Health News

Features

Prime Time for Ticks

Learn How to Protect Yourself From Lyme Disease by TIM CRAIG May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month, and as the warmer weather brings more family trips outdoors, now is a good time to be reminded about this tricky disease and how to protect yourself against it. Lyme disease is one of the most common…
A Hero’s Heart

Bartow Regional Nurse Talks About a Familiar Profession in an Unfamiliar Time by TERESA SCHIFFER For over a year now, our medical personnel have been on the front lines of an unprecedented battle, fighting a new type of enemy in the form of the novel coronavirus that we now call COVID-19. While researchers having been…
A Growing Healthcare Challenge

Nurse Staffing Study Provides Insight Into Shortage Across U.S. and Florida by HEATHER MACHOVINA The Avant Healthcare Professionals 2021 Trends in Nurse Staffing Study analyzes the status of registered nurse (RN) job vacancies in the U.S. and the overall welfare of RN staff. It evaluates the training of new nurses, compares the costs of outsourcing…

Editor’s Dose: Tips for minimizing back-to-school stress

IF YOU ARE LIKE ME, then come early July you were already thinking about preparations for the new school year. Parents and children in the community this year are getting ready extra early because Polk County public schools moved up their calendar by one week — day one of school is August 15.
Making the choice to breastfeed

THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH in Polk County (DOH-Polk) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) recognize August as Breastfeeding Awareness Month. This is a wonderful time of year to promote breastfeeding as a vital health activity and discuss the health benefits breastfeeding provides. Although every woman has their own…
Editor’s Dose: Keeping kids’ bodies and minds active this summer

WHEN I FIRST had the twins, my mom would say, “Have a schedule for them, or they’ll have a schedule for you.” Basically, she was cautioning that I’d better keep those little minds and bodies active, or chaos would inevitably ensue. Being a mother of eight children, I think she was speaking from personal experience.…