Summer Holidays 2016-17

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Early morning surfing. Earlier or later in the day is a great time for the sea as the sun is not so intense.

Hopefully you are all enjoying the beginning of the summer break with a safe Christmas and looking forward to the New Year. It has been another busy and successful year for the practice with our ongoing focus on quality and education. Two more  Nurses, Ngawai and Keri, completed the PRIME training course, spending a week in Hamilton to do this. This gives them fantastic theoretical and practical skills to assist the St. John ambulance when needed. In addition Jackie Morris is now an accredited Prescribing Nurse. Jackie completed her Masters Degree in Nursing and a Prescribing module some years back and with recent legislation changes is now authorised to prescribe a wide range of medication appropriate to managing Primary Care medical conditions.  When you make an appointment at Tarawera Medical Centre you are always seen by a fully qualified and experienced nurse or doctor. We do not expect our patients to discuss their personal issues with health care assistants before seeing a fully qualified health professional.

Tarawera Medical Centre will reopen on Wednesday 28 December and again be closed for the stat holidays over the New Year weekend. Please check that you have sufficient supplies of your medication if going away and use the email request form if you need a new prescription. t

Best wishes for the New Year. Travel safely and remember to be Sunsmart.

Spring has arrived

Tracy Wilson's lovely Spring garden

Tracy Wilson’s lovely Spring garden in front of Tarawera Medical Centre

Spring has well and truly arrived with a warm August bringing clouds of pollen. Thanks to talented nurse/garden wizard Tracy Wilson, the garden is in full bloom and looking lovely. Resident artist/receptionist Sara Morris has extended the Spring theme indoors with a bright poster promoting Cardiovascular Risk Assessments. After some dedicated hard work we are very pleased to have achieved the 90% target of completed CVRAs for eligible patients in our enrolled population.

Sara's colourful CVRA display surrounded by Spring Daffodils

Sara’s colourful CVRA display surrounded by Spring Daffodils

We have had a relatively mild winter with very little genuine influenza after a good uptake with the flu vaccines. We had a few epidemics of the usual winter colds and will no doubt have some more into Spring. We are seeing a lot of the usually allergy symptoms with the pollen so it you are troubled by this make an appointment and we can work out a plan for you depending on your specific symptoms. With the brighter and longer days it is a good time to remember the importance of covering up in the sun to reduce the risk of future skin cancer problems.

New PRIME trained nurses

Tracy Wilson and Shannin Howe at their PRIME course.

Tracy Wilson and Shannin Howe at their PRIME course.

Recently 2 of the Tarawera Medical Centre Nurses, Tracy Wilson and Shannin Howe, completed the 1 week initial PRIME training course in Hamilton. PRIME is a scheme where rural practitioners train and work with St. John to provide emergency care. Tarawera Medical Centre has always supported our local ambulance attending emergencies as we feel that this is an important part of being health care providers in the town. It is a significant commitment with staff having to sometimes leave busy clinics to deal with emergencies but patients are very understanding as they would appreciate the care in an emergency themselves. This is reflected in the grateful feedback that we get from patients that we have attended.

Tracy and Shannin had an enjoyable week learning practical skills and as was to be expected on the first day they were back at work we were called out twice on PRIME calls so that they could put their training into practice.

Immunisation Week

Shannin and Sarah with the Immunisation Week display in the waiting room

Shannin and Sarah with the Immunisation Week display in the waiting room

May 2-8th is Immunisation week and our resident artist, Sara Morris, with the help of Shannin Howe, has put up a display in the waiting room to highlight this. Immunisation Week is about raising awareness about the importance of immunisation to protect against serious illnesses. The theme of the 2016 Immunisation Week is Protecting baby begins at pregnancy. It has been great over the 27 years that we have been working with Kawerau families to see the dramatic drop in the incidence of illnesses like rubella and measles that were once regular epidemics to deal with and young doctors now have often never seen a clinical case of these illnesses. Since the introduction of haemophilus vaccine the cases of meningitis and ear infections have also dramatically dropped and the introduction of HPV vaccine will contribute to reduce future cases of cervical cancer..

See the Health Promotion Agency website for more information

Influenza Vaccines and Medical Student

Medical student, Logan Callesen, learns skin surgery skills with Dr. Tony Whitehead.

Medical student, Logan Callesen, learns skin surgery skills with Dr. Tony Whitehead.

A reminder that the Influenza vaccines are now available. As always they are free to those 65 and over and many others who have chronic health conditions. Drop in to see our friendly nurses to get your vaccination done in preparation for winter.

Tarawera Medical Centre has a long history of being a popular attachment for medical and nursing students who enjoy the friendly team environment with the opportunity to gain a wide range of experiences. 4th year Auckland Medical School student, Logan Callesen, has just completed a 2 week run with us and was very appreciative of the usual welcome and generosity of our patients and staff. He experienced the full range of GP consultations, Rest Home rounds, learned hands-on practical skin biopsy and suturing skills as well as seeing some advanced skin cancer surgery procedures, had exposure to occupational medicine as well as visiting a pharmacy and physio practice. Logan has a wide range of interests including mountain biking and music, and judging from the brownies he made for morning tea, is pretty useful in the kitchen too. His YouTube channel shows some of his musical skills.