Vidant is excited to learn that Dr. Michael Waldrum, CEO of Vidant Health, has been appointed the Dean of the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, effective July 1. Dr. Waldrum is humbled by the appointment and grateful to Chancellor Rogers for the opportunity to lead this historic transformation of health care for the benefit of our residents, team members, providers and communities we serve.
This is a significant moment in the history of Vidant and Brody, which could not have been possible without the extraordinary foundation built by Vidant and ECU’s visionary predecessors. The Brody School of Medicine and Vidant have a shared desire to enhance, grow and sustain access to high-quality health care to rural communities across eastern North Carolina today, tomorrow and for generations in the future – and this closer alignment reaffirms a joint commitment to build a premier academic health care enterprise for eastern North Carolina.
This strategic partnership is an important step toward the collective goal of clinically integrating Vidant and the Brody School of Medicine. Working together through a thoughtful and deliberate process, both organizations will work toward creating a new, distinct academic health care brand that will work in collaboration to adapt and succeed in a rapidly changing health care landscape. The mutual goal is to transform together, build on combined strengths, and become pioneers in creating a regional population health care, research and educational enterprise.
To learn more, please visit ECU.edu.
“I just had a cough, and when I started running a fever, I knew something was off,” said Tracy Glover, referring to how he felt in March of 2020.
Glover’s illness coincided with the early days of a new virus affecting people around the world.
“From the time I was diagnosed with COVID, to the time that I was intubated, became a blur,” said Glover.
In all, Glover spent 18 days at ECU Health Medical Center – and nearly five of those on a ventilator.
“The concern when I first met him, I’m thinking, ‘Ok we’ve got a young, early 50’s gentleman who fits the profile of the person that should not survive,’” said Charlsie Woodard, a nurse practitioner and hospitalist at the East Carolina Heart Institute at ECU Health Medical Center.
Woodard was one member of a large care team at Vidant involved in Tracy’s care, with her enthusiasm leaving a lasting impression.
“To have her come in and encourage me, push me and to give me goals, really meant a lot,” said Glover.
And so on the year anniversary of Glover’s discharge, he celebrated the occasion by making good on a promise to give Woodard a hug, in gratitude for the care he received.
“I’m glad to be here,” said Glover. “Because without the support and prayers of my family, and the great care of the staff here at Vidant, I would not have recovered as well as I did.”
“I feel like I was the calvary,” said Woodard. “So many people had taken such good care of him before I met him, and I just got to wean his oxygen and be a cheerleader and help him get home.”
A shared experience bringing forth recovery and reflection.
“He’s a COVID win, and that’s what we would call him,” said Woodard. “It’s a COVID win.”
“It really does change your perspective on life itself,” said Glover. “How every breath is not a guarantee, it’s just another opportunity.”
Vidant Health is aware scammers are calling community members in an attempt to solicit Medicare or financial information. This is a common practice used by scammers nationally and is not the result of a data breach. If a community member receives a suspicious call from a Vidant number, or from someone who says they are from Medicare, they should hang up. Individuals should communicate directly with their provider regarding their medical equipment and service needs. Vidant encourages community members to be careful when giving financial, medical or personal information over the phone.
There are differences in the forms of skin cancer and some, like basal and squamous cell skin cancers, are most common. They start in the top layer of skin and are often related to sun exposure. These cancers grow in the epidermis, the top layer of skin, and are usually removed completely to avoid spreading to other areas. Skin cancers like melanoma, while less common, are more likely to spread if left untreated.
Because exposure to UV rays is one of the most common risk factors for skin cancer, the most important way to lower your risk of skin cancers is to limit your exposure to these rays. Look for ways to reduce sun exposure by using and diligently reapplying sunscreen (with an SPF of at least 30). Also, avoid tanning lamps which give off UV rays and damage the skin.
Knowing your own skin is important to finding skin cancer early. Any spots on the skin that are new or changing in size, shape or color should be checked by a doctor. Any unusual sore, lump, blemish, marking or change in the way an area of the skin looks or feels may be a sign of skin cancer or a warning that it might occur.
