In medicine, small is beautiful

Community Conversations by Michael Abraham 

Elliot McAlister in his lab in Blacksburg, Va.

Elliot McAllister is pushing health care to a new level. The Blacksburg scientist is using a Star Trek like technology called microfluidics that shows promise to revolutionize medical diagnostics by making testing for a variety of illnesses cheap and fast, literally done by yourself at home. Imaging diagnosing cancer in your own body within 15 minutes for $20.

Microfluidics is the study of behavior of fluids through infinitesimally small micro- channels. Fluids like blood, saliva, and urine behave differently on a microfluidic scale than under normal conditions, and thus these new ways can be tracked and analyzed to show the condition of the human body. Elliot is using innovative 3-D printers of his own design and development to create this sub-sub-sub-miniature devices, literally from his garage/workshop at his home in the Merrimac community outside Blacksburg.

The son of a professor of microbiology, Elliot has a degree in Mechanical
Engineering from the University of New Hampshire and a Masters Degree in Materials Engineering from Virginia Tech. He began his career with a fledgling

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An Awesome story of horses and healing

Shanna Spangler and Zach star in the Awesome Gal trailer.

By Bill Kovarik

Reggie feared horses.

The 17 year old girl came from an abusive family, and she was fine, mucking out stalls and doing chores — so long as the horses kept their distance.

Awesome Gal, a rescued Tennessee Walker, cowered in her stall whenever Reggie or other people came near. Awesome had also been abused.

Both girl and horse worked on a farm with Deborah Ring, who watched, over the winter months, as an unlikely friendship evolved.

“I think the turning point came when Reggie was cleaning manure from a field,” Ring said. “Reggie was approached by other horses, and turned and ran, jumping over the fence.” Awesome Gal saw the horses threatening Reggie and galloped over to protect her, Ring said.

“She kept them all away until (Reggie) was finished.” Reggie was grateful and awestruck. “That’s when the relationship flourished,” Ring said.

It sounds like a heartwarming movie about a difficult subject, and that’s exactly what Ring started thinking. “I’ve often thought movies should be more family friendly,” Ring said. “And here this story just landed in our laps.”

Ring, who now owns a horse farm on the outskirts of Radford, Virginia, started working with a script writer a few years after Reggie and Awesome started healing together. Continue reading

Carilion was prepared for the worst

Community conversations by Michael Abraham

Bill Flattery, CEO of Carilion’s New River Valley Medical Center.

The plan, at first, was to be ready for a huge wave of COVID-19 patients, said Bill Flattery, CEO of Carilion’s New River Valley Medical Center. With his unique perspective on the current COVID-19 pandemic and the region’s medical community’s plans to keep us safe, Flattery is a key health leader in the region.

He began our conversation telling me why the initial response was targeted differently than hindsight would have dictated. “We planned for an influx of patients that never materialized. We increased in-patient capacity by about 40% and by 80% in our emergency department. Social distancing worked really well here; I can’t say enough good things about our citizen response. People did the things they needed to do. Google Data showed me that citizens of Montgomery County were staying at home.

“In some cases, they stayed away from the hospital even when they shouldn’t have. Our emergency department volume dropped by more than half. Our in-patient volume never went up.

“We stopped doing non-emergency procedures. One reason was there was no personal protective equipment and we couldn’t test patients for coronavirus before admitting them for other reasons.”

Carilion has a coverage area as far south as Galax and the North Carolina border and as far north as Lexington. Flattery’s hospital gets patients from the New River Valley and beyond. Continue reading

Coronavirus and the scientific view

Community conversations by Michael Abraham

Prof. Margie Lee (Virginia Tech photo)

Coronavirus is here to stay, according to Dr. Margie Lee, a Professor at Virginia  Tech’s Veterinary School, and we need to continue taking precautions like wearing  masks and social distancing. 

As a leading expert in microbiology, Margie knows what she’s talking about. And she’s worried that science has become politicized. 

As we look down the road a few months from now, she says, “There’s only three scenarios: it gets worse, it gets better, or it stays the same.

“The same means that we continue to minimize infections by keeping people separated to prevent transmission. That’s biological fact. R0 (pronounced “are-not”) is the term we use to describe how many people each infected person can infect. If R0 is 1, then one person infects one other. Anything less than 1 means the transmission rate is decreasing. If you

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New River nerds help Covid response

Jacob Martin, an engineering student at Virginia Tech, drops off a half dozen blue shield frames made on his 3D printer.

