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INDIANAPOLIS – Charles David Hodges Jr., M.D., a member of St. Francis Medical Group, has joined Plainfield Family Medicine.
He comes to St. Francis from Family Practice and Immediate Care of Zionsville and had been affiliated with Witham Memorial Hospital since 1998. Hodges also was associated with St. Vincent’s Village Family Physicians (1993-98), and Family Practice of MetroHealth (1992-93).
Hodges is board-certified in family practice and geriatrics and is a licensed marital family therapist.
He received a bachelor’s degree in history at Indiana University and his medical degree from the IU School of Medicine. He also has earned graduate degrees in counseling from Liberty University and Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary.
A Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians, Hodges was an intern at IU Hospital and completed a residency in family practice at St. Francis Hospital-Beech Grove.
Hodges joins Laura A. Johnson, M.D., at Plainfield Family Medicine.
Plainfield Family Medicine is located 315 Dan Jones Road, Suite 100 in the St. Francis-Plainfield Health Center, near the corner of U.S. 40 and Dan Jones Road.
INDIANAPOLIS – Cheryl Streeval, R.N., has been appointed as nurse navigator for the Lung Cancer Center at St. Francis Hospital & Health Centers.
She will assist lung cancer patients and their families in coordinating diagnostic appointments and physician visits, help them manage their symptoms, provide education, make patients aware of clinical trial availability and very importantly, easing patient anxiety.
Streeval joins two other nurses at St. Francis who are designated as navigators to help patients with colorectal and head and neck cancers.
Streeval comes to her new position from University of Cincinnati Physicians, where she was an oncology research nurse. She oversaw pharmaceutical clinical trials and worked closely with patients to schedule treatments, scans and labs. She previously worked at Oncology/Hematology Care of Cincinnati as an oncology infusion nurse.
A resident of Columbus, Ind., Streeval earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing at the University of Cincinnati College of Nursing.
The St. Francis Lung Cancer Center is a multidisciplinary group of physician specialists experienced in and dedicated to the prevention and treatment of lung cancers.
The physicians of the Lung Cancer Center meet regularly to review and discuss treatment plans, examine new developments in clinical and basic science that could be beneficial to patients, adhere to evidence-based guidelines and protocols for patient care, and seek to enroll patients in the latest clinical research protocols.
More information about St. Francis Cancer Care Services is at http://stfrancishospitals.org/cancer.
MOORESVILLE, Ind. – St. Francis Hospital-Mooresville and Safe Kids Morgan County are sponsoring “Have a Safe Kids Summer,” Saturday, May 3.
The event, which is free to the public, is from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and will be in the Family Medical Pavilion parking lot at St. Francis Hospital-Mooresville, 1201 Hadley Rd.
Trained safety staff from St. Francis and Safe Kids Morgan County will be on hand to provide car-seat safety inspections. Organizers also will measure youngsters attending the event for free bike helmets and life vests
For more information, call Toni Galyan at 834-5817.
INDIANAPOLIS – Radiation therapy at St. Francis Hospital & Health Centers is being delivered in a revolutionary way, providing physicians with more options and flexibility to precisely treat cancerous tissue.
It’s called TomoTherapy®, and it uses thousands of radiation beamlets delivered continuously 360 degrees around the patient.
Designed and built in the Midwest, the TomoTherapy unit at St. Francis is the first in use in central Indiana. Tomo means “slice” and since cancer is diagnosed looking at every angle, treatment can be given precisely to every slice with the help of computer assisted tomography (CT) scans generated by the TomoTherapy machine.
"St. Francis has recognized the need to provide the most precise treatment planning and delivery capabilities,” said Peter Garrett, M.D., medical director of oncology at St. Francis. "In patients we have treated to date, our expectations have been exceeded in the amount of healthy tissue that we can spare and by the quickness of the treatments, leading to a more convenient experience for the patients.”
Patients are treated with a helical mode of delivery (360 degrees of continuous treatment) which results in maximum dose delivered to the cancer site while sparing normal structures.
Patients are scanned before each treatment to confirm accuracy and then are targeted similar to a CT scan. The initial scan takes about five minutes and treatments, which are painless, begin immediately after the scan.
During a patient’s six-to-eight weeks of treatment, many physical changes can occur. Tumors shrink, organs move in the body and patients can gain or lose weight. This means initial treatment plans may be changed during therapy.
To accommodate these physical changes TomoTherapy uses an adaptive planning system. Since the TomoTherapy planning system is part of the overall unit, adjustments can be made to the original plan during the overall course of therapy, ensuring radiation delivery to the cancer immediately.
TomoTherapy is a complete package of treatment planning software, quality assurance tools, image acquisition and treatment delivery. Since all the data is in one system and not transferred between multiple systems, there is less risk of error.
Types of cancers ideally treated with TomoTherapy are prostate, head and neck and the central nervous system and all cranial tumors. All have critical normal tissues that are necessary to avoid yet require high doses of radiation for adequate treatment.”
The first patient treated with TomoTherapy was in 2003. More than 100 units are now being installed worldwide, according to TomoTherapy officials
More information about the Cancer Care Services program at St. Francis is at http://stfrancishospitals.org/cancer and at http://stfranciscancercare360.org. To learn more about TomoTherapy, go to www.tomotherapy.com.
INDIANAPOLIS – With Mother’s Day just around the corner, it’s clear the life of a mother is anything but a holiday: Taking care of kids, running errands, working straight through the day and skipping lunch. Women often are so busy taking care of others they forget to care for themselves, perhaps ignoring or being unaware of signs of their risk of heart disease.
That’s why the St. Francis Heart Center is offering "Heart Matters: What Every Woman Should Know About Heart Disease." The program, which is free to the public, is 6:30 p.m., Thursday, May 8.
Cardiologist Babu Doddapaneni, M.D., of the Indiana Heart Physicians is the featured presenter. He will discuss risk factors and heart disease, how women’s symptoms for a heart attack differ from men’s, less-invasive surgical procedures that benefit women, blood pressure and cholesterol, and how diet, weight and physical activity are important in preventing heart disease.
The program is at the Heart Center’s community center on the St. Francis Hospital-Indianapolis campus, 8111 S. Emerson Ave.
The program is free; registration is requested. To register online go to http://www.stfrancishospitals.org/Heart/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=38 or call (317) 782-4422.
More information about the St. Francis Heart Center is at http://www.stfrancishospitals.org/Heart.
INDIANAPOLIS – Charles David Hodges Jr., M.D., a member of St. Francis Medical Group, has joined Plainfield Family Medicine.
