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Hello everyone, IÄôm Karla Macias and welcome to another
edition of the Best Docs Network featuring Forest Park Medical
Center right here in San Antonio. In the next 30 minutes
wÄôll be hearing from some of the best doctors in your area as
well as what yoÄôll experience at Forest Park Medical Center.
Now letÄôs jump into our first doctor, Dr. Jose Barrera,
whoÄôs not only an otolaryngologist but also a
facial plastic surgeon. Sleep apnea or obstructive sleep apnea
is a medical problem whereby the airway is obstructed meaning
that while patients are sleeping either their palates or their
tongue base fall back and obstruct the airway. Maybe
sometimes iÄôs a craniofacial problem, the skeleton may be
small. Sometimes it has to do with the tissues inside the
airway being too large. I had been having headaches during the
day. Just didÄôt, I work out quite a bit and didÄôt feel I
was getting the benefits of my workout. I was always tired. My
family physician asked me to take a sleep study and it was
then discovered that I had sleep apnea. I was wearing a CPAP
machine for about 2 years, it was uncomfortable, not something
I enjoy but I knew the importance of sleep. As IÄôm
sleeping I got a panic attack. IÄôm 45 years old and Äôm
getting this attack that I had never gotten in my life. And
these panic attacks really inhibited him from sleeping and
so heÄôd wake up after struggling and wrestling with
the machine all night very tired. And he had to travel, he
had to go take care of his clients and take care of his
workers and really was not satisfied with his site type of
treatment. Upon evaluation we performed an endoscopy, we put a
small camera in through his nose and looked at his airway and
found that he had obstructive symptoms secondary to both
palate collapse as well as tongue base collapse. And so we
offered him a combination therapy to improve his nasal
breathing which included doing nasal reconstruction, doing
palate reconstruction and doing a jaw advancement surgery. He
felt that the surgery could enhance that and felt that I
would be a good candidate for the surgery. I told him that
from everything that I had read I felt comfortable having the
surgery and we chose to do the surgery. We performed all these
operations for him and he had a successful outcome. He feels
refreshed, he no longer feels stressed like he was before. He
sleep quietly, he wakes up with energy and he no longer
experiences panic attacks. You donÄôt always run across people
in this world that truly care and Dr. Barrera truly cares.
WhaÄôs been so rewarding for me to be involved with Forest
Park is that Äôve been in the business of helping physicians
manage hospitals for 25 years and I have seen all the various
models that have been associated over that period of time. IÄôve
been involved in many different kinds of models and iÄôs been
a pleasure for me to implement the model that I think works the
best in this business and that is the majority physician owned
model where the physicians are in control and govern their own
hospital and have business partners like me who come in and
help them run that business. But we focus on running the hospital
the way that the unique aspects of that medical staff wants
their hospital to be run. With the help of the doctors here and
at all of our hospitals, we recruit the very best people in
all different lines of work from the OR technicians, the floor
nurses, quality directors, everyone who walks through this
hospital has been very carefully considered. This basically gives
our patients the best possible experience. They walk into this
place and very quickly are eased of a lot of the stresses of
surgery that you get in a cold sterile hospital environment.
The people are very friendly, the place is very welcoming all
around them and of course the quality of care is unsurpassed.
What Forest Park means to a physician is that it provides a
place for that physician to practice medicine where he or
she is much more in control of their destiny, much more in
control of the atmosphere that they practice medicine in. We
provide our physicians with dedicated teams of nurses in the
operating room who become familiar with the type of
surgery that the physician does that makes the surgery go much
quicker and enables us to get the room turned over quicker
between cases so that the physicians can get more cases
done. All of the physicians that I talk to tell me that they are
able to get more cases done and in a more efficient manner than
any other hospital they practice medicine in. As a physician, a
surgeon actually, practicing here we start your cases on
time, our turnover is very efficient, we have top quality
staff to provide you with the people and the equipment
necessary to really be state of the art in everything we do. The
things that make Forest Park unique are our focus on whaÄôs
best for the patient and whaÄôs best for the physician.
