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Aspen Ideas: Health celebrated its 10th anniversary this year. To be honest, I find it somewhat intimidating when the top minds and innovators in healthcare descend upon our community for what has become a premier forum for the sharing of ideas and perspectives regarding healthcare. After all, our community is exposed firsthand to the best and brightest concepts. Are we keeping up? Is our community-owned hospital doing everything it can to serve our community and our visitors? I believe we are, and our Board of Directors, our physicians and our staff are dedicated to doing so. But, we’ll surely find out what more we can do during this prestigious event! Fortunately, we have Board members and physicians who attend from AVH, poised to learn and keep us on the leading edge.
During this year’s event, our nation’s Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, discussed a recent advisory from his office regarding the healing effects of social connection and community. He explained that loneliness is a major contributor to depression, anxiety and suicide, and that it was prevalent even before the pandemic. Now it’s worse in many communities—some more than others. That was a necessary and sobering message for us to hear, and ponder, as our society wrestles with the impacts of social media, polarization and geographic mobility and isolation.
On a positive and local note, however, we just finished our Food and Wine Classic and celebrated 4th of July festivities, and we look forward to our wonderful music and other events that fill our summers. Clearly, Aspen is a place where we can feel connected to each other, to nature and to culture. Perhaps more than ever, we now understand how our lives and our wellbeing are positively impacted by where we live. For that, I am privileged and proud to be a part of this community.
In addition, we believe there are other ways to assure the health and wellbeing of our community. In this edition of our enewsletter, Dr. Caroline Mears and Dr. Catherine Chamberlin discuss women’s health issues while Dr. Ellen Barlow, PT, DPT, our rehabilitation specialist in pelvic floor therapy, offers some helpful advice. Mark Falender, a certified wilderness guide, provides important safety considerations for enjoying the backcountry. And in further spirit of connectedness, we are excited to now have our AVH volunteer program back up and running! It feels so good to have our dedicated community members working with us again, along with our beloved pet therapy dogs (and their owners), supporting our patients. If you are interested in joining our volunteer team, we include information for how you can do so.
I hope you find our enewsletters to be varied in topics each month and helpful. If you would like to learn more about a particular topic, please reach out and let us know at communityrelations@aspenhospital.org.
Dave