“Remembering the A,B,C,D,E rule for skin cancer, particularly melanoma, is an important step in a skin self-exam,” said Dr. Nasreen Vohra, surgical oncologist and associate professor of surgery at ECU and Vidant Health. “For ‘A,’ look for asymmetrical shapes to skin lesions. For ‘B,’ check the borders of these lesions, irregular borders are more concerning. ‘C’ is for color, take notice if the lesion is unevenly pigmented or if there are changes in color. ‘D’ is for the diameter of the lesion and if it is greater than 6 millimeters, or the size of a pencil eraser, this could be concerning. Finally, ‘E’ is for evolving, so pay attention if the lesion is changing in any noticeable way.”
Some doctors and other health care professionals do skin exams as part of routine health check-ups. If the doctor thinks a suspicious area might be skin cancer, the area will be removed and sent to a lab to be examined.
There are different types of skin biopsies. The doctor will choose one based on the suspected type of skin cancer, where it is on your body, its size and other factors. Spread of the cancer deeply below the skin or to other parts of the body is uncommon for squamous cell cancers and rare for basal cell cancers, so most people with one of these skin cancers do not need imaging tests. However, imaging tests such as MRI and CT scans may be done if your doctor thinks you might be at risk for the cancer spreading outside the skin.
Fortunately, most of these cancers and pre-cancers can be cured with fairly minor surgery or other types of local treatments. It is important to discuss all of your treatment options, including their goals and possible side effects, with your doctors to help make the decision that best fits your needs.
“One of the most important factors to remember is skin damage is cumulative and the negative effects on your skin during your early years makes an impact on your skin health as you age,” Dr. Vohra said.
Given this, you should be mindful of ways to reduce your exposure to harmful UV rays, such as avoiding direct exposure when they are the most intense, between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Also, wear protective clothing such as hats and sunglasses with prolonged sun exposure. These are important, proactive steps for avoiding skin damage and maintaining skin health.
For more information about the risks and prevention of skin cancer, or if you do not have a primary care provider, please contact the Prevention Clinic at ECU Health Cancer Care at (252) 816-RISK (7475).
Barbara Woodland, Terry King and Richard Lucht earned the Governor’s Award for 2020. They each volunteer at VMC in a number of capacities and have adapted to changes in volunteering throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Former Vidant team member, current volunteer
For Barbra Woodland, that meant a move to the department from which she retired.
“I feel especially privileged that my former supervisor here at the hospital had her secretary call me and ask if I would come and help with screening at the rehab center,” Woodland said. “When I can help, I’ve always been a team player so that works for me.”
Woodland began working for Vidant Health in December of 2005 and retired 10 years later as the Rehabilitation Residency program coordinator. She said she isn’t the kind of person who could sit at home after retiring, so she needed to get involved in something.
She’d had experience volunteering before and decided to get involved at VMC.
“Many people think you just volunteer when you retire,” Woodland said, “but I used to live around the corner from a neighborhood church in the inner city so I have a lot of good experiences, I would say. Experiences about meeting different people and treating people with respect and courtesy. Just because they’re in need of something, not feeling that great or have medical problems, we need to help them.”
Woodland said the recognition for her means that someone appreciates what she is doing for her community.
Retired minister and stroke survivor gives back
Terry King is familiar with this recognition as he received the award in 2014 as well. King, who was a minister in his working years, suffered a stroke in 2009 and stopped working full-time. With encouragement from his wife, a nurse at VMC, and his father, King decided to step into volunteering as a new way of continuing to serve others.
“I came in here as green as grass and said, ‘here I am, I want to serve’ and I have never looked back,” King said.
King said his interactions with patients, families and Vidant team members keep him coming back. He recalled times helping family members of patients who don’t speak English and helping patients navigate the hospital. He said the smiles on the faces of those he can help are better than any payment he could receive for the work.
He believes his time as a minister has prepared him for this chapter of his life and helps him in his interactions with patients and families.
“It’s helped me because I understand the human experience. You just take people from where they are, and you don’t try to change them – just try to work with them and help them see the benefit of changes,” King said. “I’ve worked with people who are very upset and frustrated and being able to diffuse that situation just by listening and talking normally and paying attention and being caring, that’s life.”
King also said that he enjoys feeling like a part of the Vidant team as a volunteer and the teams at VMC have made him feel welcomed and appreciated.
New accolades for former Volunteer of the Year
Richard Lucht was named Volunteer of the Year two years ago and received the state recognition for the first time this past year.
