Chapala Med´s June 2022 Health Newsletter
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Greetings friends, patient and members of the Chapala Lakeside community. There continue to be a good number of changes in the healthcare community and particularly in Chapala Med. The vision and mission of Chapala Med since it’s inception has been to provide the most caring, comprehensive, professional care to our patients based on excellence while giving back to the less fortunate in the community through donations in time and money to local charities and individuals. It is with this spirit in mind that I am honored to announce that I will be president of the Rotary Club of Ajijic for another year, effective July 2022. There will be some small changes in my schedule and I will have excellent support from our new geriatrician. Which brings me to the next points.
Chapala Med will be celebrating its 10 year anniversary this November and our team continues to grow not only in the number of specialists but also in the number of services we are able to offer our patients and the community. As medical services coordinator we will have a physician who has completed his specialty training in internal medicine and geriatrics, Dr. Marco Gonzalez.
During the month of June we observe Alzheimer´s & Brain Health Month. As we are theoretically at the latter stages of this COVID19 pandemic one of the lasting effects for many those who were infected with this virus are lasting neurological side effects and moderate to severe cognitive decline. I am sharing some articles which address these health issues.
There is a new virus that has made the news lately and there was one confirmed case in Puerto Vallarta reported this past week and it was an unnamed tourist who was said to be from Dallas and was partying at a popular hotel on the Playa de Los Muertos. There is only a great deal of speculation as to how many he people could have been infected. That will remain to be seen but I have included some WHO recommendations in this newsletter on how to protect yourself.
I enjoy sharing what sources of knowledge and entertainment that I hope you too may find interesting and enriching your lives. This past month I read one book that really hit close to home as it was written by a doctor who not only grew up in the South Side of Chicago but also worked in an ER there during this pandemic. The disparities in medical attention and profiling that goes on in modern medicine can no longer be ignored. The book THE EMERGENCY made me reflect upon my own practice and the access to top level healthcare here at Lakeside and the many similarities that exist for the underprivileged when it comes to gaining access to the TOP MEDICAL here. Chapala Med provides free medical care to the underprivileged but it is only a drop in the bucket of the vast needs here at Lakeside for this sector of the local population. The second recommendation I am making is from the ON BEING (NPR) Sunday morning program/podcast that I listen to religiously. The episode I am recommending is from a a Professor of Family Medicine at the Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright State University in Ohio. She’s also a Clinical Professor Emeritus of Family and Community Medicine at UC San Francisco School of Medicine, that’s where she developed “The Healer’s Art,” her course for medical students. I hope you will find it worth your while to listen to this wonderful doctor and teacher of life.
We’d like to thank all who have supported Chapala Med in the past, present and future. Please remember that we are a small business and rely on your recommendations to continue to grow and provide service to the community.
Please take care of yourselves and those close to you..
Santiago R. Hernandez M.D.
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How to protect yourself from monkeypox
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The World Health Organization recommends taking measures to reduce exposure to the monkeypox virus, which is transmitted between people through close contact with secretions from the respiratory tract or skin lesions, as well as recently contaminated objects.
Recommendations from health experts include washing your hands frequently, avoiding contact with infected people and wearing a face mask, among other measures.
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Moderate to severe sleep disturbances and severe fatigue affect up to 40% of patients with long COVID, or post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC). Such disturbances are especially common among Black people, new research shows
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Unstable Sleep Patterns Linked With Worsening Cognition
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People with greater fluctuations in their sleep duration were at greater risk of cognitive decline as they aged, a study found.
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Recently, a drug used to treat type 2 diabetes, called liraglutide, has shown promise for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. In laboratory studies it improves symptoms of Alzheimer’s and reduces the amount of amyloid plaques in the brain, a hallmark of the disease.Jun 15, 2021
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Sleep Neurologists Call It ‘COVID-Somnia
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Sleep neurologists are reporting increased sleep disturbances and the misuse of sleep medications in people recovering from COVID-19 and people whose lives have been beset by fear and social isolation.
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The Emergency –
A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER
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“This book reminds us how permanently interesting our bodies are, especially when they go wrong. Fisher’s account of his days is gripping. . . . His frustration, his outraged intelligence, is palpable on every page. . . . the best account I’ve read about working in a busy hospital during Covid.” —The New York Times
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Rachel Naomi Remen
How We Live With Loss
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The conversation of this hour always rises as an early experience that imprinted everything that came after at On Being. Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen is one of the wise people in our world. She trained as a doctor in a generation that understood death as a failure of medicine. Yet her lifelong struggle with Crohn’s Disease and her pioneering work with cancer patients shaped her view of life. Becoming whole, she teaches, is not about eradicating our wounds and weaknesses; rather, the way we deal with losses, large and small, shapes our capacity to be present to all of our experiences. That arresting notion, and the distinction Rachel Naomi Remen draws between curing and healing, makes this an urgent offering to our world — of healing we are all called to receive and to give.
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Welcome our new Geriatrician
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Join me in welcoming Dr. Marco Gonzalez our new Medical Services Coordinator and Geriatrician. Dr. Gonzalez is a native of Jalisco and recently completed his training in Geriatrics. He placed SECOND in the National Board Examination. (Feb. 2022). I can say that it is privilege to have such a gifted young doctor on our team of doctors.
I trust that our patients will appreciate his calm, soft-spoken demeanor and his firm grasp of his broad base of medical knowledge and the english language along with his warm bedside manner. He sees patients in Ajijic on Tuesdays and at our Guadalajara offices the rest of the week.
He will be replacing Dr. David Contreras as our Medical Services Coordinator. Although Dr. Contreras remains part of our team, he will be focusing on his post-graduate training for the next couple of years.
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“We pledge to preserve our humility, integrity, and all the values which brought us to the practice of medicine. We will engage in honest self-reflection, striving for excellence but acknowledging our limitations, and caring for ourselves as we care for others. We will seek to heal the whole person, rather than merely treat disease, committing to a partnership with our patients that empowers them and demonstrates empathy and respect. We will cure sometimes, treat often, and comfort always.”
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