Coastal Healthcare Connect
Vol. 02 No. 4 | Summer 2020
Care Teams Tour Health Center Building
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group of care team members received a preview of where they will be working when they took a tour recently of the new Health Center under construction on the campus of Pen Bay Medical Center (PBMC). Led by Tim Hebert of Hebert Construction, the tour allowed team members to preview exam rooms, registration areas and waiting rooms. Paving has begun and work continues on siding the exterior of the building and drywall, painting, electrical and mechanical work inside the building. Hebert said the building is on schedule to be completed later this year in large part because the construction crew has adhered to strict safety measures around COVID-19, avoiding infection and therefore the need to close the job site. When the 42,000-square-foot building opens, it will house PBMC’s primary care practices, including Internal and Family Medicine, Pediatrics and Pediatric Physical and Occupational Therapy, Audiology and Speech Pathology, and the Ear, Nose and Throat practice. It also will provide space where specialists from the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital at Maine Medical Center can meet with patients in Rockport, reducing the need for children with special health needs to travel to Portland. The PBMC Health Center is being funded solely through philanthropic
Above, PBMC care team members walk in front of the finished facade of the new Health Center. Below right, they make their way through a partially finished corridor that leads to exam rooms on the building’s second floor.
support, including a $2 million gift from MaineHealth and a gift of $500,000 from the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital. To date, the Your Health. Our Future campaign has raised $12.5 of the $16.5 million needed to complete construction of the new building. If you are interested in learning more about the Health Center or campaign, please visit penbaywaldofoundation.org. Thank you for your continued support of our mission of making our communities the healthiest in America.
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Provider Profile
Mario Serafini, DO Interventional Pain Management
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You’ve expressed appreciation for the outdoors. How active are you? Dramatically less these days with a 4-year-old and an 18-month-old at home. We want to take our kayaks out but we’re wondering if a canoe might be better so we can take the children. When I first took up skiing, I wanted to be one of those people who straps the skis to their back, walks up the mountain and skiis back down through the trees. That’s incredibly hard thing to do. I’ll tell you that it pales in comparison to taking a 4-year-old to the Snow Bowl, with all of his gear, and trying to get on the lift.
ow do you define success? As Mario Serafini, DO, has learned, the answer is both complicated and as simple as listening to what matters most to his patients. Dr. Serafini practices out of the Pen Bay Physical Medicine & Interventional Pain Management at Pen Bay Medical Center (PBMC). He helps patients manage pain so they can get back to the activities that matter most to their lives, from gardening to picking up their grandchildren. Specialists in interventional pain management strive for opioid-free pain treatment that includes such procedures as joint injections, nerve blocks, spinal cord stimulation and peripheral nerve stimulation, among others. Dr. Mario Serafini’s office can be reached at 301-3600. #
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How does this inform how you work with patients? It’s relatively easy to measure pain. A patient gives us a number on a scale of 1 to 10 and we write it down. Easy. But when you talk to the patient more, you come to realize that it’s not really about the pain as much as it’s about loss – the loss of things and passions that they can no longer do. Because of the pain, they’re not able to garden, they’re not able to pick up their grandchildren. In that regard, my outdoor activities and my children give me important context; I know how much loss I would feel if I could no longer take my kids up Mount Battie. I can stand in a patient’s shoes and imagine their sense of loss.
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In college, you interned as a bond trader on Wall Street. Why did you shift your focus to medicine? I have always believed in doing good. At the time, I thought you could have this in the financial industries. It was in the 1980s and a very exciting time. But as I became entrenched in the financial services community, it seemed much less like I was doing good. I became disenchanted. So I applied to medical school. It fit my idealistic view of trying to help people.
What will a patient experience when they visit you? We’ll sit and talk for a while as we get to know one another. I want to hear about their pain, but I also want to hear about what they value most in their lives and what they want from me as a doctor. As we discuss treatment options, we ask, ‘This pain prevents me from doing this. Will the proposed intervention allow me to do it again?’ It’s a balancing act. We want to help people return to those activities that are most important to them. But we also want to protect them from unnecessary procedures that don’t have a reasonable risk-benefit profile.
Is there a moment that confirms your choice? I met with a retired lobsterman from one of the islands. He’s 90 and has many medical conditions and he takes care of his wife, who suffers from dementia. So what I had offered him was a very simple, straight-forward, non-exciting injection that I thought would bring him some relief to meet his goal of being able to continue caring for his wife at home. So one day he comes in for a follow-up appointment, and I ask him his percentage of pain relief and he says 30 percent, which normally is considered a therapeutic failure. And yet he is so happy because he is able to take care of his wife and some of the pain is gone, and for him that’s awesome! And it really helped to reset my understanding of how I help people.