After retiring from East Carolina University, where he taught piano in the School of Music, he mentioned a desire to get involved in volunteering to a friend who suggested VMC. Six years later, he said he knows how important volunteering has been for him.
“I keep reinventing myself and I think one has to do that to find meaning in their life,” Lucht said. “A lot of people get very depressed about retirement but I found it a very exciting time. That’s all part of that – it helps keep me vital and it’s a very positive part of my retirement life. That just adds to the aspect of my being.”
Lucht said his family has been service-oriented for a long time and recognized his mother and brother for being influential in that space. He also said he has several nieces who are physician’s assistants and doctors.
As a retired professor, he said it is very exciting to him to be around a teaching hospital where many medical students are learning their craft – one of the many rewards for volunteering at his local hospital.
“Getting involved and meeting the diverse population we serve out there is very rewarding to me – the patients and also the bright, young college students that are working in some aspect of the medical field,” Lucht said. “It’s meeting people and giving back to a community that has been very kind to me and my family here.”
Vidant is proud of the volunteers that help us serve a region. The selflessness and passion these volunteers and so many others show each day is an inspiration and an important part of Vidant’s mission to improve the health and well-being of eastern North Carolina.
Get involved today
If you would like to join Barbara, Terry, Richard and the other amazing volunteers at Vidant Health, visit VidantHealth.com/Volunteers/.
“I am incredibly proud of this important milestone in Vidant’s collective work to realize a life without cancer,” said Dr. Stuart Lee, chief, division of neurosurgery, Vidant Health and medical director of The Gamma Knife Center, ECU Health Medical Center.
The Gamma Knife® works by targeting problematic cells, which shrinks the size of brain tumors over time. This technology shortens recovery time and is often performed in an outpatient setting. Before this technology, for certain kinds of brain tumors, the treatment was whole-brain radiation, which means even the healthy parts of the brain were radiated.
Dr. Lee spoke of a previous patient whose brain tumor shrunk significantly six weeks after treatment. “This was a lady in her late thirties who was still working, even with her cancer,” Lee said. “She actually went on a cruise after her second Gamma Knife®.”
“Our teams work passionately to support those battling cancer. Those across our region can access advanced technology close to home, which reduces the need to travel elsewhere to receive treatment,” said Dr. Lee. “By performing 2,000 Gamma Knife® procedures, we are delivering on our mission to improve the health and well-being of eastern North Carolina.”
On April 7, ECU Health Medical Center (VMC) hosted its Donate Life event, Pause to Give Life, to recognize organ donors and their families. Vidant team members, including the donor resource team and transplant team, were among those in attendance.
During the ceremony, the Donate Life flag was raised on the VMC flagpole at 10:08 a.m., a time symbolic of the ratio of one donor being able to save up to eight lives. Following the raising of the flag, a 30-second moment of silence was observed to honor donors and their families and recognize the more than 3,000 patients waiting for a life-saving transplant in North Carolina.
“It was a record year for organ donors at Vidant. We had 55 donors in 2020 that resulted in saving or enhancing 179 lives by those donations,” said Van Smith, VMC executive vice president of operations. “This is a celebration of the work of Vidant and Carolina Donor Services in partnership to support the community and improve the quality of life across eastern North Carolina.”
Carolina Donor Services President and CEO Danielle Niedfeldt recognized VMC for the record year of organ donations with an Outstanding Service Award during the event. Niedfeldt said in addition to a record year for transplantations at VMC, the hospital performed at a remarkable level in its own right and as compared to others within the Carolina Donor Services area.
Among the speakers at the event was Gerri Ashe, a community health worker at Vidant Health. She shared her story as a family donor – or someone whose loved ones have donated organs after they have passed.
Ashe began working at Vidant in February of 2008. In November of that same year, her oldest brother passed away from a stroke at just 43 years old. She recalled that when she was getting her license her dad told her to sign up as an organ donor and her siblings did the same. After his passing, they learned he would be able to donate three organs – his heart and his corneas.
“At that time, I decided to turn what seemed to be a really difficult situation into a positive moment of being able to share my story,” Ashe said. “It also made me want to get more involved and become more educated so I could help families understand the process.”
Ashe said she completed her studies in health education and promotion this past February.
