Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This podcast is brought to you by MHA of Dutchess county and produced by CMJW Entertainment.
This episode of the Vital Women of Washington Heights is proudly sponsored by Levia Med Spa. The Vital Women of Washington Heights presents Beyond Hot Flashes and High Heels Fashion Show, a night to mingle and embrace the beauty and power of being a woman. The event takes place at the Salt Boutique Labs on 70 East Main Street, Wappinger Falls on Thursday, December 4th from 6 to 9pm the night will include an inspiring fashion show, hors d' oeuvres and specialty cocktails, local vendors and more. Not to mention, I'll be DJing. You can go to the link in the description or visit the QR code on your screen to get tickets for this fashionable and festive event.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: Hi everybody, this is Andrew o', Grady, CEO at Mental Health America of Dutchess county, coming to you from our new MHA studios, where Connor Walsh is now producing all of our social media. I'm so happy to be here and we're going to be right here in this spot. This Monday, November 24th from 2 to 4pm Michelle Barone and I from RED will be sitting here. We're gonna have guests on for two hours and we're gonna be holding a telethon. We're gonna be raising money, or videothon, I guess. We're gonna be raising money to fund gift cards for our clients here at MHA who can't afford food for the holiday season. So I'm hoping that you tune in, you put a little thing in your calendar and check us out live on that day. There'll be a way for you to donate. And if you see the feed, if you're, if you're sitting home and you're at work, you see the feed, share it. Share the live feed can get this word out and people can watch our show and hear what's going on. And you guys can all help out, make a donation. And we're gonna, we're gonna make a lot of people happy this holiday season because of your help. So please help us out. Look for us on Monday the 24th from 2 to 4. Hope this holiday. Support Mental Health America. MHA's annual wreath sale is back. Support Mental Health America of Dutchess county this holiday season by purchasing a beautiful fresh wreath for only $30.
Please pre order by November 19th to guarantee availability. Orders accepted while supplies last order online at mhaduchess.org wreath or call 845-473-2500 extension 1391 to order or schedule delivery Happy Holidays from MHA of Dutchess County.
[00:02:16] Speaker C: You're listening to the vital women of Washington Heights.
[00:02:26] Speaker D: Hello, everyone. My name is Iris Douglas and with me is my co host, Yvette o'. Sullivan.
[00:02:30] Speaker E: Hello, everyone.
[00:02:31] Speaker C: I hope you're having a beautiful day today.
[00:02:34] Speaker D: We are happy to say that the vital women of Washington Heights living in Dutchess county has the commissioner of health here.
[00:02:41] Speaker C: The health Commissioner.
[00:02:42] Speaker D: Commissioner, yes. Dr. Olivia. I don't want to mess this up, girl, because I don't. Santiago Rosado, welcome. We're so happy to have you here. We met you when we went to.
[00:02:54] Speaker C: The walkway over the Hudson during.
What was it? Cancer awareness month.
[00:02:58] Speaker D: Yes, that's right.
[00:02:59] Speaker E: Breast cancer.
[00:02:59] Speaker C: Breast Cancer awareness month. Yes.
[00:03:02] Speaker E: And it's lovely to be here. Thank you so much for having me. And I'm always excited to talk about our health department and all the great work that our staff does every single day. So thank you.
[00:03:11] Speaker C: Thank you for joining us today.
[00:03:12] Speaker D: Yeah, we're super excited about that because as you know, we are all about the community. We're from Washington Heights and it's all about building that community within the community to make sure everyone is safe and sound and healthy and aware and educated of what's going on, you know. So talk to us. Oh, wait, you got your pochin.
[00:03:31] Speaker C: You know, Dominicans and Puerto Ricans, when they get together, there's always some.
[00:03:37] Speaker E: Very important sometimes.
[00:03:39] Speaker C: But my bochinches are based on research, so I'm always curious as to what's happening in Dominican Republic. And I was like, I wonder if they have a health commissioner in Dominican Republic. They do not have a health commissioner, but they have a minister of health that runs, I guess, the whole department and has different people under his role.
So that was new for me to learn. Cool.
[00:04:00] Speaker D: That's pretty cool that, you know. So is a man that runs this. Like he's running the whole thing that's going on.
[00:04:05] Speaker C: It's a man running the whole health department in Dominican Republic. And here in Dutchess county we have a female.
[00:04:12] Speaker D: I'm really happy about that. And it's so funny a little bit about Santo Domingo because we were. I was talking to my sister today and this is very interesting and it's a little off the topic, but it's kind of in the topic too.
When children are born in Santo Domingo, they have to be. They have to be announced. And sometimes it takes about two or three months for them to be announced according to when their birthday is.
So sometimes I feel like. Are we like when you just said about that there is A commissioner. I'm happy to say that because Santo Domingo can be a little bit. Sometimes a little primitive. And I feel like. Is that still happening where people get were born in April and then they're announced that they were born in August? You know what I'm talking.
