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Hi again everybody, IÄôm Karla Macias along here with Jim Knox
and welcome to another episode of the Best Docs Network
featuring Forest Park Medical Center right here in San
Antonio, your destination to better health. Exactly right
Karla, from staff to surgeons to technology and technique, Forest
Park Medical Center San Antonio is the place. And wÄôll kick
off the show with our first Forest Park Medical Center
doctor, 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 PeyroniÄôs 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 PeyronieÄôs 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. DoÄôt forget for more information about
Forest Park Medical Center San Antonio your destination to
better health, head to the website, bestdocsnetwork.com and
click on that Forest Park Medical Center tab. Forest Park
Medical Center your destination to better health. Now to our
next Forest Park Medical Center doctor, iÄôs Dr. Bob Peters
who helped one young girl hear for the first time. Well we are
from Boliva. I came two and a half years ago. My father and my
mother they started to see something strange with my baby
girl. I think the very first time that I noticed and I was
the one that really noticed there may be an issue was when I
first held her in Boliva. She was just a few weeks old. I just
noted that she didnÄôt appear to be responding to noise and
sounds around. I was thinking that she was okay, that nothing
was wrong, maybe shÄôs distracted, I donÄôt know. When
they told us that she wasÄôt listening, it was hard because I
want she can listen to me or she can listen herself so sometimes
iÄôs frustrating to talk to the baby or you want to teach
her something and you canÄôt because she cannot listen. Well
we first contacted Dr. Peters in Dallas Hearing Institute then we
knew that he was the president of the foundation, of Dallas
Hearing Foundation and we talked to him and they started looking
for a device for Mia and Äôm glad that they found the right
one and hopefully and with GodÄôs help itÄôs going to
work good, itÄôs going to work good. MED EL along with the
Dallas Hearing Foundation we share a commitment to the
hearing loss community and when the Dallas Hearing Foundation
approached MED EL we thought this was an ideal situation to
kind of help out a family and so we put them into our grant
process. And as the patient goes through the grant process, you
know Mia and her family were approved. Mia was born with
profound hearing loss and that means that hearing aids were not
able to give her enough hearing. So, the only way she would gain
adequate hearing in order to develop speech and language,
oral language, would be to have a cochlear implant. So today we
placed a surgical implant that is meant to stimulate the
hearing nerves that are there but just not working. And it
will stimulate those nerves and produce for her a sense of
hearing. We test the implant and determine during surgery that
she is responding to the implant. We actually do not turn
it on for three weeks. We want to let her incision heal so we
wonÄôt turn it on for three weeks. So sheÄôs just going to
have like any typical ear surgery, have some recovery time
and some discomfort. But three weeks from now is when weÄôll
bring them back to our office and actually activate the
implant. Well, for her itÄôs going to be a big difference
from not hearing to hearing is a big change. She was living happy
without hearing and now hearing sheÄôs going to be happier,
thaÄôs why wÄôre here. ThaÄôs why wÄôre in America,
in Dallas in this big hospital, good hospital, with the best
devices that she can get. Thank you Dallas Hearing Center, thank
you Forest Park Medical Center, thank you Dr. Peters, thank you
Linda, Debbie, all of them. 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.
