From the Heart: Is this what normal feels like?

Wednesday, March 30, 2022 | Vol. 3, No. 3

Is this what normal feels like?

Just for a couple of seconds, stop what you’re doing, close your eyes and take a deep breath.

Feel that?

It feels an awful lot like normalcy, doesn’t it?

Obviously, a lot has changed in the past two years. Pandemics will do that. But, with omicron in apparent retreat, there’s no denying this spring holds more promise than the past two springs did.

The signs are everywhere. Yesterday (Tuesday, March 29), we had just two COVID-positive inpatients at our Covington hospital – a far cry from the hundred-plus we had at the pandemic’s height. Mask mandates are being lifted. Visitors restrictions at our Covington hospital have been eased.

Birds are singing. Azaleas are blooming. Crawfish are boiling. Jazz Fest is actually on track to happen for the first time since 2020.

Does all that mean we’re done with COVID? Probably not, according to Dr. Mike Hill, our in-house infectious disease guru. That being the case, you can rest assured St. Tammany Health System will stay as prepared as ever to protect our Northshore neighbors.

But in the meantime, we’ll also be breathing deeply – pollen be darned – and relishing the sweet sounds and smells of springtime in South Louisiana.

Here’s hoping you do, too.

Community Checkup with Joan Coffman

St. Tammany Health System has joined the Daisy Award recognition program for nurses, and it’s already got its first winner: Chief Nursing Officer Kerry Milton, who has been named the recipient of a lifetime achievement award. Learn about Kerry’s award and more in STHS President and CEO Joan Coffman’s monthly video checkup.

Watch video

Community checkup with Joan Coffman for March 2022

A man on a mission

Rock Kendrick won’t stop.

The nine-year member of the St. Tammany Hospital Foundation’s Board of Trustees left the board at the end of 2021, having served his limit of three three-year terms, including as board chairman in 2016 and ’17. But he’s not done yet.

Not by a long shot.

While others might be content to hang it up and slow things down, there’s too much the longtime respiratory therapist still has to do, more people he wants to help heal – and he’s willing to travel the world to do it, from Haiti to Uganda and beyond.

Joining the team

Dr. Vernon Palmisano, a board-certified family medicine practitioner with 33 years of experience and a special focus on vertigo treatment – and who also happens to be one heck of a table tennis player – has joined our primary care clinic in Mandeville.

Meet Dr. Palmisano

Elevating neuro care

STHS’s fleet of surgical robots is growing again. Earlier this month, the health system announced the purchase of an ExcelsiusGPS system, elevating the level of neurosurgery expertise close to home for Northshore residents.

You’re pregnant. Now what?

Preparing for a new baby can be exciting, but it can also be scary and nerve-wracking, too. To help, Parenting Center educator Juli Chastaine, a mother of twins, has tips for moms-to-be as they embark on their incredible new journey.

One more reason

With more than 60,000 babies born here since 1954, Northshore moms have all the reasons they need to choose STHS. And now they’ve got another, with our New Family Center earning the 2022 Louisiana Birth Ready Designation.

St. Tammany Health System