[00:04:47] Speaker C: I know they did that years ago, like with my one. One of my relatives birth certificates. We were just looking at it not too long ago, my daughter and I. And he was born in April, but he was announced like two months later. I do not know if they do that currently. I hope they have progressed.
And I don't know if that is the parent that delays going to announce a child to do the paperwork, unlike here, that as soon as the baby is born, right away they come to you in the hospital. So I'm not sure what the system really.
[00:05:18] Speaker E: I've heard of similar stories. In fact, I've heard of stories where somebody has birthdays because they have their real birthday and the date that they were registered.
And even, you know, where they have more than one name. Because mom said, you're gonna. We're gonna name this kid whatever name. And then. But the dad goes and registers the kid and changes the name. So. Yeah, strange. But, you know, I don't know if that's still happening. You know, again, this is. These are people that I know that.
[00:05:42] Speaker D: Are older, but so I'm happy to hear that there's a commissioner of health, because I think that's very important. So in the Heights, we used to go to 165th street, the medical center, you know, Columbia Presbyterian, and there was a little health, you know, used to get your shots and stuff. So is that what is how important it is for. For. For us, the community, to know where to get your shots, where to get your, you know, any flu shots you need, any vaccinations, where to get health when. When you need like a mammal or pap smear. How important is that for the community?
[00:06:12] Speaker C: That if you don't mind, that is a great question, but I would like our audience to learn a little bit about Dr. Livia.
[00:06:19] Speaker D: Where did you go to school?
[00:06:21] Speaker C: So please give us a little bit of.
Yeah. About me, about you, so we can get to know you better.
[00:06:27] Speaker E: Sure. Thank you.
[00:06:27] Speaker D: Thank you.
[00:06:29] Speaker E: So I was born in Puerto Rico, actually, and I moved here when I was about 11, right at the beginning of seventh grade.
But not here, not New York. Actually. A lot of. I think a lot of Puerto Ricans sort of assume, oh, it must be New York. But actually we ended up In Providence, R.I. of all places. So I grew up in Providence, went through high school there, and then went to Harvard for college. So for that period, I was living in the Boston area.
And then I. The reason I came to New York was to actually go to medical school at Columbia. So right there in Washington Heights, Right there in the neighborhood.
I absolutely loved my time in medical school in part because I was living in a Dominican barrio. Right. And I had access to food that I recognized as familiar. And, you know, I could go out and kind of blend into the neighborhood. Even though I was a medical student, A lot of the other medical students couldn't really blend in, but I felt like I really could. So it was a great time there, there.
And then I did my internship and my residency. I did my residency at Mount Sinai, which you do part of your time at Mount Sinai Manhattan, and part of the time at Elmhurst Hospital. A lot of people are more familiar with Elmhurst Pool.
It's in Queens. It's actually the most diverse zip code in the country, probably the world. Yep. There's, you know, something like 250 languages spoken within a, you know, five mile radius or something like that.
[00:07:50] Speaker C: Interesting.
[00:07:51] Speaker D: That's pretty amazing.
[00:07:52] Speaker E: So I absolutely love my time there also, because, you know, those are the. The lessons of being able to talk to anybody and, you know, try to figure out how to communicate, try to figure out how to educate people, because really, that's a lot of what medicine is and health care is.
I ended up practicing in emergency medicine. So my residency was in emergency medicine. I practiced emergency medicine. I've been practicing for 20 something years.
I very quickly realized that what I enjoyed the most was actually leadership positions, and not necessarily because I like to tell people what to do, although there's.
[00:08:27] Speaker D: A little bit of it.
[00:08:28] Speaker E: But primarily it was because I felt like when you're in a leadership position and you're in a position to make policies, you can actually have an impact on so many more people than on the one to one patient care relationship. And as much as I enjoy the one to one and as much as I like talking to people and individuals and families, I just felt like you could really multiply the impact and the, you know, improving a lot more people's lives than just the one patient you have in front of you. So that was always exciting. And in a way, it sort of also predicted my transition into public health, where instead of having one patient at a time, we really are thinking of the whole population as our patient and thinking about within that population, how can we prioritize Certain things. How can we make sure that, you know, we are. We are thinking about prevention, thinking about health promotion, engaging the community as a whole, because again, there's only a few of us. I mean, our department is. Is 100 and almost 120 people. But when you're thinking about, you know, making an impact on a county of 300,000, you know, it's really.
This is where it becomes really important for us to collaborate with others, including doing things like this, so that we can have more of an impact even and more of a presence. So. So that's a little bit about me, I guess. On the personal note, also, I'm married to another emergency physician who was my classmate at Columbia.
Yeah. Was like one of my college sweetheart. You start med school and you meet the person.
[00:09:59] Speaker D: Love affair in Washington Heights.
[00:10:00] Speaker E: Yes, it was.
And then. And we actually did, you know, we both did residency in New York City, so we got married during residency, and now we have two children. I have a daughter who's now in college and a son who's a junior in high school. So that's. That's me in a little nutshell.