WÄôre different in many ways from other organizations because
our physicians are our owners, they are our bosses and to that
end we want to do whatever we can to be sure that they get
their needs met. WeÄôre here for them, theÄôre here for
their patients and working together, wÄôre not fighting a
bureaucracy, weÄôre not fighting a corporate office
thaÄôs not even in the same state as us sometimes. WeÄôre
making whatÄôs best for this hospital at this moment at that
time. We doÄôt have to wait and thaÄôs what our physicians
like, immediate results. As new things become available like the
MAKO robot, some of the new technologies, Forest Park is
very quick to want to be a part of those things. If thaÄôs
something that our surgeon wants or feels like would benefit his
patient population, wÄôre willing to do that for them and
thaÄôs exciting to have an organization that leaps forward
that quickly. IÄôs much more collaborative, theyÄôre very
involved in their choice of equipment. We try to involve
them in any major decisions so that they feel that they have a
buy into this, theyÄôre a part of it. One of the physicians
said to me the other day, I feel like Äôve worked with this
team for years because it just got the flow down, it just
works. Did you know that in 2011 Forest Park Medical Center was
voted as one of the top 20 most beautiful hospitals in the
United States? Also Forest Park Medical Centers were the only
hospital in Texas to make this prestigious list. Best Docs
Network featuring Forest Park Medical Center, welcome to the
twenty first century of cutting edge medicine, Forest Park
Medical Center. Vicki has a question for Dr. Kathleen Hands,
is my thyroid causing me to gain weight? Thyroid does not cause
you to gain weight, not fat weight. Thyroid is what helps
your heart beat, itÄôs how your brain synapsis come together so
you remember how to drive a car. IÄôs that your skin sheds,
iÄôs how you exchange oxygen, iÄôs how your organs function,
but it has nothing to do with fat. When you gain weight from
having an underactive thyroid, iÄôs because your kidneys are
not excreting urine and so you retain 2 or 3 pounds of water
weight. As soon as you correct the thyroid function you lose
the 2 or 3 pounds of water but it has nothing to do with fat.
Fat is a result of insulin resistance and if youÄôre
overweight you have too much insulin and insulin makes fat.
So the more fat you have the higher your insulin level is and
the best way to get rid of that is to cut your carbohydrate
intake and eat more protein. Dr. Christopher Cantrill is a
renowned urologist here in the San Antonio area. Now letÄôs
hear about his methods on practicing medicine. My method
of practicing medicine is I think of every patient I see as
my mom, my dad, or my brother or my sister and whenever I
approach any problem that they have I try and think what would
I want my family member to have done for them and I kind of feel
you never can go wrong if youÄôre treating somebody like
your own family. YoÄôre going to make the right decision for
them. I think we really just try and do the best that we can with
every patient and make sure that they not only get the best
treatment available but understand the treatments that
there are for them. Try and always be courteous and try to
provide fast care and be there and available when they need us
and know that we actually care about them. I really stress that
a lot in my clinic and I think we do a really good job of that.
For more information on Forest Park Medical Center and their
doctors head over to our website, bestdocsnetwork.com and
click on that Forest Park Medical Center tab. Not only are
Forest Park Medical Center doctors helping those in our
community but also around the world as we see with Dr. Ihde as
he changes lives in Haiti. In 2010 Haiti suffered a big
earthquake, I think it was 7.0 on the Richter scale and it was
devastating for a couple of reasons. ItÄôs the poorest
nation in the western hemisphere and the infrastructures really
poor. The buildings donÄôt have codes for earthquakes or
anything like that so when the earthquake hit, I mean
everything just fell apart. And then being economically poor
they really donÄôt have the infrastructure to respond to any
kind of emergency like that. They doÄôt have ambulances and
fire trucks, they donÄôt have construction equipment all over
the place so it was very difficult for them to respond to
that. So, one of the first responders if you will to the
situation was a medical team from Forest Park Medical Center.
