Hospital News

After a hiatus of more than a year, Alton Memorial Hospital is resuming its free monthly skin cancer screenings in partnership with Washington University Physicians of Illinois Inc.The screenings will be held, by appointment only, from 4-6 p.m. on the fourth Tuesday of every month, with the first one held April 27. Call 800-392-0936 to reserve your spot. The screenings will be held in Suite 101 of Medical Office Building A on the AMH campus.

Alton Memorial Health Services Foundation raised $10,295 to support cancer patients at Alton Memorial Hospital through a project where donors purchased banners that were put together to form a 101-foot purple ribbon. The donations go to the Foundation’s Extra Mile and You’ve Got a Friend funds, which help patients who experience financial hardships as a result of their diagnosis or treatment.

The Alton Memorial Hospital Emergency Medical Services (EMS) team is aiming to reduce hospital readmissions by instituting the Mobile Integrated Health (MIH) Community Paramedic Program. The MIH program – the only such hospital-based EMS program in this part of the state -- is completely free of charge to patients, and is referral-based by providers to ensure that only chronically ill, high-risk patients are enrolled

Ruth Kvistad, an EMT with Alton Memorial Hospital’s EMS team since November 2020, has even loftier goals. She graduated cum laude from the University of Missouri–St. Louis  last year with a BA in philosophy and has also completed premed studies. Ruth has been accepted into the MD/JD (Juris Doctor) program at Southern Illinois University. But her admiration for EMTs is firm thanks to an unforgettable experience as a young girl.

Medicine hardly seemed like a calling for Brian Fogarty when he was finishing high school in 2011. But the Alton Memorial Hospital paramedic has learned things about himself he never imagined and is now on the way to medical school.

Terrea Harper, a peer recovery specialist in the Warm Hand Off program of AMH's Center for Behavioral and Addiction Medicine unit, was just doing her job Oct. 27 as she helped a patient in the Emergency Room. But those few hours together impacted Shamyria Wingate so much that she named her baby after Terrea when she was born in January.

Colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. The lifetime risk of developing colon cancer is as much as 4.3 percent in the general population and higher if you have a family history of the disease. Colon cancer can be curable if detected early, as pre-cancerous lesions can be removed during a colonoscopy. David Henkhaus of Alton is one who knows about this, from both a positive and negative point of view.

Alton Memorial Hospital's Women's & Infants unit is welcoming expectant mothers back to class! All of the in-person childbirth classes that had to be suspended when the COVID-19 pandemic began will be returning starting in late March. To register, call 800-392-0936 or go HERE.

Beth Rull saw some positives in COVID-19, which is quite remarkable considering that the past year has been the most challenging health year of her life – and very little of it had to do with the pandemic. She went through a double mastectomy and followed up with radiation oncology treatment at Alton Memorial Hospital -- and was very pleased with the care she received.

Urology has long been a male-dominated medical specialty. But Washington University has made the addition of a female urologic nurse practitioner on the Alton Memorial Hospital campus. Krista Ludwig, MSN, ANP, FNP-BC, has joined urologic surgeon Arjun Sivaraman, MD, at the Washington University Urologic Surgery office located in Suite 205 of Medical Office Building A. Please call 618-433-6632 for more information.