Stay tuned for MiÄôs inspirational conclusion coming
up a little bit later on in the show. 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. Best Docs Network featuring Forest Park
Medical Center, welcome to the twenty first century of cutting
edge medicine, Forest Park Medical Center. For more
information please logon to our website, bestdocsnetwork.com and
click on that Forest Park Medical Center tab. Now on to
our next doctor, Dr. Kathleen Hands, whÄôs going to tell us
a little bit more about thyroid testing . Everything kind of
started when I felt a squishy lump underneath my jaw and I was
referred to an ear, nose and throat specialist. There was no
reason at all to go to a doctor for that and in the end it
turned out to be a stage 4 cancer. So I had been carrying
that for about 30 years without knowing. Approximately January
2011 genetic testing had been developed so that these patients
could actually get genetic tests on those nodules that is
performed at the time of the actual biopsy but if yoÄôre
BRAF positive those patients areÄôt typically sensitive to
radioactive iodine and itÄôs not going to work in those
individuals. So having that information prior to their
surgery so they get the appropriate surgery, having that
information prospectively so we know after surgery how are we
going to treat those patients is vitally important. One of the
most important things that a BRAF positive person can do is
get a very, very good surgeon to take out as much of the cancer
as possible. That was why it was so vital for me to have a
surgeon who was extremely capable and experienced and
thaÄôs what they did, they took out all of my thyroid and
66 lymph nodes. From the very beginning when we walked in
until our relationship today, iÄôs always been one of
tremendous amount of compassion. All the little details that me
just as a person would want, thaÄôs the kind of doctor that
sheÄôs been for me, just giving me the confidence and the care
that I think she would give a family member is all I can you
know compare it to. First do no harm, we really want to get
patients to get the right treatment which can now be
tailored to their specific genetics. WÄôve never been
able to do that before and in the last two years thatÄôs been
a very groundbreaking procedure for thyroid cancer. For more
information on Forest Park Medical Center San Antonio,
logon to our website, bestdocsnetwork.com and click on
that Forest Park Medical Center tab, your destination to better
health. Exactly right Karla, now time to move on to our next
Forest Park Medical Center San Antonio doctor, iÄôs urologist
Dr. Christopher Cantrill. I had been experiencing an unremitting
series of bladder infections for almost a year and I was feeling
really uncomfortable and was not responding to the medications
that were being offered to me by an OB-GYN and was feeling really
frustrated and finally it was suggested that I go see a
urologist. When she first came to see me she was having a lot
of problems with what she thought were recurring urinary
tract infections. They were finding blood in her urine, she
was having to go to the bathroom quite frequently and having pain
with urination and given that she had had so many problems we
ended up starting to do, look for other reasons as to why
people are having these infections. In the clinic I was
able to look inside of her bladder and I saw a small tumor
growing inside of her bladder or at least a mass that appeared to
be like a bladder cancer. He told me what was going to happen
and we tried a procedure and thought it had worked and
actually I had to go back a second time. Unfortunately for
Carol we looked back in 3 months later and her tumor had recurred
which confirmed my concerns that this tumor was coming from the
tube draining her kidney. He checked again several months
later and wasÄôt totally happy and decided he wanted to do some
reconstruction work and I was glad. If we were going to do it
I wanted it to be right. Whenever weÄôre doing surgery
for cancers like CaroÄôs of the ureter the goal for us is to
try and save as much of her kidney as we possibly can. Her
tumor was isolated just in the lower portion of her ureter and
I felt fairly confident if we would just be able to take that
portion of the drainage tube out I could save the rest of her
kidney and take her ureter and re-implant that in her bladder
to allow her to keep her kidney. When he did the reconstruction
of the bladder he was able to preserve the bladder, enough of
a percentage of it that I am fine and I am very grateful for
that, very grateful. At Forest Park we really, we call it the
six senses of Forest Park and you have your conventional five
you know and it talks about the experience that you get from the
minute that you come on to our campus. So weÄôre really kind
of playing into those senses, so what are you seeing when you
first get on the campus and walk into our hospitals? You know are
you looking at just great architecture or are you looking
at a brighter environment you know with natural sunlight and
things of that nature? The art program is something that plays
into the healing aspect, the visual aspect. So, yoÄôll see
sculpture, yoÄôll see original pieces, youÄôll see print,
youÄôll see a little bit of everything. And the way that we
attack art is you should feel a little bit uncomfortable with
art you know, because if every piece of art in our facilities
was something that you absolutely loved then you
probably didnÄôt reach the entire community because we all
have different tastes, different aspects of what we like. What
are you smelling? We have engineered scents in all of our
hospitals to where itÄôs an engineering system called scent
stream and itÄôs built into our HVAC and the scent that Forest
Park has chosen is called clean sheets. Other things that you
have just kind of coming into our environment is you know what
type of food are you having, the taste. You know we doÄôt have
cafeterias we have dining facilities. What are you hearing
when you come on to our campus and into our facility as well?