They went down to provide medical assistance in evacuating
people, triaging people and of course providing treatment,
bringing doctors and nurses and supplies and equipment. That in
conjunction with one of the charities down there turned into
a regular visit where with Sacre Coeur which is the hospital down
there we would send a team and participate in surgeries on a
regular basis. They would get patients that needed surgery
ready, when the team arrived theÄôd spend a week basically
operating day and night to treat the cases that otherwise would
have been too complex to treat in Haiti. In the United States
we have a very robust system thaÄôs very refined. There are
safety protocols everywhere, everythinÄôs disposable so
nothingÄôs reused but in Haiti iÄôs the polar opposite.
YouÄôre operating in a hospital thaÄôs an open air hospital,
thereÄôs no air conditioning. The one air conditioner that is
in the hospital is in the operative suite because under
gowns and stuff it gets very hot, but itÄôs a window air
conditioner, the aiÄôs not filled. The instrumentation is
very basic from the, you know, 196Äôs. Everything that they
have is something thaÄôs been designated from a first world
country. Well this is a great opportunity to do what doctors
really want to do, I mean this is why you become a physician,
because you have this overwhelming compassion anytime
you see somebody that is hurting or is sick or is in pain you
want to help them. No matter, you know, what it takes, I mean
sometimes it becomes a downfall but in this situation youÄôre
able to go to a country and really give them something that
they really never had access to. In a hundred years they probably
wouldÄôt get to it because iÄôs such an economically poor
country. I mean when you go there you see iÄôs open sewer
systems, the water they get out of the mountainside basically
running down and who knows whether iÄôs clean or not.
Again the infrastructure is terrible, you know the buildings
are half completed. ThereÄôs no disposal system, trash is
everywhere and it may not have been like that before the
earthquake but certainly it is now. They have basically
paralyzed all the infrastructure to the entire country. WeÄôre
able to go in there and just help with those situations you
know using the expertise that we have. Well Forest Park has
really been I think a leader in helping out. When this disaster
occurred of course there were other hospitals that sent back
teams and there are other hospitals around the United
States that sends teams as well but in the metroplex you know
Forest Park has been the one thaÄôs routinely gone back to
help out, to bring supplies, to lean on our vendors who have
been very helpful in when we upgrade our equipment for
instance we can take that and use that for the Haiti missions.
IÄôs shown a remarkable sense of leadership and a remarkable
sense of the responsibility that it is to be in the healthcare
field for Forest Park to go down there and participate the way
they have, not just initially but on a regular basis. Best
Docs Network featuring Forest Park Medical Center. Forest Park
Medical Center, extraordinary in every way. Here at Forest Park
Medical Center not only do we look locally but we look
nationwide for top managers, directors and employees. And not
only did we focus on their experience but we focused on
customer service because customer service is our number
one thing that we look for because we want to treat our
patients exceptionally. What impressed me the most about the
facility is that they pick the top of the staff that they can
find and most of the staff have years and years of experience so
when people come here theÄôre getting the best care possible.
We were very fortunate. We had a large candidate pool, a lot of
applicants that were very interested in working at Forest
Park. So we were able to hire the best and the brightest and
it was an exciting opportunity to work through all the
interviews and really look to focus on not only finding that
clinical excellence and knowledge and experience coming
from our staff but also those that were really focused on
customer service. Those that really wanted to provide
patients with outstanding care. Those that really wanted to
treat patients as if they were their own family members. We are
a surgical specialty hospital and our length of stay is less
than two days so we are able to allow our patients to be
