Our Town – Silverton, Mt. Angel & Scotts Mills Your Health Archives - Our Town

Mother’s helper – Silverton nurse opens lactation consultation business

March 2023 Posted in Your Health | Comments Off

By Melissa Wagoner Teryl Graybeal knows first-hand that breastfeeding isn’t always easy. “I struggled really hard with my first child,” she recalled. “If I hadn’t gotten help I wouldn’t have succeeded.” That experience stuck with her, inspiring her work as both a registered nurse, specializing ...

Stop the Stigma – Local psychiatrist offers annual scholarship

January 2023 Posted in Your Health | Comments Off

By Melissa Wagoner Normalizing mental health challenges has long been a priority of Audry Van Houweling, a Nurse Practitioner and owner of She Soars Psychiatry in Silverton and Sisters, Oregon. “[M]ental health is not something that happens in the silos of healthcare ...

Diminishing options – Strained medical practices present challenges

December 2022 Posted in Your Health | Comments Off

[caption id="attachment_12281" align="alignright" width="410"] The former Family Medical Group of Silverton office now open under Legacy Medical Group – Silverton Family Medicine management. Pictured: Whitney Rumgay (Clinic Manager) and Christina Rosborough (Director Medical Group Primary Care for Legacy Health).[/caption] By Melissa ...

Your Health: Doctors, state officials urge return to indoor mask use

December 2022 Posted in News, Your Health | Comments Off

Seasonal caseloads of flu and respiratory viruses coupled with the continuing presence of COVID-19 have led a group of Portland-area physicians and state officials to urge a return to indoor mask use. Masks and the prevalence of seasonal illnesses on hospitalization ...

Children’s health, globally – Pediatric dentist creates nonprofit

October 2022 Posted in Community, Travel, Your Health | Comments Off

[caption id="attachment_11960" align="alignright" width="325"] Evaline Achieng, left, a nursing student sponsored by Acorn Kids International with Kenyan AKI student Vivian, far right, and her mother.[/caption] By Melissa Wagoner When Dr. Tim Richardson was in dental school at the University of Washington, he ...

Silverton nurse gifts grant to Bridgeway

October 2022 Posted in Community, People, Your Health | Comments Off

[caption id="attachment_11954" align="alignright" width="283"] Holly Perez[/caption] By Melissa Wagoner When Silverton-based nurse Holly Perez received a call from the Maps Community Foundation informing her she had just been chosen a Community Award recipient for 2022, she was caught off guard. “My daughter Sofia nominated ...

Detectable – Silverton wastewater data on COVID-19 presence open to public

July 2022 Posted in Your Health | Comments Off

By Brenna Wiegand In some ways more telling than tracked test results, the prevalence of COVID-19 in a community may be seen in its wastewater. Though Silverton has been taking samples and sending them to Oregon State University’s School of Chemical, Biological ...

Groundbreaking: Silverton medical center starts $35 million expansion

July 2022 Posted in Community, Your Health | Comments Off

By Brenna Wiegand When Silverton Hospital affiliated with Legacy Health six years ago, the health care company committed to making significant improvements toward optimizing the medical center’s ability to provide top-notch health care for Silverton and surrounds. [caption id="attachment_11656" align="aligncenter" width="481"] Legacy ...

Reimagining care – Legacy appoints a Chief Medical Officer for Silverton

April 2022 Posted in Community, People, Your Health | Comments Off

By Brenna Wiegand Christopher Thoming, MD, MBA, has been selected to serve as the vice president and chief medical officer for Legacy Silverton Medical Center. Dr. Thoming will work closely with Legacy Silverton Medical Center President Jonathan Avery and Chief Nursing ...

Casting a long shadow – Community members share experiences after two years of COVID

April 2022 Posted in Community, Your Health | Comments Off

By Melissa Wagoner It’s been two years since the COVID-19 pandemic began. And while we still have not reached the “end” (wherever that may be) Our Town asked readers to describe what the pandemic era been. “My best friend’s marriage fell apart ...

MASD going mask-optional March 14

March 2022 Posted in School, Your Health | Comments Off

By Stephen Floyd The Mt. Angel School District plans to go mask-optional March 14 after state regulators changed a deadline the district expected to fall at the end of the month. Oregon lifted its mandate on masks in public school buildings March ...

From PCT to LMT – Adventure on Pacific Crest Trail leads to new business in Silverton

March 2022 Posted in Business, Community, People, Your Health | Comments Off

By Melissa Wagoner When 21-year-old Anna Koch set off to finish hiking the second half of the Pacific Crest Trail in 2020 – a journey that began the year before when she hiked 1,800 miles of the 2,650-mile trail stretching between ...