How did you come to practice medicine in Maine? When my wife finished her medical training, we moved to Burlington, Vermont. After we had our second child, we moved to South Carolina to be near family. But the commute was long which meant we were seeing our children even less. Then my wife tells me, ‘Oh, I’ve applied for a position in Rockport, Maine, and they may have a position for you, too.’ My response was, Where are the boxes? Let’s start packing. 2
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PBMC Offers Overdose Reversal Drug Without Prescription
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ith overdose deaths up 7% in Maine last year, efforts by The Pharmacy at Pen Bay Medical Center (PBMC) to make the life-saving drug naloxone available without a prescription to anyone who wants it have never been more important. Naloxone, a simple nasal spray that does not provide a high, immediately reverses the effects of opioids and is used to help to those who are experiencing an opioid overdose. The goal of doing away with the need for a prescription is to make it easier for as many people as possible to carry the life-saving drug, whether or not they or someone they know takes opioids, said Kendra Emery, DO, a family medicine physician who oversees PBMC’s response to the opioid crisis as community health medical director. “In this crisis, none of us knows when we may have to respond to someone suffering an overdose, whether it be a loved one or a complete stranger. The more people who carry naloxone, the more lives we will save.” Dr. Emery stressed that “opioid overdoses can happen to anyone who is taking an opioid medication, particularly when taking it at higher doses. Overdoses can also occur in patients with opioid use disorder. There are other factors that contribute to an individual’s risk. I advise that if you have a prescription for
opioids, talk to you doctor about your risk factors. “I also encourage people to have naloxone on hand if they have concerns about a friend or family member,” Dr. Emery said. Purchasing naloxone at The Pharmacy at PBMC is a simple process, even with COVID-19 restrictions in place. The first step is to call The Pharmacy before you come into the hospital. It can be reached at 3018585. “Then, when you come into the hospital’s
main entrance, let the person at the screening station know that you want to speak to a pharmacist,” Tom Edge, PharmD, manager of retail pharmacy at PBMC said. “We’ll come out with your prescription.” Dispensing naloxone requires the recipient be trained to identify an overdose and administer the nasal spray version of the drug. To accommodate social distancing guidelines around COVID-19, Edge and his colleagues now conduct
the training over the telephone. “The COVID-19 crisis has required us to be a little bit creative,” Edge said. Many health insurances cover naloxone whether or not you are a patient, so you’ll want to bring your insurance card. If you don’t have insurance, The Pharmacy has arranged for options as low as $40. “If that price is still a struggle, come in and we’ll figure it out,” Edge said.
Free Dental Kits Keep Kids’ Teeth Healthy During COVID-19 Members of the Community Health team at PBMC and WCGH, above, recently assembled 3,200 oral health kits to be distributed in Knox and Waldo counties to children who receive free or reduced-price school lunches. Front to back: Deidre Dority, Adrienne Gallant and Rachael McCormick. Each kit contains toothbrush, toothpaste and floss. With many dentist offices still closed and others juggling a backlog due to COVID-19, it is harder than ever for many children to see a dentist or hygienist. The hope is that the oral hygiene kits will encourage them to take care of their teeth until their next appointment. PBMC and WCGH participated in collaboration with the Partnership for Children’s Oral Health. Funding for the project came from the United Ways of Aroostook, Eastern Maine, Mid Maine, Kennebec Valley, York, and the Tri-Valley Area; Hygienists for Humanity; Katahdin Trust; and Northeast Delta Dental.
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Virutal 5k To Raise Awareness, Money for Patient Assistance Fund an effort to encourage Ithenphysical activity and protect health of our community,
What better reason to do so than to support our community? We invite you to walk, jog or run wherever you are to honor family members, friends and
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Address service requested Coastal Healthcare Alliance 118 Northport Ave | P.O. Box 287 | Belfast, Maine 04915
Journey to Health is excited to host our first-ever virtual 5k. The Strides for Support virtual benefit 5k will honor those affected by cancer and provide support to the oncology patient assistance funds at Pen Bay Medical Center and Waldo County General Hospital. Although we will not be gathering in person, we are thrilled about the opportunity to celebrate, virtually, with cancer survivors, supporters, friends and families across Knox and Waldo counties. After weeks of being cooped up, we are all eager to get outside and move.
neighbors whose lives have been affected by cancer. As a virtual participant, you can choose a time and place to walk, run or be active (while social distancing) between July 19 and July 31, 2020. Simply send us a photo from your personal 5k to share your success and join our virtual gallery. There is a $30 registration fee for the 5k. Proceeds from the event and all additional contributions will directly benefit our oncology patients. If you would like to make an additional contribution, please call 301-3950. You can vsit journeytohealth.coursestorm.com to register.