[00:10:15] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:10:15] Speaker C: Well, thank you so much for sharing that. And going back to Iris's question, how do you define the health department and what do you guys do there? Exactly. Yeah.
[00:10:26] Speaker E: So we are. The Dutchess County Department of Health is A one of 58 local health departments in the state of New York.
Almost every county has their own health department. Not all, not 100%, but for the most part, that's. That's the case larger counties like Dutchess County. Dutchess is considered a large county in New York, have commissioners of health.
So a commissioner of health must have a doctor and, you know, must be a physician. And in addition, either have a master's in public health or have a background and residency training and board certification and preventive medicine. So that in my case, I got my master's in public health. And so that's. That's sort of how I became commissioner.
However, you know, so different. Different counties are slightly, you know, may vary a little bit from one county to the other in terms of how they're set up. But I think I would safely say that, you know, for the most part, health departments across all these different counties and even outside and when you go to other states are focused on very similar things.
The core public health services include things like immunizations. You know, you talked about vaccines. So that's a really important prevention portion of our work.
We are focused on communicable disease control and Prevention. Right. So think about our involvement, of course, with COVID We are involved in environmental health in very small counties because they're, you know, maybe resource constrained. They may use the resources of the state health department to manage their environmental health. So when we talk about environmental health, this is a lot of sort of the, you know, the basic things that you don't even really think about that much as being health related, but absolutely are so things like clean water, clean air, food that's being prepared appropriately and with regards to safe handling and preparation techniques and storage.
So we have a whole section of our department that's environmental health. And these are incredibly hardworking sanitarians and individuals that go out to make sure that the water is clean and the public water systems, that the restaurants are doing the right things in terms of, you know, doing what they need to do. We also have engineers who make sure that things are being built properly. Right. To support.
To support health and that, you know, we have. We have mitigated the possibility of contamination and things like that. So that's really a lot of that core public health work. In addition, health promotion and health education are super important to us.
And in particular because we recognize. And the State of New York, the New York State Department of Health, under. Under which we. Not. Maybe not under which we work. Right. So we work. We are under the county government, but we have sort of dotted lines to the state Department of Health. And the State Department of Health has been very clear that one of their goals is to eliminate health disparities. When we talk about health disparities, it's really thinking about how different parts of the population, different pockets of the population, may have worse health outcomes than others based on perhaps where they live or, you know, what kinds of social circumstances they have surrounding them.
So those are items that we're definitely focused on as well. Chronic disease, coming from a data perspective is, again, one of those things that we're really concerned about because that's what's causing premature deaths in our county.
So, so a lot of prevention, really a focus on prevention and also a focus on safety net. So to your point also earlier, you know, when people don't really know where to go or what to do, perhaps people don't have access to certain potential health services. You know, that's when we come in and that's when we're there. So I can talk more about that.
[00:14:15] Speaker D: I'm happy to hear that. And I. And I have a question regarding the immunization because my daughter called me today, literally right before I came she says, mommy, Athena went for her exam and I prolonged the immunization. I don't know if I should vaccinate her. I, I need to do my homework. I'm going to do a little bit more research. How do you feel about that?
[00:14:34] Speaker E: Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's, you know, I don't want to speak to. No, no, no, no situation.
[00:14:38] Speaker D: She wants me to guide her as well. So I want to know what are the pros and cons? Because that's important for me right now. Because she's like, mom, I need to know. I said, well, as a matter of fact, I'm going to be talking to someone today.
[00:14:48] Speaker C: But to add to that, tell Dr. Livia that Athena, Athena is Iris's granddaughter, her two year old granddaughter. However, she doesn't live in New York State. She lives in fl.
[00:14:58] Speaker D: Florida.
[00:14:59] Speaker C: So I'm not sure. Are there differences when it comes to the vaccination between Florida and New York?
[00:15:04] Speaker E: So the main differences would be in the ability of the child to attend school.
So in terms of Florida and New York, Florida has a lot of potential exemptions for parents to, who object to the regular vaccination schedule.
So they can sort of go around that New York is a lot more strict.
And so there are no, the only allowable exemptions for a child to be able to attend school would be a medical exemption. So if a child has had a very severe reaction to a certain type of vaccine, they might be sort of exempted from having to have another dose, for example.
So New York, the mandatory vaccines are really related to school attendance, to being able to attend school. And that involves, that includes most schools, even private schools as well. So part of the reason is that for those kids that do have those valid medical exemptions, it is super important that their classmates are vaccinated because they are not able to take a vaccine. And so if another child who may have, you know, no medical issue but you know, may be exposed to a disease now brings that disease into the classroom where that child who's not, who has no protection may be exposed, then, you know, that's, that's the problem.
As far as the schedules, you know, the schedules have been well studied and have been promulgated by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians. I know that there's been some concern expressed by parents about certain, certain timings.
But, you know, the guidelines have been developed for good reasons. Right. And they've been well studied. And so we do have good evidence that even sometimes it seems like oh, you know, you're getting three or four shots in one day. Is that too much?