By Bill Kovarik 

The call went out on April 29: Anyone with a 3-D printer in the New River Valley, please contact Prof. Alex Leonessa or students at Virginia Tech.

By Thursday May 7, over 1,500 plastic shield frames had been collected at a drop-off point at the engineering department.  More were coming in by the hour, but at least 5,000 had been requested by NRV Carilion and Montgomery Lewis Gale hospitals, according to Jacob Martin, one of the engineering school student volunteers.

The frames are an essential part of the personal protective equipment used in treating COVID-19 in area hospitals.  While it’s easy to cut a new transparent plastic shield for the front,  a frame to hold the shield in place makes it far more protective and useful.

Arnav Garg, a Blacksburg High School student, said he became involved in the project through Tech’s covid response team. Garg is working with some of the engineering students on adaptations of 3D printable items for better ICU protection.

The frame designs are downloadable though the Virginia Tech website, and printable on 3-D units that take spools of plastic and turn them into useful and decorative objects.

Nurses at the Carilion NRV center are wearing 3-D printed face shield frames  (which are the red, blue and orange strips you see holding up the clear plastic shield). They are being made by volunteers in the region and collected at the Goodwin engineering building. (Virginia Tech photo)

Other voices:
Virginia Tech Seeks Community Help,” April 30, Roanoke Times.

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Knowing the Unknown Soldier

An Open Letter to my Hometown of Floyd Virginia

By Mara Robbins 

There were a lot of things I didn’t know before recent years brought racist flags out of people’s yards and basements and onto the streets of my hometown, and after the terrible shooting in Charleston where nine black people in a bible study group were murdered by Dylan  Roof. There were a lot of things I didn’t know before witnessing riot gear on the streets of my hometown when there was a “rally and ride for confederate pride” in early September while we still grieved the tragedy in Charlottesville. There were a lot of things I didn’t know before the death of George Floyd brought the realities of racism in America undeniably before the eyes of conscientious people everywhere.

Yet once I know? I cannot UN-know. 

There are a lot of things I didn’t know then and a lot of things I won’t share now because those who share them with me do so in trust that I won’t risk their safety Continue reading

Outcry is not enough

Photo by Ted Eytan, Creative Commons.

Opinion by  John Hopkins
Floyd County Democratic Pary chair

John Hopkins, Democratic party

Americans are right to protest when police abuse their power and take someone’s life in the process.

We are right to protest when obvious crimes are ignored. We are right to protest when our nation’s wealth is employed by law to diminish the weak and the voiceless.

We are right to protest when protest itself is treated as though it were unlawful.

Protest may wake the sleeping conscience, may rally the sympathetic bystander – and yet, protest taken to extreme will never carry the day. When the justified shout of “This is wrong” is lost in the smoke and rubble borne of reckless anger, society will rouse itself to save what property it can.

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Who’s an ‘Enemy of the People?

 

Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal took this photo during the battle of Iwo Jima in 1945.

By Bill Kovarik

Donald Trump claims that the press is the ‘enemy of the people.’  Let’s think about that.

Was Joe Rosenthal an ‘enemy of the people’ when he climbed Mount Suribachi  on Iwo Jima and came back with a photo of the US Marines putting up the Stars and Stripes?   The Associated Press photo ran in newspapers and magazines around the world on February 25, 1945.  It became so iconic, so loaded with meaning about sacrifice and service, that it would be adopted as the Marine Corps  monument in Washington DC.  Think about that.

Was John Hersey an enemy of the people when he wrote about the heroic struggle of a PT Boat commander to save his crew after his boat was destroyed in Continue reading

Lamour’s goes silver

By Becca Knicely

Laura.Lamours

Laura Lamoureaux and Ralph the Wonder Dog. Photo by Hannah Robertson.

At the young age of 12, Laura Lamoureux knew she wanted to be a business owner. As her Radford main street clothing and apparel store hits the 25 year anniversary mark — her silver anniversary — Laura looks back.

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Radford University sues over St. Albans

By Rehn West

St. Albans sanatorium has a long history in New River Valley, dating back more than one hundred years. But that history may be coming to an end.

The historic landmark is currently at the center of two lawsuits that could result in the demolition. Both lawsuits are between the Radford University Real Estate Foundation and St. Alban’s current owners – real estate company SHAH development.

Situated on a hill overlooking the New River, St. Albans was built in 1892 as a preparatory school for boys, though it’s most commonly known as a hospital for the mentally ill. The hospital was closed in the sixties, and the empty structure has since developed a reputation as a haunted house and a hotbed for paranormal activity.

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