “I’m in this chair because someone else chooses to drive drunk. I want you to be better than that.”

PROM Initiative

In 2018, Mississippi led the nation in traffic deaths, with 175 DUI related deaths and almost 7,000 DUI arrests. PROM is part of a statewide partnership between the Mississippi Highway Patrol and the Mississippi Department of Rehabilitative Services. It urges students to make good choices, including buckling up, no texting while driving and not drinking and driving. “While Prom Night is one of the most significant nights for a high school student, it is significant for the parents as well,” said Colonel Chris Gillard, Director of the Mississippi Highway Patrol.  “The parents stay up all night after the photos, after their child leaves, to see that they return home in the same condition he or she left. Our goal is to help ensure that the child makes it back to the parent.”

By Robyn Marlow We all get busy. It's understandable that you probably haven't gotten your sweetie a special Valentine's Day gift yet. And here it is, the afternoon of Valentines Day.  No shame at all.  It's happened to all of us. This is just another way your North Sunflower Family is here to help you.  We have last minute Valentine's Day gifts for that one person who makes you happy all year long. The North Sunflower Medical Center Med Spa is offering special year-round Hydrafacial Memberships that will make you Valentine look and feel special every month of the year. And for $65 per month, it will save you as much as $720 off the regular price. It's a year of HydraFacials at big savings for you ... and that will make you BOTH feel romantic. AND ... the North Sunflower Med Spa is also offering Three Month Botox Memberships as well.  Call (662) 756-2100 to sign up or just get more information.

OR ... Call or Stop By Simply Sunflower

You can call Simply Sunflower to order beautiful flower, roses or find a Valentine for your Valentine.  Simply Sunflower is here to take care of all your floral and gift needs.

Call (662) 756-4438 to order something special for that special someone in your life.

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.

What was once a little fundraiser to help the Ruleville Chamber of Commerce has grown into the "Greatest Show on Earth." OR at least we think it's the Greatest show anywhere we've seen. Mark Stowers of the Bolivar Bullet did a write up on this year's Great Ruleville Roast 2018, "Under the Pig Top" and we were so happy with the way it turned out, we wanted to share it with you.

Under the Pig Top – Great Ruleville Roast 2018 Takes Place September 28 and 29

By Mark H. Stowers

Competition barbeque, music, classic cars and tractors as well as a pancake breakfast, 5k run/walk and fireworks will be part of the two-decade-old Great Ruleville Roast on Friday, September 28 and Saturday, September 29. This year’s event has been dubbed “Under the Pig Top – The Greatest Festival on Earth.” Brad Cooper, Ruleville Chamber of Commerce president, explained a bit about the festival. “Under the Pig Top – we’re doing a circus theme – the Greatest Festival on Earth,” Cooper said.

The event begins at 6:00 p.m. with the Memphis BBQ Network Sanctioned barbeque Competition – the 13th year – followed by a free concert by the Players, a sponsor’s dinner at The Pharm and fireworks at 9:45 p.m. by Shane Floyd.

Delta Barbecue Battle

Elise Jenkins heads up the barbeque contest and noted that it’s part of a larger competition as well. “This is one of the legs of the Delta Barbeque Battle,” Jenkins said. “There are four contests and you have to cook in three. One has already happened – the Q on the Yazoo in Greenwood. We’ll have between 45-50 teams.” The Delta State University Pig Pickin’ Weekend is the second leg, the Great Ruleville Roast is the third leg and Octoberfest is the final leg. “There is a Patio Division and a Championship Division. In conjunction with the BBQ event, we have an event sponsored by Smithfield – the Pork Loin Extravaganza with a $500 first place, $300 second and $200 for third.” There is also a Steak Cook-Off Association event sponsored by Two Brooks Farms Rice with a steak division and “one bite rice” competition. The Pork Loin is on Friday and Steak Off is on Saturday.

Pancake Breakfast

Saturday begins with the Ruleville-Drew Rotary Pancake Breakfast at the historic Depot at 6:30 a.m. The 5K walk/run registration begins at 7:30 a.m. followed by the run at 8:00 a.m. and the walk at 8:15 a.m. “The pancake breakfast is one of the oldest fundraisers in the Rotary 6800 District,” Cooper said. “We’ll have anywhere from 18 to 30 cars, trucks and tractors. We have everything from Model A’s all the way up to a Dodge Hellcat Challenger. We’ll have multiple vendors with food and crafts throughout the park.” There will also be kid entertainment and activities including train rides. The entertainment on Saturday will include local high school entertainment and much more.

How to Register

“The barbeque awards start around 5:00 p.m.,” Cooper said. “If anyone else wants to be a vendor they can contact Amanda Ware at (662) 458-8570. If they want to be in the car show, call me, Brad Cooper at (662) 417-5815. And as far as the cooking, they need to call Elise Jenkins at (662) 719-1675 or (662) 756-2011.” Ware noted “there have been about 50 vendors in the past few years” for the event. “I usually give them up until the day of to be in the festival,” Ware said. “There is an application on our Facebook page, The Great Ruleville Roast. Anyone interested in the 5K walk/run can sign up online at, www.racesonline.com and look for The Great Ruleville Roast. For more information, check out the Great Ruleville Roast and Run Facebook page.