My Telehealth Podcasts

As clinics and hospitals ask patients to stay home to limit exposure to the coronavirus, more mental health providers are turning to telehealth to close gaps between providers and their patients.

In his downtown Charleston office, Dr. David McSwain is getting ready for a conference call with dozens of pediatric telehealth experts from across the country. As the co-founder and lead investigator on SPROUT (Supporting Pediatric Research on Outcomes and Utilization of Telehealth), Dr. McSwain is bringing the group together to discuss how each hospital system is using telehealth to address the coronavirus pandemic.

As COVID-19 continues to spread around the world, doctors at the Medical University of South Carolina have spent much of the past few weeks reminding people to use common sense, and not to panic.

“If you think you are sick, the best thing to do is to stay home,” says Dr. Amanda Parks, an infectious disease specialist at MUSC. “For something like a respiratory virus, generally, what we’re going to do in the office or the ER is the same thing you’re going to do at home which is supportive care.”

Dr. Constance Guille is fighting the opioid epidemic in her own way. She is a psychologist from the Medical University of South Carolina, and was concerned with the effects that addiction has on both a mom's health and her infant's.

Dr. Josh Jackson found his calling in medical school, after his first experience with psychiatry.

“I really felt like I could connect with the patients on a different level than I could on some other specialties,” said Jackson.

He’s the chief resident in psychiatry at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, preparing for life after residency training when he’ll be a practicing psychiatrist. He says part of his training involved telehealth, using live video to conduct appointments with patients in remote parts of the state while he stayed in Columbia.

Andrea Robinson is a self-described workaholic. He says he took a lot of pride in his job leading a construction crew. When his doctor told him that he needed to slow down for the sake of his health, he didn’t want to listen.

“I was hard-headed and I kind of overdid it,” Robinson says. “My doctor was concerned for my health and he sent an email to my job and said I couldn’t do it no more.”

Edwyn Barnett is a firefighter at the North Charleston Fire Department. He and his team encounter traumatic events on a weekly basis. They never know what to expect or who might have been severely injured or killed. Barnett knows the severity of his job especially after having to respond to the death of one of his own classmates.

Ryan Rosenblatt is working toward his doctor of pharmacy degree at the Medical University of South Carolina. As part of the four-year plan, he has to go to clinics to treat patients. This is done with the supervision and guidance of a preceptor: an experienced pharmacist who serves as a mentor and helps students make the right judgment calls for patients.

Thomas Woods doesn’t remember exactly what happened during Labor Day football practice, but he’ll try to piece it together.

“I remember being on the ground,” Woods says, “and my coach asking me what was wrong and trying to explain that my head was hurting.”

Woods is a starting linebacker for The King’s Academy, a private school in Florence. After the big hit, coach Keith Rogers had teammates drive Thomas home and drop off his truck at his house.

Time is crucial for a traumatic brain injury especially for Annie Nichols who was four at the time of her accident. When she slipped and hit her head in the garage, her parents, Kelsey and Billy, didn’t think much of it. “It was a bad fall,” Billy said. “She cried, but it wasn’t the worst thing you’ve ever heard.” But later that day when Annie starting screaming in pain, they immediately rushed her to Tidelands Waccamaw Community Hospital in Murrells Inlet, where she had to be placed on a breathing machine to hold her airway open.

A group of health care providers including the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) received a $3.6 million grant to support large-scale research for telehealth in pediatric care.

The five-year grant will “support the development of telehealth research efforts, metric development, identification of best practices and the development of collaborative policy and advocacy materials across the country,” MUSC said in a news release.

“We don’t talk about addiction, we talk about recovery.” Dr. Victor Archambeau is tired of seeing the negative aspects of addiction plastered everywhere. The problem is evident particularly in his area, Horry County, which he says is “ground zero” for SC with over 100 overdose deaths in one year.

A new law that went into effect July 1 drastically changed the way advanced practice nurses can provide care in South Carolina.

Senate Bill 345, which Gov. Henry McMaster signed into law earlier this year, eliminated the 45-mile limit for advanced practice nurses (APRNs) to provide care. Prior to the new law, APRNs had to be within a 45-mile radius of a supervising physician in order to practice.

Dozens of students participate in an after-school program at Hopkins Elementary School in rural Richland County. After most of their classmates have gone home for the day, these kids go to the library. Plates, pasta shells, and measuring cups are scattered across the tables. And they’re focused on the TV.

Most of us who live in the United States have the ability to access some type of medical service. Hopefully, we wouldn’t be faced with the task of walking over 120 miles to receive care. For some people though, that is the only option. In Masindi, Uganda, if you don’t have transportation and have a medical emergency, you may never make it to the clinic in time much less be able to afford the services.