Charles Dowdy: We are glad to welcome on Dr. Torcson, chief medical officer at St. Tammany Health System. Good morning to you.
Dr. Torcson: Good morning, Charles. Thanks for the opportunity to be on with you this morning.
Charles: Real quick, just because I have asked this of everyone, we are going to talk about your professional responsibilities, (but), personally, how did you weather the storm?
Dr. Torcson: I appreciate you asking, and I am just glad I have amateur lumberjack skills. I live in a nicely wooded area just north of Covington. Fortunately, personally, the family and everybody did well but we were slightly de-forested as a result of Ida but certainly getting back to normal. Thanks for asking.
Charles: Very good. All right. Glad to hear it. As you were training for your medical career, I don’t think there is a system where they say, “First you are going to have a pandemic and then one of the worst hurricanes we have ever had will come in on the back side of that.” That is kind of, I hate the word unprecedented, but you know it is kind of crazy.
Dr. Torcson: Yes, it certainly is challenging. I think the way you have to approach this is recognizing that we have to stay open as a community hospital and be here to serve the community. So, we certainly have very well-planned disaster preparations. Our team was just amazing in responding and stepping up to the challenge – and, as you mentioned, coming on top of a pretty significant surge in COVID.
For the team to get geared up and just face the challenges of Ida was really pretty remarkable. And again, there is really no option. We are here to serve. We had plenty of patients in the hospital going into the storm. Of course, we had to take care of everybody during the storm. And then that post-hurricane recovery period is really challenging: Communication lines are down. People are not able to travel. The supply chain gets disrupted. You remember the gas shortages and all the things we dealt with. It just goes to show that careful planning really does help. I think as a health system we have been battle-tested from the time of Katrina up till now and I think we are doing a good job as far as serving the community.
Charles: I know we were talking about the storm, but in addition to the storm we had COVID. I am reading all this stuff that maybe we are seeing the back side of this latest surge. I am going to ask you: Is that the way you see it? And then: Are there future surges for us to be concerned about? Or are we finally kind of getting a handle on this thing?
Dr. Torcson: Yes, you know, August was very difficult. No doubt we went through a pretty significant fourth surge here in the community. There was one point in August where over 50% of the patients here in the hospital were being treated for COVID-related illness. So, if you think about it, the staff, the resources, the beds – everything we do here as the last line of defense in the pandemic was devoted to taking care of COVID.
As predicted, we have seen a downward trend in the number of cases beginning around Labor Day. We have not seen a post-Ida spike. If you follow the prediction models of what we are seeing based on the mask mandate that was put into effect back in August, I think St. Tammany Parish is in a pretty good position for now, and that is very gratifying to see.
So currently, today for example, we have 20 patients in the hospital that we are treating for COVID. Our peak was 114 back on August 6th. And as I mentioned, the trend is showing that the positivity rate is going down. I think more and more people are getting vaccinated, fortunately. So, we are in a good position at least for right now.
Charles: Give me your take on the booster shot, because we have talked about vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate a whole bunch, trying to get people to go get vaccinated. I was vaccinated and I think maybe at some point I am supposed to get a booster shot. So where are we with that?
Dr. Torcson: Yes, I hope that you and the audience appreciate that it is a bit of a fluid situation as data comes in. The latest recommendations I think are pretty clear: Anyone over 65 that was a previous recipient of the Pfizer-BioNTech messenger RNA vaccine should go ahead and get a booster. I think for the rest of us, it is just a matter of waiting for the data to come in. Knowing that either the two-shot regimen of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or the Moderna or the one-shot J&J is providing a very good protection against the virus.
Charles: We are talking to Dr. Torcson. He is chief medical officer at St. Tammany Health System. Doc, here is what I want to do: We are going to take a quick break and when we come back I want to see if you and I can talk for two or three minutes and not say Ida or COVID. Do you think that is possible?
Dr. Torcson: Let’s not do a drinking game with that, but we will certainly try.
Charles: Got the chief medical officer for St. Tammany Health System chatting with us, Dr. Torcson. I made a joke as we went to that break that we were going to try to do the next segment of the interview without using the words COVID and Ida. I guess my point was, Dr. Torcson, that boy we have talked about that a lot lately, and as important as those things are, it is equally important that we try in the medical world to get back to normal.
Dr. Torcson: Yes, great point. You know, I think of the consequences of all the disruption we have had over the last several months. We have seen a phenomenon that is a little bit alarming. People have been delaying care for routine conditions that can be prevented if diagnosed early and certainly be treated effectively. The thing that comes to mind is any type of cancer screening. Women having their mammograms. Men getting screening exams and cholesterol levels and that sort of thing. Treating high blood pressure. So we just want to make sure that we are fully open for business, have all the usual services that are available as part of a health system – and even expanded things to a degree, even with all the attention we have been focusing on COVID and the hurricane. So, I think that the message is, we are open for business and don’t hesitate to come in for routine healthcare.