The evidence seems to show that it's not too much, that most kids do very well with that.
And there isn't really a lot of evidence to show that it would be harmful. I know that recently there was a change that was implemented nationwide by the American the Committee on Immunization Practices, part of the cdc, where they did make a change to the MMRV recommendations. So that's the measles, mumps, rubella, and now varicella, all four in one product.
So they've made a recommendation to kind of split those for the first dose and then to give them together for additional doses. So there's been a little bit of separation. So they're still looking at the data as it's coming out to see what kind of makes sense.
[00:17:46] Speaker D: Thank you.
[00:17:47] Speaker C: I think that's a good recommendation, maybe to spread it out, because I think sometimes parents get nervous when they say, well, you know, they're getting three. They're getting five different immunizations at once. And I can understand where that, you.
[00:18:00] Speaker E: Know, that's exactly what it is.
[00:18:02] Speaker D: That's exactly his mom. She's not going to get sick. She. She doesn't do well when she gets all these shocks together. Yeah.
[00:18:08] Speaker E: So I think it's important to think about, you know, a lot of the reasons that people sometimes want to sort of weight is needle phobia. They don't want the kids to literally get that many pokes. But a lot of these products are combined, so it's still one shot. It's just that you're getting multiple products together.
But, you know, again, I think it's important to, you know, in my. In my world, it's really important to sort of listen to the best available evidence.
And certainly the guidelines that are currently published are based on the best available evidence. Does it mean it's going to be the best available evidence in five years or two years?
Not necessarily. Right. And that's the beauty of science, is that science requires that we be vigilant and open to what the science and what the actual data are telling us. And if there's data to say, well, maybe we need to. Maybe we can split these up, great. But if not, you know, I think there's also a lot of evidence to show that when people get the shots together, they. There's a lot more compliance. So people are more likely to sort of complete all the. All the things that they need to complete.
[00:19:10] Speaker C: That's true.
[00:19:11] Speaker E: Again, really important when we're talking about how we protect each other, because at the end of the day, we're still in community.
[00:19:16] Speaker D: Right, Absolutely.
That's more important.
[00:19:18] Speaker C: Thank you. Thank you for that.
[00:19:19] Speaker D: Thank you so much for that.
[00:19:20] Speaker C: Can you tell us a little bit about the STI program that the health department offers?
[00:19:25] Speaker E: Sure.
[00:19:25] Speaker C: I don't think a lot of people are aware that you offer that service.
[00:19:28] Speaker E: Absolutely. So. And sti, for those who may not know, is actually transmitted infections. Right.
So that is a kind of an offshoot of our communicable disease program.
And so focus specifically on those sexually transmitted infections.
There are alarming rates of transmission in Dutchess county. And for women, particularly young women, chlamydia cases are through the roof.
A lot of gonorrhea going around. And perhaps most tragically, we have seen increases in the rates of syphilis, a disease that had been eradicated as of the year 2000 in the state of New York.
[00:20:03] Speaker C: That's interesting.
[00:20:04] Speaker E: So there were zero cases for several years in the state of New York of syphilis. And now, unfortunately, it's coming back.
So we are seeing. And the really terrible thing about syphilis is that it can cause congenital syphilis. If a woman who's pregnant contracts the disease, she can pass that on to the fetus, and then the fetus could be affected and even potentially die as a result of that infection.
[00:20:30] Speaker C: Correct me if I'm mistaken. And also, if syphilis goes untreated, does it affect you eventually, mentally, in the long run?
[00:20:37] Speaker E: Yes, it has a lot of really dangerous effects. A lot of, you know, people with advanced syphilis can absolutely die from it.
So it can affect the heart, it can affect the brain, and it has.
It can affect the joints a lot of different things. But, you know, of course, we're mostly concerned about the brain and the heart, but. But again. And part of the. What we're trying to do is really address the transmission, because while healthcare takes care of the individual that may be infected, or we as a health department, are there to try to interrupt the transmission of the disease. And so we are looking at how do we get more education out there. Back in the 90s, when, you know, when I was training, we had HIV, and as a result of that, people started really paying more attention to the idea of safer sex and using condoms and things like that. And so that was. It was sort of in that time period where we saw syphilis really start dropping off, and we saw those numbers go to zero sort of in that environment.
[00:21:37] Speaker D: But that's interesting because I used to work at a doctor's office. Well, ever since I was like 14. People used to have to get tested for syphilis before they got a marriage license.
[00:21:45] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:21:45] Speaker D: That's how long ago that was. I remember people coming, they had to get make sure that they were negative before they even got married.
[00:21:52] Speaker E: Yeah. The problem is that even if they got married, there may still be transmission. Right. So I actually have to get a syphilis test before I got married to. I got married in Puerto Rico. And it's still a law there.
