HJAR Jul/Aug 2021

22 JUL / AUG 2021  I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS   Healthcare Briefs Arkansas Hospice Launches Grief Support Podcast Arkansas Hospice recently launched a new podcast, “Speaking of Grief,” as an expansion of its community-based grief support during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first episode, “Don’t Fool with Grief,” premiered April 1, with new epi- sodes scheduled to be available on the first of each month. The podcast consists of frank conversations about death, loss, and grief presented by Arkan- sas Hospice Director of Bereavement Services Barbara Ross and bereavement specialists Jamie Boshears and Simone Brock. Episodes tackle topics and questions in a compassionate, and even humorous, manner. Candid conversations address how everyone’s journey of grief is unique to them, along with help for the listener to navi- gate their own path through loss. “The pandemic has made an impact on every- one, including those who have experienced grief due to non-COVID-19 related death,” said Ross, bereavement director for Arkansas Hospice. “Social distancing and isolation have wreaked havoc on families, funeral rituals, compounding so much grief and loss.” As a community service, Arkansas Hospice’s bereavement services are available to the gen- eral public, free of charge, as well as the families of Arkansas Hospice patients. Because of social distancing, traditional in-person grief support groups were put on hold last spring. As an alter- native, Arkansas Hospice launched a virtual grief support group via Zoom, called Telegrief, to pro- mote connecting with others who are grieving, as well as providing support through education, phone calls and other means to reduce isolation and promote healing. Podcast listeners can email their ques- tions and comments for consideration to contactus@arkansashospice.org. Arkansas Urology Announces NewClinical Director at Centerview Surgery Center Emily Sledge of Little Rock has joined Arkansas Urology’s Centerview Surgery Center as the new clinical director. Sledge graduated from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences with a bachelor of science and nursing in 2007 and began her nursing career at UAMS as an operating room nurse. Since 2007, Sledge has been an assistant clinical service manager for the operating room at UAMS serving as the department leader with a focus on urological, gynecological, and robotic services. From 2015-2021, she served as the Urol- ogy and Gynecology Service Leader in the Oper- ating Room at UAMS. In this role, she was the clinical expert and service coordinator for all uro- logical, gynecological, and robotic surgeries in the operating room of a level one trauma center. UAMS Researcher Awarded $1.7 million NIHGrant to Study Deadly Pathogen that Causes Severe Pneumonia The National Institute of Allergy and Infec- tious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded a five-year $1.7 million grant to a University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) researcher studying the pathogenesis of pulmonary infection. The UAMS laboratory run by Roger Pechous, PhD, an assistant professor in the College of Medicine’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology, is specifically interested in Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague and one of the deadliest pathogens known to man. Pechous was initially awarded $249,635 to enable him to gather data to justify the research, and that preliminary work prompted the NIH to recently upgrade the grant by providing an additional $1,496,382 to continue the research through 2026. “I’m interested in understanding the pro- gression of severe pneumonia, and this type of pneumonia is as severe as it gets,” Pechous said. Specifically, he’s interested in the bacteria that caused the bubonic plague, also known as the Black Death of the Middle Ages, and two other types of plague, including pneumonic plague, which affects the lungs. His lab studies how, once a pathogen enters the lung, it is able to cause an infection and avoid being killed by a person’s immune system. “It is somewhat applicable to SARS [Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, a viral respiratory disease caused by a coronavirus], in that it looks at how a pathogen avoids getting cleared ini- tially from the lungs, and more importantly, what is causing the failure of your immune system to control infection,” he said. His goal is to figure out how a person’s immune system stifles the invader once it gets in, and why in the case of some microbes this does not occur. AnushareddyMuddasani, MD, Joins CHI St. Vincent Primary Care Clinic in Hot Springs CHI St. Vincent announced that Anushareddy Muddasani, MD, has joined the team of primary care physicians at the CHI St. Vincent Primary Care Clinic in Hot Springs. “My main interest is keeping my patients out of the hospital,” said Muddasani. “I like to sit down with my patients and have real conversa- tion because understanding them and their situ- ation is core to maintaining a productive doctor- patient relationship over time.” Muddasani is a board-certified internal med- icine physician focused on preventative care, immunizations, and cancer screenings as well as addressing chronic patient conditions like Anushareddy Muddasani, MD Emily Sledge