Heart disease is the number one cause of death in women.
The American Heart Association says 1 in 3 women dies from the disease, and thatâs why February is American Heart Month.
Sadly, the news isnât surprising to Dr. Aysha Arshad, Medical Director of Cardiac Electrophysiology at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, âWomen are often busy with day to day tasks, taking care of others, taking care of their family. They neglect their own health until things become much worse for them.â
Every day, Dr. Arshad sees women who have heart issues which havenât been addressed, âThe data for heart failure and women who suffer heart attacks show they come in much sicker and theyâre much more difficult to treat because theyâve let so much time lapse.â
Part of the issue is womenâs heart attack symptoms can differ from menâs, âThey may not have crushing chest pains, they may have jaw or neck pain. Or maybe, be a little sweaty. Or perhaps, have a difference in exercise capacity,â explains Dr. Arshad.
The sooner a woman is diagnosed, the sooner treatment can begin.
Dr. Arshad says knowledge is power and offers this advice, âRecognize the early symptoms for heart disease, be a good advocate for your own cardiovascular health, follow up with your doctor should you develop any of those symptoms and know there are newer technologies that have developed that are simpler, more efficient and cosmetically better.â
Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center is helping people in their mission to be heart healthy, to do that, weâre inviting people to âKnow Your Numbers.â Individuals with prediabetes and type 2 diabetes are more likely to have high cholesterol, high blood pressure and be overweight. Knowing your numbers is a crucial step in assessing your risk of developing heart disease, as many times there are no symptoms. This event includes complimentary screening of blood pressure, calculation of body mass index (BMI,) measurement of cholesterol and HbA1c levels (blood sugar) and an optional, pocket EKG screening is available for $20.
Registration is required. To register, call 1-800-SENTARA.
Dr. Peter Bryce, a board certified Obstetrician Gynecologist (OB/GYN) has delivered thousands of babies in his nearly 40-year career.
âI have been delivering about 100 babies a year on average,â he explains.
If you add that up, thatâs approximately four thousand bundles of joy delivered in private practice and at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center.
âI have enjoyed every moment of these short years,â Dr. Bryce says smiling.
His patients have gone on to do numerous things, âOf these many babies, I have in turn, delivered many babies of these babies!â he explains.
Dr. Bryce had a full-circle moment of a different sort, when a baby he delivered 24 years ago, introduced herself to him as one of his newest co-workers.
Melissa Batitto, BSN, RN, joined the team in June 2017 as one of Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Centerâs newest neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) nurses. During that time, she had met Dr. Bryce, not knowing their connection.
âI actually met Dr. Bryce during my orientation,â Batitto recalls, âIâve had plenty of conversations with him. I would see him in the hall or when he was preparing for a C-section.â
Recently, Battito was talking with her mother. While the young nurse knew she was born at the hospital in 1993, that conversation revealed some new details.
âMy mom inquired if Dr. Bryce still worked here and then she told me, he delivered me!â
During Battitoâs next shift, she shared with a co-worker what she had learned. From there, they decided to seek out Dr. Bryce and disclose the unique connection, âHis reaction was priceless! Itâs not everyday people get to meet the doctor that delivered them!â
Team members were on hand for the big reveal and couldnât let the opportunity pass without capturing it digitally.
Itâs a moment they wonât soon forget. And for Batitto, itâs a unique way to start her career, âHere Iâm hired at the hospital where I was born and the doctor that delivered me happens to still be working here. It was an awesome experience!.â
To learn more about the Womenâs Health Center at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center and OB/GYN services near you, call 1-800-SENTARA or go to sentara.com.
WOODBRIDGE -- Today, Wednesday, January 17th, 2018, Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center officially unveiled a $2.6 million renovation of its Emergency Department.
Surrounded by doctors, nurses, members of the team and representatives from Prince William Countyâs EMS, hospital President Kathie Johnson helped cut the ribbon and usher in this new generation of emergency care at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center. The redesign and renovation of the 21,000-square-foot space features a revamp of patient rooms and storage areas, creating a clean, sleek, inviting space supporting streamlined services and exemplary patient care.
Lobby renovations will expedite the registration and triage process and allow our clinical staff to assess the severity of a patientâs ailments. Inside the Emergency Department doors, the open floor plan allows our nurses, doctors and staff to more easily see, monitor and respond to our patients.
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Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center is pleased to introduce the Foot & Ankle Program at Sentara.