But, you know, with syphilis, unfortunately, the rates have been coming back up. I think part of what happened is now we have great medications. Thank goodness. Right. I mean, these are great things, great medications for HIV that can not only treat the HIV if you contract it, but can prevent the transmission of hiv. And I think a lot of people who might have avoided engaging in high risk sexual behavior in the 90s or early 2000s now feel like, oh, maybe they can because they have access to these medications. Unfortunately, those medications do not prevent the transmission of all these other diseases. Diseases. So what we're seeing is increasing rates in these other diseases even as HIV has remained flat or is dropping.
And unfortunately. So what we offer as a health department is we have our public health advisors who are the ones who investigate any cases that we have. So whenever we have information that there's been a positive case in the community, particularly syphilis and gonorrhea, we call the individual, our public health advisors call the individual, try to get a sexual history to make sure that we can contact any sexual contacts that that individual may have had to try to make sure that we get that person treated in case they may be infected as well.
We also offer the actual treatment, the diagnosis and treatment services in our clinic.
The Department of Health's clinic is located at 29 North Hamilton here in the city of Poughkeepsie.
So it's.
And it's open, you know, five days a week. In addition, we offer similar services through our mobile health unit, which is a huge 39 foot RV that we take.
[00:23:38] Speaker D: I'm excited because if I was down to talk about that mobile unit.
[00:23:41] Speaker C: Yes, I'm excited to hear more about the mobile unit. But before we move on to the mobile unit, is there data showing the age group who is contracting sti?
[00:23:54] Speaker E: It's a little bit of everything, perhaps you might expect.
We see a big numbers in chlamydia in young women. Chlamydia is much more likely to cause symptoms in women. Than it is in men. So even though the men get it too, they don't necessarily show up for, for testing or with symptoms.
So our numbers are reflective of who is actually getting tested. So young women, you know, under 30, somewhere in the teenage years to 30, very, very high rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea, more in like middle aged men, like men in their 30s, 40s.
But again, we see a spread sort of everywhere and syphilis is a little bit of everything.
So. But we are again most alarmingly seeing it in young women.
It used to be a, an infection that we were seeing more in the early 2000s, 2010, you know, the last decade, more in the, in the population of men that has sex with men. But we're now seeing it, you know, kind of spill over to the heterosexual population. And again, that's the concern with congenital syphilis specifically. So.
[00:25:02] Speaker D: Doctor, let me ask you something. When I went to school, high school, Washington Irving High School, we used to have a class where they used to talk about syphilis and they used to talk about, you know, sex and all that stuff and how to prevent it, how to take care of yourself. Teenage girls was an all girls school. Do they have that in schools now where they go and the counselor and they talk to these kids about taking care of themselves and being healthy and not getting syphilis?
[00:25:22] Speaker E: As I understand it, you know, the, so there are health, health curricular standards for every school district.
So they are, it's being taught. But like anything else, right. The quality and of that information and how it's getting to the kids is, you know, it's going to depend a lot on what kind of teacher you had. And were you paying attention because you're bored by the teacher or engaged by the teacher?
I think also, you know, the, the environment of health class can be, you know, people get the kid.
[00:25:53] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:25:54] Speaker E: And I say this because I have teenagers, of course, so I can, I can say this in particular. But you know, they'll start to get silly and then maybe not paying attention.
Teenagers, people in general, but teenagers specifically are not great at seeing themselves in the future.
[00:26:08] Speaker C: Right.
[00:26:08] Speaker E: And so there's a lot of that teenage, like that's not gonna happen to me like, you know, or oh, it's just this one time or, you know, so, so, and again, I don't, I don't mean to poo poo on teenagers because I think we all do this, right? We try to think, oh, that's going to be someone else or it's going to be Fine, this one time.
[00:26:24] Speaker C: Well, to your point, I mean when I was 16 I wasn't thinking about menopause and that's what I'm going through, so.
[00:26:31] Speaker E: That's right, yes. You don't see yourself in the future. Right. And you never see what's really going to happen.
[00:26:36] Speaker C: You don't. So I would like to ask you about tick borne disease. And to me this is a very important question because in 2009 when I used to do, and of course the word is escaping me now, but we used to go to the park to, to work out the boot camp and I got bit by a tick. However, I never found a tick, but then I develop a bullseye on this shoulder and not only was it Lyme's disease, but it was babiosis, babesiosis. I never know how to pronounce it correctly and it took me a long time to recuperate from that.
I hope that things have improved since 2009. Can you tell us a little bit about how the health department deals with technology improves?
[00:27:25] Speaker E: It's certainly gotten worse. So we're seeing a lot more tick borne illness and a lot more positive ticks whenever the state that we don't do this in our department, but the state that goes and like samples actual ticks and then test them to see, you know, what kinds of diseases they may be carrying.
So one of the things that we're seeing is that with, with changes in climate, for example, we're seeing warmer temperatures and you know, mosquitoes and ticks, their habitats used to be a lot more constrained. Right. Because of the cold, you know, the snow. But now we're seeing a lot less of that. And so the ticks are staying active for more of the year. It used to be that you could probably kind of be like, ah, you're fine from say October to March. That's no longer the case. We're seeing transmission and biting even into November, December and starting as early in some cases as, yeah, February, March, April. So you know, what used to be a shorter season that you needed to be concerned about is no longer. So that's part of the issue.
