Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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Last weekend while shopping in a Colfax thrift store with my friend, I realized that I had left my wallet at home. I found a booklet on gardens for one dollar and asked my friend for a dollar. Although she did have her wallet with her, she had no cash, so back went the booklet to its bin. As I began to head towards the exit, a masked stranger held out his hand and said Merry Christmas. In his hand was a dollar bill. He was insistent that I take it and buy the booklet. What a generous and...
In early 2020 I traveled to Vietnam and Cambodia. My trip began with uncertainty because of the proximity of my destinations to China where COVID19 began, and the first COVID19 cases were just being identified in the USA. While I was in Vietnam COVID19 disease was declared to be a pandemic (infection occurring worldwide). The Vietnamese were already being educated by their government to practice good hand hygiene and to wear masks, which was already common in Asia. When I returned to the USA a...
Recently, one of my former patients stopped by for a visit. He and his wife loved visiting the Palouse. This was their first visit to the area and despite being experienced international travelers, they were enchanted by the autumn beauty of the Palouse. We wanted to go out for lunch, however, we could not find any outdoor dining in the cooler weather, so we went to one of my favorite restaurants, and placed an order to go. We took our order to the car and safely ate our food in the parking lot...
Hospitals are expected to deliver minimum standards of care to be accredited and eligible to bill Medicare. These standards of care are based on scientific evidence that is important for delivering safe and high-quality care. Idaho and Alaska recently activated Crisis Standards of Care for their hospitals to follow. These are guidelines for hospitals to follow when they cannot deliver services and provide minimum standards of care. This means they must ration care, which is a rare occurrence in...
It is human nature to think of risk in terms of how it pertains to us as individuals. It is understandable how one might think that their own risk is very low of being infected by SARS COV-2 virus, the virus that causes COVID19 disease, when only 10% of those who become infected in the USA develop symptoms severe enough to be hospitalized. An individual may also believe that their own risk is very low if they are generally healthy, not obese, not elderly, not a diabetic, or do not have other...
I was in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 11, 2001 attending a medical conference. On that morning while walking to my first session of the day, I noticed a large group of people gathered around a large screen TV. I joined the group and in horror watched a plane fly into one of the World Trade Center's towers. Everyone was numb. There was complete silence. I turned around and went back to my hotel room to where my husband was. We turned on the TV and began to watch. Soon, there was an emergency...
Viruses are smaller than the microscope can see. They are infectious agents that replicate only inside the living cells of an organism. Organisms are classified as multicellular animals, plants, fungi, and unicellular microorganisms such as bacteria. Humans are multicellular animals. Viruses are not considered to be living organisms, but their existence is dependent on infecting living organisms, entering their cells and forcing the cells to produce thousands of copies of itself. This is how...