Health/Medical

Hot summer temperatures preceded the official start of the season last week. So it’s important to protect yourself while enjoying outdoor activities.  With more, here’s Omaha Public Radio’s Cheril Lee…

The VA of Nebraska-western Iowa plans to add 16 additional personnel to provide mental health care to veterans.

It’s part of a nationwide initiative by the VA to add 1,600 mental health clinicians nationwide.

What can people do to render aid before the ambulance arrives?  Metro Community College’s new Trauma First Response class provides the training to help answer that question.  

MCC’s Fremont campus is offering numerous eight-hour courses in Trauma First Response this summer.  Craig Jacobus, EMS Program Coordinator for the Fremont campus, says the classes are geared toward the non-traditional first responder. 

He says the courses take complex information and put it at a level that is immediately applicable.  Jacobus says this is not a sit down class.

Six recent cases of flesh eating bacteria are not connected, according to the Director of The Nebraska Medical Center’s Hyperbaric Oxygen Unit.

Dr. Jeff Cooper says all six individuals were infected with different organisms.  He says though some individuals, such as those with diabetes, those who smoke, and the obese are more susceptible to flesh eating bacteria, contracting a virus is largely a matter of bad luck.  

The director of UNMC’s Adult Cystic Fibrosis program says he’s excited about a new treatment called Kalydeco.

Dr. Peter J. Murphy says Kalydeco is a drug that specifically targets a certain class of genetic mutation that causes cystic fibrosis in some patients.  Cystic fibrosis is a disease that primarily affects the lungs, with thick secretions that may sometimes become infected and make it difficult for patients to breathe.