So yeah, so we're seeing Lyme disease, babesiosis, anaplasmosis is another tick borne illness and ehrlichiosis is another one you may have heard of. So there's multiple ones and, and then the other one that I always kind of warn people about also because it's not spread by the typical deer black legged tick, it's actually for the most part spread by like these Lone Star ticks, but sometimes even by like dog ticks. It's called Alpha Gal syndrome. I don't know if you've heard about that.
[00:28:56] Speaker C: I haven't heard about that one.
[00:28:57] Speaker E: So it makes you allergic to beef or meat.
[00:29:01] Speaker C: Pork.
[00:29:02] Speaker D: Sounds dangerous.
[00:29:03] Speaker E: Yeah. And we actually just had last week the first death as a result of the Alpha Gal syndrome and a man in New Jersey. So that had never been. It had not gotten to an anaphylactic sort of situation before, but now, or at least resulting in death, but we just had a death kind of come up. So. So it's certainly something to just be concerned about ticks in general. Like, if you see a tick on you, you. You know, one of the things that our department does is huge campaigns to get tick removal kits out in the community. Everybody loves our tick kits. And so they come with.
With a magnifying glass and a. That are attached to tweezers and instructions on how to pull it out properly. Make sure, um. And try to make sure that you get it out before it gets engorged. Right.
[00:29:48] Speaker C: Well, that was my situation. The tick never got engorged.
And that's why I've never noticed.
[00:29:54] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:29:54] Speaker C: That I got bit by a tick.
[00:29:56] Speaker E: And you might not have gotten bit. Did they tell you that, by the way, that where you get the rash is not necessarily where you got bit?
[00:30:02] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:30:03] Speaker E: So that would be one thing.
Yeah. I mean, so for the most part they may not. It may not have been huge or engorged, but for the most part, when we're seeing transmission of these diseases, the tick has been attached for at least 24 to 48 hours and sometimes even longer. So typically what's recommended is that if you're not sure, and it may be, you know, in that 24 plus hour mark that you, you seek medical attention so that you can receive prophylaxis. There's an antibiotic called doxycycline that as long as you're not allergic to it, is pretty much safe at any age.
And even one dose of it can prevent transmission of a lot of these illnesses. Not the Alpha Gal, but it helps.
[00:30:42] Speaker C: Well, thank you so much for that. Now we can move on to the mobile crisis. Not crisis units. The mobile health.
[00:30:48] Speaker D: Like, you're super busy girl.
[00:30:50] Speaker E: My days are very busy, but I kind of like it. They go quickly.
[00:30:53] Speaker D: I love it.
[00:30:53] Speaker E: Oh, well.
[00:30:54] Speaker D: But you're serving. You're serving, so it helps. You know, you're serving the community. So we definitely want. Talk to us about the mobile unit because we are excited about that we, we, we talked to you about it briefly when we met you, but it's the coolest.
[00:31:08] Speaker E: I, I'm very excited about it. Our mobile health unit is, as I mentioned, a 39 foot RV that has been, you know, outfitted specifically built to be a clinical space, a space where we could do health education.
And so we have in particular this year really taken it out around the county and thinking about how do we meet people where they are, quite literally is getting it out to areas of the county that we know are underserved, where there may be difficulty for people to access services, especially if they lack transportation. But even if they have it right, sometimes it's just that the services are so far that they may not really be able to, you know, get here before, after work or something like that. So that's been one of the things that we've really tried to do is establish a particular cadence so that people can predict when we're going to be in their area. And that way everyone's just sort of meet us when we're going to be there. Well, we've, we've tried to partner again, doing a lot of partnership with community collaborators because what we discovered is, as I like to say, we're not that sexy. And so, you know, if we just go somewhere and we advertise the mobile health unit is going to be there, we may not get as much uptake as we do if we coincide with something else that's already going on that.
[00:32:31] Speaker D: People have to partner up because that makes it better. Absolutely. And then people come.
[00:32:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:36] Speaker E: So what we've done is, you know, finding for example, food pantries because we know they're going to draw a little crowd. And in addition, it is precisely, a lot of times there's. The Venn diagram is almost a circle, right. Of like the people that we're trying to find in these underserved areas to make sure that they're aware of their resources that are available to them to directly, potentially provide some support in terms of healthcare.
Those are also the people that may have food insecurity and that are going to be on the line for the food pantries and, but also in addition, you know, anybody who just happens to be walking by. So part of what, what's kind of beautiful about this vehicle is that it's, you know, it's huge and it's colorful and it's beautiful. It's a very.
[00:33:16] Speaker D: People get curious. People get curious.
