Page 2 - Jim Ware News Today

Jim Ware Free Press Correspondent The recent accreditation of UNC Lenoir Health Care’s bariatric surgery center as a comprehensive center is a point of pride not only for the hospital, but for bariatric surgeons Dr. Charles Moore and Dr. Joel Rose. The designation is the highest level of accreditation offered by the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, Moore said. “It ensures that there’s a level of competence, that there’s a level of quality that this program has now a...

The only contact most patients at CarolinaEast Medical Center have with hospital laboratory staff is when phlebotomists stop by their rooms to draw blood for testing. The lab’s 65 employees, including two pathologists, perform more than 1.5 million tests per year in the areas of chemistry, hematology, microbiology, molecular PCR, transfusion services, cytology, histology, and anatomic pathology. “Each one of those areas is a specialized area, so we do different testing in those departments ...

What looked mysterious in the skies above the Wilmington area around 6 a.m. Friday wasnt a plane or a meteor.  A SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft took off from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida Friday morning, beginning its six-month stay in space. It wasnt long after the launch that many on the East Coast could spot the shuttle. According to a report from the Associated Press, SpaceX launched four astronauts into orbit Friday from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida using a recycled rocke...

Occupational therapists and OT assistants at CarolinaEast Medical Center have an identity crisis. Laura Obregon, one of eight occupational therapists at the hospital, said people frequently confuse physical therapy and occupational therapy. “A lot of people think we find jobs for people,” Obregon said. “The goal of our discipline is to help patients get back to doing what their occupation or job was before, whether they were working full time, or they’re retired at home with hobbies and...

Since COVID-19 hit home last spring, doctors and nurses at CarolinaEast Medical Center have been on the medical front dealing with the crisis. Behind the scenes, in the hospital’s business offices, billers and patient counselors also are dealing with the crisis of patients suddenly unemployed and unable to pay their bills, a crisis compounded by ever-changing medical billing codes related to the pandemic. Making matters even worse, patients accustomed to walking into the hospital to speak fac...

CarolinaEast Medical Center recently acquired the latest and most advanced robotic-assisted surgery system from da Vinci, a leader in the field. Dr. Ryan Holland, a urologist with CarolinaEast Urology in New Bern, was the first to operate with the new da Vinci Xi robotic-assisted surgery system at CarolinaEast. Holland performed a prostatectomy, a surgery to remove all or part of the prostate gland, on a patient with prostate cancer. CarolinaEast previously used the da Vinci Si robotic-assisted...

Ed Fulcher, 90, a lifelong resident of Morehead City, works every day in his home shop building model boats for sale. About a year ago, Fulcher noticed he couldn’t work in his shop more than 15 minutes without taking a break. He could only walk 20 or 30 feet before he was out of breath. His doctor in Morehead City referred him to Dr. Scott Sample at CarolinaEast Medical Center who, along with Dr. Michael Halligan, performed a transcatheter aortic valve replacement on Fulcher. The procedure, k...