Transition planning – Silver Falls district going mask-optional March 31

February 2022 Posted in School, Your Health | Comments Off

By Stephen Floyd The Silver Falls School District has chosen to become mask-optional after statewide mask mandates are lifted March 31. The district board voted six-to-one Feb. 14 to direct Superintendent Scott Drue to draft policies transitioning away from mask mandates that ...

Looking for answers – Mt. Angel takes measured approach to un-masking

February 2022 Posted in School, Your Health | Comments Off

By Stephen Floyd The Mt. Angel School District is taking a more cautious approach than its neighbors ahead of the March 31 deadline to lift indoor mask mandates in Oregon schools. While the Silver Falls and North Santiam school districts voted to ...

No masks – Maskless students asked to leave high school during Feb. 4 protest

February 2022 Posted in School, Your Health | Comments Off

By Stephen Floyd [caption id="attachment_10942" align="alignright" width="417"] Silverton High School Principal Sione Thompson (center) and Superintendent Scott Drue (right) address students at a demonstration on Feb. 4. Braden Geiger[/caption] Around two dozen students were asked to leave Silverton High School Feb. 4 ...

Personal recovery – No-cost workshops encourage thriving, boosting, wellness

January 2022 Posted in Community, Other, Your Health | Comments Off

By Melissa Wagoner If you’ve ever been interested in planting your own vegetable garden, curating an art collection, improving your job interview skills, understanding your children, reducing stress, eating better or just becoming a happier person then now is your chance ...

Omicron peak: Legacy foresees a return to record-setting hospitalizations

January 2022 Posted in Community, Your Health | Comments Off

By Brenna Wiegand Like health systems across the country, Legacy Health, which includes Silverton Legacy Medical Center, is seeing a significant increase in visits and hospitalizations due to the COVID-19 Omicron variant. As of Jan. 24, Legacy Health was caring for three ...

Robotics – Da Vinci Surgical System comes to Silverton Medical Center

January 2022 Posted in News, Your Health | Comments Off

By Brenna Wiegand Legacy Health recently launched a new surgical robotics program at Legacy Silverton Medical Center with the installation of an Intuitive da Vinci Xi Surgical System robot, a versatile robotic system used by surgeons around the world. This advanced instrumentation ...

Two positions, one action – COVID prompts student walkouts at Silverton High School

January 2022 Posted in Community, School, Your Health | Comments Off

By Stephen Floyd Students at Silverton High School staged opposing protests last month to highlight what they believed were harmful COVID conditions in the classroom. A walkout held Jan. 19 protested state mandates requiring students to wear face masks to prevent the ...

Pediatric vaccinations – Legacy delivers COVID-19 shots to kids

December 2021 Posted in Your Health | Comments Off

By Brenna Wiegand Recent approval of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine for children was welcome news to many families and communities across Oregon, especially those who have been hit hard by COVID-19. It also gave Legacy Health staff in the Silverton region the green light ...

COVID decision fatigue – It’s exhausting when small decisions are critical

December 2021 Posted in Your Health | Comments Off

By Melissa Wagoner Decision fatigue is a relatively unknown mental health term that has, during the past 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, begun getting more attention. “Decision fatigue describes the challenges in making decisions large or small, typically occurring after a ...

A Slice of the Pie: Navigating the maze – COVID testing and the ins and outs of travel

December 2021 Posted in Travel, Your Health | Comments Off

I just spent an entire morning negotiating the administration and shipping of three specially ordered COVID tests so that my children and I can travel to visit their grandparents in a little over three weeks – and I’m still not ...

Unintended consequences – Vaccine mandate ends some careers

October 2021 Posted in Community, Other, Your Health | Comments Off

By Melissa Wagoner When Robin Hyslop left her shoes on the sidewalk in front of Legacy Silverton on Sept. 30, she left behind a lot more than a pair of worn-out sneakers – she left behind a 33-year career as a ...

People Out Loud: Unequivocal – You have a choice on vaccinations, your employer does too

October 2021 Posted in Your Health | Comments Off

Social Media is rife with misinformation, especially in the chaos of COVID. Lazy people use it as their “research.” VAERS is the “Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System”, a reporting system co-managed by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Food ...

Modernly traditional – New Silverton practice provides pediatric care

October 2021 Posted in Community, Your Health | Comments Off

By Melissa Wagoner [caption id="attachment_10511" align="alignright" width="209"] Scott Hamblin[/caption] [caption id="attachment_10510" align="alignright" width="250"] Mark Helm[/caption] The recent closure of the Silverton branch of Childhood Health left Silverton families without a locally-based pediatric clinic – an situation Dr. Scott Hamblin and Dr. Mark Helm ...

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