As a community health worker, Ashe has many responsibilities in educating eastern North Carolina and connecting people to services or resources that they need to be healthy.
She said she also tries to raise awareness for the need of organ donation and stresses the importance of healthy living for anyone who may be interested in being an organ donor.
“No matter what decision a family makes, if I can just help them during that time – even as difficult as it is – I know I’ve done my job as a family donor,” Ashe said. “That’s how I honor my brother’s memory is by spreading the word and helping others realize how important it is to donate.”
If you’d like to learn more about being an organ donor or register as an organ donor, visit the Carolina Donor Services website. Learn more about Vidant’s transplant services.
The new location will initially be open Monday-Friday and can accommodate up to 350 vaccine appointments per day. Vidant may adjust days and hours of operations for the clinic based on demand. Appointments are required and are already available at VidantHealth.com/Vaccinate or by calling 252-847-8000 — available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week.
The Convention Center clinic will pause operations from April 7-12 due to an event hosted at the Convention Center. The Convention Center clinic will re-open April 13 to complete already-scheduled second doses only and will permanently close after all scheduled second doses are complete.
Effective April 8 and until further notice, all new doses in Greenville will be given at the Vidant Greenville Vaccine Clinic on Arlington Boulevard.
Although the vaccine offers great hope, Vidant encourages everyone to do their part to keep communities in the region safe from COVID-19: wear a mask, social distance and wash hands. Those who receive the vaccine should still practice these important safety measures.
Visit VidantHealth.com/Vaccinate for more information.
“I’ve never had an opportunity to do anything so important,” said Karen Harris, a pharmacy technician who has been on the job for more than 20 years. But what’s been required for COVID-19 is a first.
“This is our contribution to the public,” said Harris, who is part of a system-wide team helping prep vaccines at the Vidant / Pitt County Large-Scale Vaccine Clinic at the Greenville Convention Center.
“It’s kind of overwhelming to even think about being involved. And I’m grateful, so grateful that I can be a part of it – because this is a part of history,” she said.
The vaccines used at the convention center get their start at a pharmacy at ECU Health Medical Center (VMC) each morning. An early start — and a lot of planning and coordination — ensures vaccines arrive when and where they are needed across eastern North Carolina.
“We carry a tray of vaccines out, with 20, 30, 40 doses over to our vaccination area,” said Andy Grimone, assistant director of pharmacy at VMC. “The doses are all prepared and no one really knows how they got to that point.”
What’s not a mystery — the significance of their role and the doses of hope they deliver.
“The experts and the science behind it is saying the vaccine is working,” said Grimone. “So to know that what we’re doing here is making an impact in eastern North Carolina, is pretty awesome. And we couldn’t do it without this team.”
Harris agrees. “Everybody here is dedicated to what we’re doing. We all want to stop COVID-19 and the best way to do that is to vaccinate.”
For additional information on vaccine appointment availability and how to register for your dose of hope, please visit www.VidantHealth.com/Vaccinate.
The Vidant / Pitt County Large-Scale Vaccine Clinic at the Greenville Convention Center has helped thousands of people get their dose of hope in eastern North Carolina and beyond.
On March 19, the site served as a backdrop for a visit from North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and other state and local officials.
“We see the data of where these vaccinations are going,” said Cooper. “Therefore, we know what we need to do and we know who is being left out.”
“We’re not done,” said Dr. Michael Waldrum, CEO of Vidant Health. “The game is still being played and we have to play all 60 minutes of this football game, and keep our communities safe.”
The site itself has been a monumental undertaking in support of the communities Vidant serves.
With support from team members and volunteers – to date, more than 70,000 vaccinations have been administered here and at other vaccination sites across the region.
“It’s been a tragic and a trying time,” said Dr. John Silvernail, director of the Pitt County Health Department. “It’s also been a time of great cooperation and a chance to learn from one another.”
While much great work has been done, state and local leaders remain focused on the path ahead.
“As Dr. Waldrum and Dr. Silvernail also said, we cannot spike the football too early,” said Cooper. “We know these variants are out there. We’ve seen them flare up in other countries, in other states. We don’t want that to happen in North Carolina.”
For the latest information on vaccine availability and eligibility, please visit VidantHealth.com/vaccinate.