[00:33:17] Speaker E: It's almost like, I call it a traveling billboard. Right. About our services. So it really has been a great way for the community to get to know us this year. We're really excited. We're kind of parking it now because as the winter is coming, it doesn't really like the ice, as you can imagine.
[00:33:33] Speaker C: This, especially when you service the east side of the county.
[00:33:38] Speaker E: Yes.
[00:33:38] Speaker C: Those little hills and mountains getting down.
[00:33:41] Speaker E: Into, pulling and over. And Amenia is hard mountains.
[00:33:45] Speaker D: Yes, we know. We go to Poland.
[00:33:48] Speaker C: Well, you provide the mobile health unit for our friend Inia Jackson that she is the founder of Camino Alexito. And the people that she serves are very excited because they don't have transportation, and it's very difficult for them to receive medical care.
[00:34:05] Speaker D: That community is definitely challenged. Yvette and I are part of that organization, and we just.
[00:34:10] Speaker C: Just.
[00:34:10] Speaker D: We love working with her because she's all about community. So I'm glad that you guys, you know, are collaborating together.
It's exciting to see them. Like, how do you. How do you educate the people that we're. You're there and you. And you have this service.
[00:34:24] Speaker C: Do you.
[00:34:24] Speaker D: How do you make announcements? I mean, do you do it like social media?
[00:34:27] Speaker E: All of the above. Yeah. So social media, school districts, you know, our partners that are in the area, elected officials, anybody. We could get the word out. We've developed flyers. We put them in the delis.
[00:34:37] Speaker C: We.
[00:34:37] Speaker E: We try to really get it. Get the word out as much as possible.
And, you know, it seems to be working in terms of, you know, potentially drawing the people out.
But. But the main thing is exactly what you said. We're there. Even if we can't really help you from a clinical perspective, we're there to educate and connect you to resources. We are, you know, very good about finding what. What organization is working on what, and how do you connect with them and what might, you know, how. How could the public, you know, trying to speak to the public and. And talk to individuals and figure out what is it that you need? What is it that, you know, you need to know about?
We find, for example, mothers whose immigration status may be unclear, but who have children that they haven't really sought medical care for their children. And we're like, no, no, no. Your child can absolutely go seek medical care.
We want that child to make sure that they are taken care of.
So part of what we do also is to educate the individuals that we're meeting up in these communities so that they do connect with these services. We don't necessarily have to be the providers of the service, but we know what's out there, and a lot of times we're able to connect people to those resources.
[00:35:50] Speaker D: So that's important. That's very important.
[00:35:54] Speaker C: What would you say is your call of action for the community in general? How can we support better health? How can we support the health department? What can we do as regular citizens?
[00:36:09] Speaker D: Yes, I love that. Very good question.
[00:36:11] Speaker E: Yeah.
So I would say that, you know, in, in our, in. In our environment, in this country, in New York, a lot of when we think about health, it's like equals health care. And I would. I would challenge you and everybody to think of it a little bit different. Health is not health care. Right. Healthcare supports health, but it's not equal to health. And I think it's really important to think about health as being something you prot.
Promote and you can prevent. You know, the, the things that can impact your health. So to me, one of the things would be to really think about, you know, when, when. When we're talking to elected officials, when we're talking to the. The powers that be in the world. You know, I think, you know, a focus on prevention and on health promotion is really important because I think we spend a lot of money, a lot of energy trying to fix things after they're already broken. Absolutely. And suffering because they're broken. Right. And so are there ways to, you know, kind of pull back and think about preventing that, you know, rather than wait till somebody gets diabetes, thinking about their nutrition now from the time that they're children, so that we can build more resilient bodies that will not be as likely to then end up with diabetes. Right. And then we're not dealing with the kidney disease and the blindness and the heart disease that can ensue from the diabetes. So it's, it's really thinking about. About health a little bit differently and then having conversations to advocate for the things that can really help, which I think, and, and if started at a young age, I think it's going to be super powerful in terms of transforming, you know, our communities. So that's something that we're really excited about. We do have a Fit Duchess project that we're trying to engage people in and that is really focused on prevention through nutrition and physical activity for children and youth and building opportunities so we can essentially create a more resilient and healthier population from the outset instead of, again, trying to treat it after illness has already taken hold.
[00:38:20] Speaker D: What'd you say, girl?
After it's done, Superman doesn't want to be up there.
[00:38:25] Speaker C: What you're saying must have been very powerful, that it just like knocked the wind out of the shelves.
[00:38:32] Speaker E: I used to work for a company.
[00:38:33] Speaker D: Called Life Extension Institute and that was their focus on prevents, on preventing diseases.
Yeah.
[00:38:43] Speaker C: Our audience does not know what happened.
[00:38:45] Speaker D: I'm 62 years old. I do meditation, yoga and practice a lot of energy work.
[00:38:49] Speaker E: That's great.
[00:38:50] Speaker D: Yeah, thank you.
[00:38:51] Speaker C: The shelf at the new office just collapsed.
[00:38:55] Speaker D: That's okay.