discharged at less than two days due to our excellent nursing
ratios that we have which is 4 to 1 and thatÄôs an outstanding
patient ratio that we have so we can really focus on the patient
and their needs. Getting what we need for the patients is the
most important thing and seeing to the needs of the patients as
quick as we can is the most important thing that all of the
staff has in common here. We want the recovery to be
excellent. We want them to be well, we want them to feel
needed, we want them to feel like they get the care that
theÄôre paying for. I really enjoy the atmosphere at Forest
Park. IÄôs very positive and IÄôm glad that IÄôm with the
Forest Park family. IÄôs a great place to work and a great
place to be. One of the priorities that we have as an
office as family physicians is to associate ourselves with the
best hospital delivery systems in the city. And I feel and my
organization feels that Forest Park represents that for the
city of San Antonio. This is the opportunity to give patients the
exact care Äôd want for myself, for my wife, for my
children and do it in a setting that they will find charming,
relaxing and restful which we canÄôt always say about trips
to the hospital. I was very excited to be approached by
Forest Park to be part of this organization because they really
care about quality, they really care about getting the best
possible people involved so that they appreciate a proper
assessment of patients so that they can do the right job in
that OR suite. Their nurse to physician ratio for those
patients who are in the hospital, phenomenal, no other
institution has anything like that. IÄôm really looking
forward to working with them here in San Antonio because this
is premier medicine at its best where we can really do whatÄôs
in the best interest of the patient without interference
from outside sources. I think the idea of having a hospital
run by doctors is a good one. I think that you commonly hear
complaints by doctors that the rules are made by people who
donÄôt understand what happens in a hospital or what happens
with caring for patients. And I think that with this model
youÄôre going to have physicians who are able to help
fix those kinds of problems. And I think iÄôs going to make not
only for a better patient experience but for better
patient safety. So itÄôs an honor for me to ask to see my
organization to Forest Park organization because I believe
that in San Antonio in hospital system with the name and the
quality of what Forest Park has created is needed for our
patients. And to be successful, primary care physicians have to
partner with the best hospitals in town and Forest Park in my
opinion is going to be one of those organizations. Did you
know that Forest Park Medical Centers are designed and
constructed to meet or exceed the standards of the U.S. Green
Building Councils Leadership and Energy Environmental Design
(LEED) program. The purpose of LEED is to reduce energy and
resource consumption, minimize environmental impact and provide
healthier and more connected buildings. Throughout the
building and grounds you will see signs which highlight Forest
ParÄôs sustainable efforts. From staff to surgeons to
technology and technique Forest Park Medical Center brings the
best of the best to your area. Just like San Antonio urologist,
Dr. LeRoy Jones. Initially what began to happen is I was
experiencing ED, erectile dysfunction. It was at the point
that I couldnÄôt maintain an *** and we spent five years
literally researching trying to find an answer. After we found
on the internet that the symptoms that I was having was
related to PeyronieÄôs I finally saw a urologist who said
that he was not an expert in ED but he recommended that I call
someone by the name of Dr. Jones. Well when a patient first
presents with PeyroniÄôs we like to see them right away, I
mean typically what happens is is that the guy will notice some
curvature or his partner and theÄôre not really sure
whaÄôs going on. And so wÄôll start out typically with
oral therapy and then depending on how the patient is doing we
may continue with that. If iÄôs progressing or getting
worse then weÄôll do whaÄôs called intralesional therapy and
thaÄôs actually injection therapy and then if thaÄôs not
effective then therÄôs surgery and thereÄôs some corrective
surgery to straighten it out and then last a *** prosthesis.