Oftentimes in every facility that we do we have water
features, both outdoor water features and interior water
features. So it provides a calming type sound that
resonates throughout our facilities. What are the things
that yoÄôre feeling? We have a lot of textural elements
associated with our design. When youÄôre coming in, the textural
walls, whether itÄôs the stone cut exterior of a lot of our
facilities or when yoÄôre coming inside and youÄôre
feeling the texture of the fabric itself. You know we
really try to play into all of those senses for our patients so
you know whether itÄôs in the lobby or itÄôs in the patient
rooms or you know the thread count on the sheets, you know,
those are the type of texture elements that really you may not
instinctively know about those but when you actually touch it
and feel it, itÄôll make a difference to you. Every one of
our facilities is a minimum of leed silver, so what that means
is itÄôs our environmental impact to the community as well.
So we have rooftop gardens where you have lush gardens that can
be seen from all of our patient rooms, yoÄôre seeing planting,
youÄôre seeing stone, yoÄôre seeing in some cases water
features associated with even our green roofs but iÄôs
something that really kind of plays into the sixth sense of
Forest Park which is heal and having a patient room that looks
down onto grasses and trees and plants, you know it
intrinsically has a healing aspect that really our patients
have grown to appreciate. Again wÄôre playing to each of those
senses and then our sixth sense is heal because at the end of
the day, thatÄôs why wÄôre here. WÄôre here for the
community, weÄôre healing patients and providing a place
for our physicians to practice medicine. Walking on to our
campuses from step one what we really kind of focus on is that
entire experience. It should look and feel not like a
hospital but it should look more like a hotel. YouÄôre really
seeing something different. It has a completely different feel
from anything else that youÄôve see in the market. You know our
job as developers and as Forest Park Medical Center is to
deliver a facility thatÄôs different than what the
physicians are used to, what the patients are used to. Now for
the conclusion of an inspirational story of a little
girl named Mia, who Forest Park Medical Center doctor Bob Peters
helped her hear for the first time. Not long ago at Forest
Park Medical Center, Mia had surgery to help her hear. Now
letÄôs watch Mia hear for the very first time. Well today Mia
is going to get her cochlear implant activation and she will
start hearing, she will start hearing today and wÄôre very
happy about it. We were shaking and too excited for everything
today. I know it wasnÄôt like a huge thing but for her it was
something different. Now the device is attached and within a
few moments you see responses from Mia that youÄôve never
seen. You know, you can tell something new is happening. She
would have never been able to hear and now she can and will.
IÄôs overwhelming, iÄôs overwhelming. She was happy,
jumping and running and it looks like she doesÄôt have anything
there. We were so excited and so worried about her for not
dropping the device but she will do it we know so we just want
the best for her. It has been a journey and a long and a short
one at the same time. Waiting, praying, wishing and some days
losing hope. ItÄôs an amazing journey and now iÄôs just
begun. ItÄôs going to take some time for her to start to
process. ItÄôs all about the brain processing information.
IÄôs going to take her time to realize, oh that was the door
knock, that was the door bell, thaÄôs mommyÄôs phone,
thaÄôs mommyÄôs voice, thaÄôs daddyÄôs voice. ItÄôs
going to all take time. Just like a normal hearing infant. A
normal hearing infant is born hearing perfectly but they
donÄôt understand. Maybe 6 months, maybe 8 months they
start to respond to their name. They might start to respond to
the dogÄôs name. So she has to go through the same
developmental stages of hearing and learning to talk that a
normal child goes through and that takes months and years.
IÄôs going to be a real challenge for us but we are
going to practice and we are going to help her and teach her.