The Program partners highly skilled physicians with state-of-the-art procedures, so patients will have a pathway to receive the right care for their foot and ankle health concerns, all while staying close to home for treatment.
The physicians which support the Foot & Ankle Program at Sentara perform a multitude of procedures, from ankle replacements and pediatric flat foot reconstructions to trailblazing minimally-invasive SubchondroplastyÂź Procedures which use stem cells and a liquid bone material to fill internal fractures and lesions. These high-tech procedures allow a shorter recovery which means less pain, fewer follow up appointments and less time away from work, ensuring patients can get back to their lives sooner.
âWeâre really excited and honored to be working with Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center to provide this level of care to patients,â says Dr. Vincent Bonini, Doctor of Podiatry Medicine, F.A.C.F.A.S.
Dr. Bonini is certified by the American Board of Foot and Ankle Surgery. He and his team have been based in Prince William County for the last 25 years. While the group treats traditional aliments, the field of podiatry has grown.
âWeâve become a very specific subset of orthopedics, at this point. Our roots are in the bunions and hammer toes, but with the advent of newer technology, weâve really branched out to all phases of orthopedics as it relates to foot and ankle,â explains Dr. Bonini.
Pain or injury in your foot or ankle can keep you from activities you enjoy. It may even be keeping you from simply walking. With 26 bones in each foot and 7 bones in each ankle, it can often be complicated to determine what is actually creating the pain. When conservative measures such as rest, anti-inflammatories or physical therapy are not offering relief, it’s probably time to see a specialist.
Whether itâs pain due to a chronic condition such as diabetes or arthritis, a congenital deformity, an overuse fracture, or an accidental/work related injury, our team will be able to connect you to the care you need, with both outpatient and inpatient services.
Dr. Bonini says foot and ankle discomfort and injuries shouldnât keep you from activities you enjoy, âDonât live with the pain, we can help right away.â
To be connected to the Foot & Ankle Program at Sentara or to find a podiatrist, call 1-800-SENTARA or search âFind a Providerâ at Sentara.com.
Newly renovated rooms, family birthing units and an open floor plan is transforming the patient experience for expectant mothers.
On Thursday, November 30, 2017, Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center officially launched its Womenâs Health Center. The hospital recently celebrated 45 years of serving the community. This latest development showcases Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Centerâs commitment to women and families.
âFor decades, weâve served the community as Womenâs and Childrenâs services. As we look towards the future, we are focused on the comprehensive needs of women in Northern Virginia. The new Womenâs Health Center provides the infrastructure we need to expand our services and care for women throughout their lifetime,â explains Kathie Johnson, President, Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center.
The new Womenâs Health Center offers 27 newly renovated rooms. These private rooms feature a contemporary, open floor plan with an ensuite bathroom, infant warming beds and room for family and friends, all in close proximity to nursing staff. State of the art nursing stations allow caregivers to monitor mothersâ labor and symptoms as they occur and allow immediate response. This, coupled with Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Centerâs level 2 NICU, supported by our partnership with Childrenâs National Health System, enables us to ensure 24/7, top of the line, neonatology care, all to benefit the tiniest members of our community.
âThe location of our NICU allows babies who require extra support to be cared for at a neonatal facility close to home. Our goal is to provide seamless, coordinated care to make this a positive experience for mother, child and family,â explains Johnson.
This full-service center supports our goal, which is to provide the highest quality of care. An extension of our Womenâs Health Center features access to a team of female Nurse Navigators specializing in Obstetrics, Cardiac, Orthopedics, Urology, Bariatrics and Oncology. This group of women clinicians understands and will support you through your health journey, with a full range of preventative health screenings, education program and support groups for every phase of your life.
âOur new name says to everyone, including the moms, that you and your family are first. It demonstrates our unique needs as women and how we need to make our health a priority,â adds Florence Pullo, RN, Interim Director, Womenâs Health Center at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center.
To find a physician to care for you, through every stage of your life, call 1-800-SENTARA.
Narcan is often used to "wash out" the effects of opioid use for someone who overdosed.
In the past year, 1,159 doses of the counteracting drug -- which is also an opioid -- were administered at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center to counteract the effects of heroin and other drugs.
That has prompted emergency department doctors Chinye Obidi to use words like "epidemic," and "overdose phenomenon."
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WOODBRIDGE -- Katey Gemmmell just wants you to STOP.
She's a registered nurse at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, and she's put together a new program called Project: STOP -- Speaking Out and Teaching Opioid Prevention.