So a lot of it just really depends on how bad the curvature
is and when the patient gets to us. So Dr. Jones confirmed my
situation and what was so encouraging he says you know the
problem that you have youÄôre not going to be able to fix
yourself. He says I have a solution and that solution was a
*** implant. He had his implant and he did very well
with it. HeÄôs not from San Antonio, drove in had his
surgery still an outpatient operation, stayed in a hotel,
saw him back the next day and went home and he came back in
six weeks and we taught him how to use it and you know with our
staff. ItÄôs changed his life, hÄôs a different person. The
thing about implants is most guys that get them, they always
regret waiting. After I had the procedure done the results were
really far exceeding in the expectations that I had. So now
my wife and I still have the emotional tie, now we have that
physical part of our life back that we enjoyed. Neal Richards
Group has been the exclusive developer for Forest Park
Medical Center and San Antonio is our latest and greatest
addition. WÄôre situated on top of a hill so it truly acts
as a beacon for Forest Park Medical Center San Antonio. It
takes on that hill country like feel which is really one of the
fundamental things in San Antonio. Forest Park Medical
Center San Antonio was designed very much to fit in with the
local San Antonio architecture. Address, themes off of the Texas
hill country so at completion whenever you pull onto the
campus yoÄôre going to see a lot of heavy stones, a lot of
drought tolerant landscape, a lot of neutral colors, some wood
and timber there as well as some medal and glass. The Forest Park
Medical Center San Antonio campus has 80,000 square feet of
available medical office space, iÄôs Class A space and iÄôs
on campus, itÄôs right there at the front door of the hospital
so physicians who are interested in relocating their practice
there can really reduce their commute time and just go to one
single location on a weekly basis. And they can see their
patients for exams and preoperative workups in the
medical office space that they lease. And then on their other
days they can go right there to the hospital and do their
surgical cases there in one location as opposed to having to
traverse all over greater San Antonio. Forest Park Medical
Center campus consists of the surgical specialty hospital
which is 154,000 square feet. ThereÄôs 12 operating rooms and
a total of 54 patient beds. It also has a 470 car parking
garage as well as 80,000 square foot Class A medical office
building. Current progress in San Antonio on the construction
site is still going exceptionally well. WÄôve had
great weather and wÄôre on target still to complete May of
2014. Concrete pours are occurring daily right now. Our
first elevated concrete pour was last Saturday and wÄôll have
one per week leading up to top out which is in October. One
great thing about Forest Park is that they include the dining
aspect or the food aspect for our patient care. Not only do
they have great dieticians on site to make sure that the
dietary needs are met for the patients but they also consider
the patients families needs as well. LetÄôs face it, sometimes
youÄôre in the hospital, this facility, six or seven hours if
not longer, sometimes overnight, sometimes two or three days and
iÄôs not the typical food. We do everything from scratch which
means that we do everything from the starting point all the way
to the finished product. We do pork tenderloin, we do roasted
chickens, we do gourmet pizzas. We even do some things like
grandmaÄôs meatloaf but everythinÄôs made from
scratch. We follow recipes, nothing comes out of a can. Our
sauces are all made from scratch. When you walk into our
dining facility, our dining facility here is named Ca©
114, it feels like a real caf©. You donÄôt walk into it and
iÄôs the oh type of tray lined service here, every single day
the menu changes. So for example one day you may have a carving
station with a prime rib on it. The next day on that carving
station it may be a baked potato bar and the plate itself is a
work of art. ItÄôs just not something thaÄôs piled on the
plate and sent to the guest or sent to the patient. ItÄôs a
work of art because you know you may not always come in here
where youÄôre just on a clear liquid diet, you can actually
have surgery where you can eat regular food. So we have to take
those cases and we want them to feel like you know what this is
unbelievable, this is not hospital food. We donÄôt ever
want to be stereotyped or categorized as hospital food. We
are a caf© dining facility and you can get fresh grilled
salmon, we have fresh tuna here, we have a fish of the week. We
have grilled pork chops you can get, grilled chicken. Along with
that you can have that grilled, make your salad, give it to one
of my grill cooks and wÄôll put it on the salad for you. It
really starts with Chef Jason Douglas. This guy is absolutely
amazing when it comes to food. He is truly an artist when it
comes to the culinary aspect of it. He has an eye for making
your food look so pretty and edible at the same time that you
donÄôt want to touch it because it looks so great. ThatÄôs one
element about dining service I donÄôt have to worry about
because I know when hÄôs there that the guests, our patrons are
going to get the absolute best that he has to offer every
single day. So what we try to do is we try to be innovative with
our food, very cost effective, but most importantly want a
great quality of food. I have this saying that if iÄôs not
done in the spirit of excellence, we woÄôt serve it.
Did you know Forest Park Medical Center at Frisco has executive
chef Kevin Neff creating world class dishes with his unique
blend of flair rather than typical hospital food? ThatÄôll
do it every one, thanks for tuning in to this edition of the
Best Docs Network featuring Forest Park Medical Center here
in San Antonio. For more information on Forest Park
Medical Center and their doctors, check out our website
bestdocsnetwork.com and click on that Forest Park Medical Center
tab. We would love to hear from you so feel free to email us at
info@bestdocsnetwork.com. So long everybody, wÄôll see you