[00:38:55] Speaker E: Hey, it's like they welcome.
[00:39:00] Speaker D: That's it.
[00:39:00] Speaker E: That's our welcome.
[00:39:01] Speaker C: Powerful women for Washington Heights.
[00:39:04] Speaker E: Trust in that anymore.
[00:39:04] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:39:05] Speaker E: Somebody upset at what I was saying?
[00:39:08] Speaker D: I have a question for you.
What inspired you to be who you are and want to serve the community the way you do and educate yourself so well to make sure that you became that leader because that's more important.
[00:39:21] Speaker C: Good question. Thank you.
[00:39:23] Speaker E: What inspired me? I mean, I think I, I always say when I was in high school, I did some volunteering in a hospital and what I realized was that they were calling me all over because I was originally supposed to be a candy striper and like fill up like water bottles and stuff. But then they realized that I spoke Spanish.
So very quickly. This is back in the late 80s, so very quickly. They gave me a pager back in the day, a pager. So whenever I was there volunteering, they gave me a pager and they would call me from all over to go and interpret for Spanish speaking patients. So I was 15 years old and here I am getting pulled all over the hospital, in the ER and on the floors, you know, all over the, to do this interpretation. And what I realized was what I loved the most was the emergency department. And the reason I did was because it was the place where it didn't matter how rich you were, how poor you were, how, you know, it didn't matter what your ethnicity was, what, it didn't matter anything, your age, your, you know, how much you knew, how much you didn't know. That's where everybody, it's a very sort of democratizing place where everybody's treated the same. And that was really an inspiration to me of how I wanted to sort of approach my career was that I, I, I don't subscribe to these ideas, like, oh, you know, you have this background, so I'm going to be respectful to you, but not to you. Like, I really feel like I love helping everybody. I love, you know, sort of lifting all the boats. It's like that, that tide that lifts all the boats. So from that perspective, I think that's what inspired me, like I said, to move even from the, the direct patient care the one to one to really want to do more because it was more satisfying and it was more exciting to me to think like, oh, we just implemented a really good policy that's really literally going to help not just my staff that works for me and the staff from the other departments, but all the patients that come through. And that's sort of what I have tried to focus on as my career has progressed is having as much of an impact trying to improve people's lives.
[00:41:25] Speaker C: As much as I love that you're approachable and that's what we liked about you when we met you on the walkway over there, Hudson, that you were so warm to us and we were standing there talking for 30 minutes.
So thank you for being so approachable and for just being, you know, so welcoming and warm personality. And due to that, are we going to announce that Dr. Olivia is going to attend our Beyond Hot Flashes and High Heels fashion show?
[00:41:54] Speaker D: Ladies, we got a fashion show and.
[00:41:56] Speaker C: She'S going to be the keynote speaker.
[00:41:57] Speaker D: We got a fashion show going on, if you don't know that. And Dr. Olivia is going to be there and it's going to be amazing because, you know, women are the CEOs and CFOs of the family. And just to have you there, just whatever comes up, whatever questions, whatever you want to talk about, it's just going to be an impact, you know, to unpack something that somebody needs to know at that time. It's going to be a wonderful exchange of women in power, just kind of having fun, showing some styles and just kind of just being playful actually. But we have, you know, Dr. Livia that's going to be there. We also have a up and coming designer from Wappinger's Falls. Her name is Sky. Beautiful, beautiful girl. And we have Yvettes, of course, talking about menopause.
[00:42:36] Speaker C: Talking about menopause.
[00:42:37] Speaker D: You gotta have that conversation. The heat and you have me talking about whatever. So I'm excited, you know, please, just, you know, just take a peep. We're, we're here. It's gonna be in a beautiful place. It's, it's, it's an amazing space.
[00:42:49] Speaker C: The Salt, the Salt boutique lab in the village of Wappinger falls.
[00:42:53] Speaker D: Yeah. With Dr. You know, Rihanna, Dr. Reina. Reina. Sorry, Dr. Reina and you know, Dr. Reina. Sorry. And she's amazing. She's beautiful. She's got a beautiful staff, you know, and it's all about educ.
How to stay beautiful and how to stay Zen within as well. And how to show your style. So. Yeah. Come and join us.
[00:43:10] Speaker C: Yeah. So with that being said, we're going to conclude our show. Thank you so much for being here with us today.
[00:43:17] Speaker E: I really appreciate it. Being here. Thank you.
[00:43:19] Speaker D: Thank you.
[00:43:19] Speaker C: And thank you so much to our producer, Connor Walsh, for always keeping us laughing.
[00:43:23] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:43:24] Speaker D: And our sponsor, Mental Health America. Thank you so much. Andrew o'. Grady. We do appreciate this wonderful space that you are providing for us so we can educate.
Thank you.
[00:43:33] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:43:34] Speaker A: This podcast is brought to you by MHA of Dutchess county and produced by CMJW Entertainment. Thank you once again to this episode's sponsor, Levia medspa.