On Thursday night, she'll join others at a community discussion held at the hospital on the epidemic that has become the opioid crisis not only in the U.S. but in our region.
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Forty-five years ago, Woodbridge looked like a different place.
"There was a little old house at the bottom of Jefferson Davis Highway and Opitz Boulevard where we bought chicken eggs. And there was probably two stoplights on all of two stop lights on Route 1 -- one at Marsumsco, and the other at Longview Drive," said Carol S. Shapiro, director of the Sentara Northern Virginia Wound Healing Center.
She was one of the founders of what was Potomac Hospital, which opened in 1972. On Thursday, the community gathered at what is today Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center to celebrate the hospital's anniversary during a celebration called "45 Years New."
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November is American Diabetes Management month and with more than 30 million people living with diabetes in the U.S., itâs no wonder the American Diabetes Association estimates at least seven million of those people, donât even realize theyâre living the disease.
Health organizations and those working within the field say the disease has reached epidemic portions. Itâs something the Sentara Diabetes Management Program team sees every day.
âThe numbers are increasing, both type one and two are on the rise,â says Registered Nurse and Certified Diabetes Educator Robyn Johanson, âIt is a chronic, lifelong illness that really requires the person to learn the skills to self-manage their diabetes. And with that, they need a lot of ongoing support and the necessary tools to do that successfully.â
Diabetes can be confusing
When you eat, your body turns food into sugars, or glucose. At that point, your pancreas is supposed to release insulin. Insulin serves as a âkeyâ to open your cells, to allow the glucose to enter — and allows you to use the glucose for energy. But with diabetes, this system does not work.
âDiabetes is a problem with your body using the sugar we need for energy, so someone with type one diabetes is unable to get that sugar out of their blood. People with type two, have a bit more difficulty doing so, because of a hormone called insulin. So type one needs to take insulin, because their body doesnât make any. Whereas type two diabetes, they tend to have trouble using that insulin. So clinically, itâs a lifelong management of controlling medicine, physical activity, healthy eating and monitoring blood sugar, as well,â explains Registered Dietitian and Certified Diabetes Educator Abbie Chesterson.
For more than 30 years, the team at the Sentara Diabetes Management Program has been helping patients understand and learn to live with their disease.
âOur patients come to us through physician referrals. We are a group of nurses, dietitians and community health workers who follow a standard set of blood sugar targets for American Diabetes Educators,â explains Team Coordinator Genevieve Thompson.
Thompson, a registered nurse and certified diabetes educator, oversees the team made up of three full-time and three part-time employees. While the group gets referrals from area doctors, itâs up to the patients to show up and make the commitment to make some changes. But, admitting thereâs a problem can be overwhelming for some just learning they have the disease.
âPeople feel like they failed. Their pancreases failed, the person hasnât failed,â says Johanson. âWhen you say that to somebody, they feel a lot better because they blame themselves.â
Within the Sentara Health System, Northern Virginia has the largest diabetes management program. Not only is this a densely populated region, itâs culturally diverse and those different cultures bring different diabetes management challenges. The team has gone out into the community and sees the type of food which is traditional for each culture.
âWe individualize it. If someone comes in from a Middle Eastern country, we have a list of typical Middle Eastern foods that we can talk about, because maybe theyâre not going to have hamburger buns and French fries. We try to make it as beneficial to the patient as can be,â explains Chesterson.
Some symptoms of diabetes include frequent urination, excessive thirst, nerve sensation changes, blurry vision and slow healing. But, not everyone has those traditional warning signs, and thatâs why community health members go out to the public.
The program, along with a grant from the Potomac Health Foundation has started doing pre-diabetes screenings over the last three years, more than a thousand people have been screened.
âEarly care and detection is so important. The positive side, when you detect it early you can work at preventing the progression of type two diabetes,â explains Community Health Educator, Johanna Segovia, MPH.
Regardless of the type of diabetes, this group is committed to caring. The team wants to empower people so they can live their healthiest life while managing their disease.
âPatients shouldnât be afraid to reach out and get help. If theyâre struggling, we can get them back on track and offer support,â explains Thompson.
Adds Chesterson, âEducation is really important if you donât know what to do it’s going to be even harder, so learn what you can do. Thatâs why weâre here.â
âHaving a chronic disease is very stressful and once you are you in control of it, a lot of that stress goes away because youâre managing it. Itâs not managing you,â adds Johanson.
If you have any questions about managing your diabetes, finding a diabetes support group or learning more about the pre-diabetes program, call 703-523-0590 or email: [email protected].
