Healthy families

PALMER — Mat-Su Regional Medical Center’s annual health fair now serves more than just women.

What was once an event associated with the hospital’s Healthy Woman program now has a variety of wellness and health care services to offer the whole family, according to public relations director Alan Craft. From 8 a.m. to noon on Saturday, hundreds perused dozens of vendor tables offering everything from free chapstick and candy to free flu shots and lab work.

“It’s one way to give back to the community … for folks who don’t have regular access to health care or health care facilities,” Craft said.

He said the hospital used to bring speakers in for the fair, but had to host them on the third floor where it was difficult to draw a significant audience from the first-floor festivities.

Now, though, each vendor has the opportunity to provide a little health education to each patron that passes by.

Advanced Nurse Practitioner Amy Johnson, representing John Boston Internal Medicine in Wasilla, said it was “nice to see what resources there are” for Valley patients, as a provider.

“There are a lot of things I need for my patients and we don’t always necessarily know where to find them,” she said.

Mat-Su Borough School District Instruction Coordinator Jana DePriest said the fair was particularly useful for her as the person who manages the district’s wellness grant.

“It’s amazing how many different booths are here,” she said, gathering information for her employees. “People really need to check this (fair) out, because there are a lot of people here willing to help.”

Personally, DePriest was impressed with the InBody Test provided by Wishing Wellness, a nutrition and weight maintenance clinic in downtown Palmer and the Mat-Su Regional Medical Plaza. The test takes less than five minutes and analyzes multiple aspects of body composition, including fat and muscle mass in each arm, leg and torso by applying an unnoticeable electric current to the thumbs and feet.

More than just monitoring weight, the test gives patients a number of indicators for “keeping yourself healthy,” DePriest said.

Wishing Wellness Advanced Nurse Practitioner Karen Gardner agreed, adding that there’s so much more to health than weight.

“My goal is to help people decrease their risk factors for chronic disease,” she said. “Weight loss is a side effect of that.”

In addition to experimenting with the InBody Test, fairgoers had the opportunity to try working with Mat-Su Regional’s new surgical “robots,” Mako and DaVinci, which Craft likened to video games.

Palmer resident Samantha Wallace said she “didn’t even realize” the hospital had such equipment at its disposal, assuming that Alaska was as “behind” in medical technology as it often is with other national trends. As a pre-nursing student at the University of Alaska Anchorage, Wallace was pleasantly surprised to find that was apparently not the case.

Orthopedic surgeon Adam Ellison tried DaVinci on for size at the fair on Saturday, attempting to unwrap a Starburst candy with the tiny robotic arms for the second time.

“I looked a lot better last year. It’s gotten tougher,” he joked.

Ellison said the DaVinci is used primarily for general surgery, whereas he specializes in shoulder surgery and prefers to do things directly by hand with scopes and such.

“The issue becomes … I couldn’t tell how much pressure I was putting on the Starburst, and (if) that becomes a blood vessel or a liver,” the stakes are higher, he said.

Still, many other surgeons prefer to work remotely, Ellison said, and are quite adept at using the device. In the end, it’s all about what the doctor is most comfortable with and what provides the patient with “the best possible outcome,” he said.

In many ways, that’s what the whole health fair seems to be about — offering a wide variety of health care options for as wide a variety of potential patients. Fairgoers could learn about the hospital’s new hand therapy program, healthier makeup options from an outside vendor, or the one and only allergy and asthma clinic in the Mat-Su Valley, staffed (at the fair) by women in lady bug and bumblebee costumes.

Female fairgoers also had the opportunity to take advantage of special services like the Mat-Su Regional mammography departments “Spa Saturdays,” which offer complementary manicures, massages and munchies to mammogram patients once a month (reservation required).

“A lot of women don’t get the opportunity to be pampered,” said mammographer Kandis Price, in explanation.

The next Spa Saturday is scheduled for Nov. 5 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Valley Radiation Therapy Center will also host its annual “Breastival” festival with Alaska Cancer Care Alliance at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center on Saturday, Oct. 29 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.