Charles: I remember when all this started, we did a lot of tele medicine. Is that something that will sort of hang around do you think, Dr. Torcson? Or do you think we will get back to straight-up face-to-face.
Dr. Torcson: Yes, that is a great question. I think that as a result, we know that telemedicine is an innovation whose time has come. It was accelerated to some degree by just the quarantining from the pandemic. I think we have learned some pretty important lessons.
In many respects it can be as effective as in-person visits. That being said, like any new technology or innovation, there are going to be early adopters and people late to the game. So I think it is going to be a matter of adjustment and adoption both by patients and providers becoming more and more comfortable with the telemedicine visits. I think it is actually an exciting innovation that we hope is going to be accelerated by what we have been through, and I certainly think it is here to stay.
Charles: Let’s talk a little bit more about the current practices and what people need to be doing. You mentioned cancer. Are there other things that people have not been taking care of that we really need to say, “Alright, everybody, let’s get back to this, that or whatever it may be”?
Dr. Torcson: You know, there is a large part of our population, or a fair number of people, that have chronic diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure, asthma and elevated cholesterol. We just saw trends early on in the pandemic that these people were neglecting their health and the ongoing management and a lot of the self-care, clinical management of these different conditions, so they got worse, leading to some of the unfortunate outcomes like heart attacks and strokes that could have been prevented.
I think the first message is to make sure people get back in touch with their primary care physician or whatever provider is managing their chronic condition -- be sure and not neglect their own health. The second part is that we did have to curtail some activities here at the hospital because of the volume of COVID patients back in August and all of the resources we were devoting. I just want it to be known, to the public at large, that we are fully open for business. The Emergency Department, our clinics, the operating rooms, our surgeons – everybody is eager and excited to get back to normal. We have the staff. We have the supplies. I think there should not be any hesitation to make a contact with St. Tammany Health System to receive your healthcare.
Charles: So what if somebody did have an elective procedure maybe they were considering doing or an appointment for something that did get pushed back. Are you guys reaching out to them or do they need to reach out to you in terms of getting that rescheduled?
Dr. Torcson: Yes, you know to whatever degree we can we have been very pro-active about addressing that backlog. But I would encourage any of your listeners, anyone hearing to make sure if you haven’t heard from us, we want to please make it really easy for people to get in and get the care that they need.
Just a point about elective surgery: Anything that is elective after a certain time period becomes emergency, so we want to address it while it is still at that elective stage. I think we have the capacity, and everybody is ready before the end of the year to get as much of that backlog addressed as possible.
Charles: You talked about all kinds of things, Dr. Torcson. So, I am curious where you want to go next. I know there was some robotics news that you wanted to share. Do you want to do that?
Dr. Torcson: Yes. You know, even while we have been dealing with all the crisis management over the past several months, I think St. Tammany has been able to keep a focus on innovation and technology. We are very pleased that we are going to be offering a full range of robotic surgical procedures in addition to what we currently been doing in urology, GYN and general surgery, and orthopedics. Expanding to spinal surgery and neurosurgical procedures, we are going to be a new recipient of a Globus robot. We have got just awesome surgeons who are going to be using this technology, bringing the most advanced surgical techniques that are available here at the health system within the next few months.
Additionally, October is going to be a month focused on breast cancer and breast health awareness. We have got a full range of services at our Women’s Pavilion, including designated breast mammographers and our breast surgeon, Dr. Angela Buonagura. (They) offer a full range for women’s health – a center for comprehensive breast care that is really second to none, I think, in the Southeast United States. I mean, it is really a pretty advanced and awesome level of service.
As I mentioned, October is going to be a United in Pink month with a focus on breast cancer screening. In order to facilitate that we have our Be Well Bus, which you are going to see driving around the region. We are actually able to go out and do mammogram screening procedures in … different public gatherings so that we can bring that important screening directly to the public. People don’t have to take time off to come into the health system.
Charles: What about events? As far as October, I usually think about Monster Mash. You guys going to be able to pull that off?
Dr. Torcson: Yep, you read my mind. Monster Mash will be in the Bogue Falaya Park as usual on Oct. 23 benefiting the Parenting Center. That has become a very much looked-forward-to event here in the community, so that is planned as scheduled on Oct. 23.
Charles: Alright, what have I missed, Dr. Torcson? Anything else you wanted to talk about?
Dr. Torcson: Well, I don’t want to end on a controversial note, but I just want to say something about vaccines post-Hurricane Ida: There are a lot of rusty nails out there, so people get your tetanus shot – and while you’re at it, why not get a flu shot? It’s that time of year. And ongoing efforts to vaccinate all of our friends and neighbors in the community for COVID.
Charles: Alright, good stuff from Dr. Torcson and Tim with St. Tammany Health System. We thank you for your time today. We will talk to you again real soon.
Dr. Torcson: Thank you, Charles.