Family Medicine

Fannie Lou Hamer Cancer Foundation receives $9k donation

The Fannie Lou Hamer Cancer Foundation in Ruleville, recently received a generous donation of $9,000 from the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler.

Freddie White-Johnson, founder and president of the Foundation, accepted the check from Shirley Walker, case management and supervisor of the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility. White-Johnson also serves as program director of the Mississippi Network for Cancer Control and Prevention (MNCCP) at The University of Southern Mississippi. […]

Family Medicine

UMMC to enter lease agreement for Grenada Lake Medical Center

With approval Thursday from the State Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees, University of Mississippi Medical Center leaders will sign an agreement to lease the 156-bed Grenada Lake Medical Center from the Grenada County Board of Supervisors.
 
Under the agreement, UMMC would begin managing GLMC Sept. 1, and lease the facility beginning Jan. 1. Under the terms, UMMC would pay the county about $1.8 million annually to retire the facility’s $37.4 million debt. […]

Family Medicine

Humana to sell policies in unserved Miss. Counties

All Mississippians will have at least one insurance option on the new federal online marketplace when it starts enrolling customers in October.
Humana, based in Louisville, Ky., announced Friday that it would cover people in the 36 Mississippi counties where no insurer had agreed to write policies.

Coverage under those policies begins Jan. 1.

“This builds on Humana’s current presence,” the company said in a statement. “By working together with local health care providers, we believe we can enhance quality of care and improve health outcomes in the state.” […]

Family Medicine

Only abortion clinic in Miss. fights to stay open

It can’t meet the mandates of a 2012 state law and the governor wants to shut it down, but Mississippi’s only abortion clinic is not about to quietly retreat.

The clinic’s owners are fighting on a legal front, with a federal lawsuit against the state, and supporters and staff are trying to make inroads on site – urging patients to call elected officials and peppering state-required counseling with their own views and information.

Protesters, too, are zeroing in on the clinic. A national anti-abortion group, Operation Save America, has targeted Mississippi as a state where it hopes to end abortion, and it has sent people from as far as Colorado and Nevada to protest. Congregants from local churches pray outside the clinic several days a week. Some hold fetus posters and use microphones to call out to patients. […]

Events

New Kilmichael Clinic holds first heath fair this Saturday

Dr. Katrina Poe and the new Kilmichael Clinic in Montgomery County will hold their first health fair since they opened their doors in September 2012.

In conjunction with Kilmichael Hospital, the fair will be held on Saturday, May 18, in front of the hospital at 301 Lamar Avenue from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Eulandia Thompson, Office Manager for Kilmichael Clinic, said the health fair will feature several health-related vendors including Mid-Delta, Sta-Home and Legacy Hospice. […]

Family Medicine

Fannie Lou Hamer Cancer Foundation to get new site

A cancer center named for noted civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, has secured a site for its new headquarters and they have launched a campaign to raise the $5.5 million needed for the new state-of-the-art facility.

“We’re looking at about $3.5 million to actually build the building, and the other money would be used to equip and furnish the building,” said Freddie White-Johnson, founder and president of the Fannie Lou Hamer Cancer Foundation.
She hopes to raise quite a bit of money in 2013.

“It’s a national fundraising campaign,” said White-Johnson. “We’re trying to reach out to anybody and everybody across the country and outside the country for support.” […]

Family Medicine

UMMC liver transplant program revived

As cameras and microphones edged in and the room grew quiet, University of Mississippi Medical Center transplant surgeon Christopher Anderson turned to face Karen Battle and her new liver.

“All right,” he said. “It’s your show.”

It was a spotlight moment 22 years in the making. When Battle, a lifelong south Jackson resident, got a new liver in March, it signaled new life not just for the 36-year-old mom, but for UMMC’s long-dormant liver transplant program.

In late February, Battle and two members of her transplant team – Anderson, associate professor of surgery and division chief of transplant and hepatobiliary surgery, and associate professor of medicine and hepatologist Dr. Brian Borg – shared their stories before Battle got to go home, just 10 days after surgery.

“I feel like I’ve won the lottery,” said Battle, sitting in a wheelchair, her hands folded and a soft smile on her face. “I feel like my life is a new adventure.” […]

Family Medicine

UMMC Pediatrician Hannah Gay named to Time Magazine’s Time 100

TIME named HIV specialist Dr. Hannah Gay, UMMC associate professor of pediatrics, to the 2013 TIME 100, the magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. 

In caring for a newborn infected with HIV in 2010, Gay followed an atypical treatment regimen and functionally cured the baby. She and her colleagues, Dr. Deborah Persaud, Johns Hopkins Children’s Center virologist, and University of Massachusetts Medical School immunologist Dr. Katherine Luzuriaga, who were also named to the TIME 100 list, presented the child’s case report in March at a scientific meeting in Atlanta. The report is the world’s first to describe an HIV functional cure in an infant.

Gay said she is honored and wants the recognition to highlight the efforts of physicians and scientists worldwide working in HIV prevention, care and research. […]

Family Medicine

UMMC hosts annual meeting of Society of Black Academic Surgeons

More than 100 people are registered to attend the annual meeting of the Society of Black Academic Surgeons (SBAS), hosted this week, and for the first time, by the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) in Jackson.

The three-day event, set for Thursday through Saturday, will feature panel discussions and 30 original scientific presentations in classroom R-354 (upper amphitheatre) under the program heading “Advocacy, Access and Comparative Outcomes: Surgical Disparities in Health Care”.

Among the topics on tap are access to surgical care within the minority community, reducing health disparities and trends in obesity and diabetes. […]