There is no way to say thank you enough, thereÄôs no way to
repay it other than we will be your ambassador, I can tell you
that and weÄôll try to make the best out of it for Mia and watch
her develop and wÄôre just so thankful. Everyone is changing
her life. IÄôs a new beginning for her, itÄôs like a newborn
but now she can really start to listen and changing that part in
her life. Did you know at Forest Park Medical Center the patient
ratio of care is typically four to one, one nurse to every four
patients versus the typical five to one or six to one which is
characteristic in most hospitals. I think what makes
Forest Park unique and different is truly the culture that we
have. A lot of places present that they have the patient care
and the employee satisfaction in their culture, but when you walk
into Forest Park you feel the difference. Our directors over
our units are very passionate about what we do and since
wÄôre a physician owned facility, the physicians that
are here are very involved in the care and in the decisions
that we make down to the in-patient level. One thing I
really love about Forest Park and I tell everyone that I talk
with in my nursing career about Forest Park, I like to talk
about the camaraderie thaÄôs here. I really enjoy just a
positive, energetic setting with the staff. Everyone works quite
well together. Inter department, just you know pharmacy, ER,
X-ray, the doctors, the nurses, iÄôs just a really cohesive
unit and I really enjoy that. And I fell like every day I come
here I enjoy my day and that says a lot because nursing can
be really stressful. To be able to come here and feel the
support from my teammates and to have a good day at the end of
every day, itÄôs something I really appreciate. The best
thing about working at Forest Park is that we are a family
here. All the directors know each other. We know each other
inside and outside of the hospital. We know how to work
well with each other and our administration here at Forest
Park really appreciates and shows us how much they
appreciate us, not in big ways but in small ways every day that
really make a difference in the place where you want to work.
One thing that really stood out about Forest Park was just the
quality of patient care and just the way the patients are
treated, the not only high level of patient care thaÄôs
delivered but also the entire experience that they receive
here. The facility promotes patient satisfaction, patient
care which are all things that are very important to me and
iÄôs a facility that I feel like are vey in line with their
values and what they view. Unless you worked at a hospital
like Forest Park yoÄôre going to find that therÄôs a lot to
learn, a lot to do and a lot of rewarding experiences to be had
here. Stacy has a question for Dr. Ramon Reyes. How do I lose
and maintain my weight? What I always tell patients is to be
patient with themselves. That the weight that they have in
their body today didnÄôt come there in a month or two so it
cannot come out of their body in a month or two, and it requires
a commitment to change the way theÄôre living. And what we do
in this office is we help the patient with changing the way
theÄôre relating to food and changing the way they exercise.
So we have nutritionists that are here in this office that are
helping the patient on exactly what to eat, what to choose,
what food to buy, how to cook the food, whaÄôs next to eat,
where to have the snacks, what not to have, how to eat properly
when they go to restaurants, what food to choose when they go
to restaurants. And if we can manage the weight on these
patients we can help them reduce some other chronic diseases.
Each Forest Park facility is very unique. There are currently
3 facilities open in Texas. The largest facility is in Dallas,
the second facility was open in Frisco which is in the north
Dallas area and the third one in Southlake which is near the DFW
airport. Each facility is unique and different and a lot of that
is because of the make up of the physicians that are
participating with Forest Park in each community. The mix of
physicians is unique, the services provided is unique.
IÄôs tailored to the needs of the physician and medical
community in each city. Each facility is stunning, they look
like 5 star hotels, theÄôre beautiful. The physicians now
have an opportunity to take their patients to a facility
that focuses on quality care and quality outcomes for their
patients in a beautiful setting. Thank you so much for joining us
for another episode of the Best Docs Network featuring Forest
Park Medical Center in San Antonio your destination to
better health. For more information, please logon to our
website bestdocsnetwork.com and click on that Forest Park
Medical Center tab. And the good news is Karla for the folks out
there who have a question or comment for us, send us an email
at info@bestdocsnetwork.com, thaÄôs
info@bestdocsnetwork.com. So long everyone, we will see you