Arnold Sherman is one lucky dog. In 2002, he left a park near a small town in southeast Iowa with his poodle-terrier mix named Sandy and noticed the pup was panting heavily. He stopped at a grocery to buy his furry companion some water, and then he collapsed at the checkout counter. His heart was beating too fast to circulate blood and he lost consciousness. Luckily, the cashier was an off-duty…
Patient Care
Patient Care
For Keegan Wells, nursing is a family affair. “Both my mom and my grandma were nurses,” says Wells, RN, BSN, a telemetry nurse at University of Iowa Health Care’s downtown campus. “It was my grandma who always said she thought I’d be a good nurse.” While his grandmother died several years ago and his mother has retired, both had several nursing jobs in the Iowa City area during their careers,…
Candida auris, or C. auris, is a name you might not yet be familiar with but is an increasingly common topic in the news. So, what is it? To learn more, we talked to infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist Karen Brust, MD. C. auris, or Candida auris, is a type of yeast that can cause severe illness. It can easily spread among patients in health care facilities, but lately we've seen that…
If your shoulder hurts so much that you struggle to perform daily activities or even sleep at night, shoulder replacement might be your best option for relief. If you’re considering shoulder replacement, it’s important to consult a highly experienced surgeon, advises University of Iowa Health Care orthopedic surgeon Brendan Patterson, MD, MPH. “Patients should visit a surgeon with specialized…
A young boy’s family believes fate combined with expert health care saved his life, overcoming a rare cancer. Carter Schmidt had been healthy until he was 9 months old, when his mother, Tiffany, and his day care provider noticed he was pale, lethargic, and not eating. A blood draw taken at his local doctor’s office showed a high white blood cell count and low red blood cells. It also indicated a…
Atrial fibrillation (Afib) is an irregular heart rhythm (arrhythmia) that starts in the upper chambers of the heart. As many as 6 million Americans have Afib, which develops as an abnormal, rapid heartbeat when the upper chambers beat rapidly and out of sync with the lower chambers. This makes it harder for the heart to pump blood efficiently throughout the body. Patients with Afib often describe…
Many fans of professional or college sports know sport psychology professionals can assist athletes with the games’ mental aspects. But many don't know that this resource is available—and helpful—for the casual athlete, too. Michael Berrebi, PhD, LMHC, a counselor and sport and performance specialist with University of Iowa Sports Medicine, shares how people can improve their performance and…
Maria Story, MD, has launched two significant programs while working with Southeast Iowa Regional Medical Center: one bringing a home hemodialysis option to southeast Iowa for the first time, and one to help primary care physicians follow patients with chronic illness more effectively and efficiently from home.
For most patients who have knee replacement surgery, the procedure is remarkably successful. Overall, about 85% of people who have knee replacement surgery say they’re very satisfied with it. For others, responses can vary—from people who say the results were good but not quite as good as they’d hoped to fewer than 3% of patients who have a complication such as an infection or scar tissue. “I…
The UI Health Care team working to bring CPR and automated external defibrillator (AED) education to schools has several statistics that show why the training is needed. But even better than that, they have proof that the training has helped save a life. “One of the first schools we designated a Heart Safe school had to put their plan into place when a student collapsed during the school day,”…