New speaker series to highlight north county health care

Foundation sponsored series intends to improve health, communication
North county healthcare leaders have come together to create a speaker series on current healthcare topics, in the hopes of creating a healthier community through education.
“We want to showcase the medical expertise we have in our area. We want to try to make a difference. There are things we can improve in the health of the county and we’re interested in doing that,” said Dave Anderson, M.D., co-chair of Healthcare Foundation Northern Sonoma County (HFNSC) as well as a representative for North County Healthcare Network (NCHN).
The speaker series was born out of a partnership between HFNSC and NCHN. Both groups hope that the series will strengthen the relationship between themselves and the community, and that shared knowledge from the series will ultimately serve as a form of preventive medicine.
Historically, the healthcare foundation has focused on its primary role of fundraising to enhance medical services in northern Sonoma County. But the organization wants to add on a more proactive, community-oriented approach – one that may be able to improve the health of the community for relatively little money.
“The idea is it’s all part of being proactive in the community,” said Pat Callahan, Executive Director of the Healthcare Foundation Northern Sonoma County.
“This is the education collaboration with our partners, so that we can come out into the community with the speaker series. We’re also going to be out in the community raising funds to support the providers. It’s about having a more integrated approach out in the community, and the foundation has been wanting to go in this direction for a while. I’m proud to be part of network leadership that’s going to make that happen.”
Cloverdale will host the first event in the series. Overall, the “North Sonoma County: Health Happens Here” series will focus on healthcare management and staying healthy, and will also provide residents information about health services available locally.
The first panel presentation is titled “Healthcare: Now what and so what?” and will take place Thursday, April 5 at 7 p.m. at the Cloverdale Historical Society, 215 N. Cloverdale Blvd. Panelists include District 4 Supervisor Mike McGuire, Rita Scardaci, the director of the county’s Department of Health Service, and Peter Rumble, the director of Health Policy, Planning and Evaluation for the county. Dr. Dave Anderson will moderate.
“The reason we’re starting with this panel of speakers, which are showcasing the experts we have in the Sonoma County health department as well as our supervisor Mike McGuire who’s really gone out on point on healthcare, is that Sonoma County has a goal to be the healthiest county by 2020. So we want to be collaborating wherever we can to reach that goal. We’re lucky to live in a county like that, one that cares about having a healthy community,” Callahan said.
Future speakers will address topics such as the prevention of diabetes, cancer, and heart disease, as well as dementia and back pain. The second speaker will be Dr. Dave Anderson, who will speak in Healdsburg in June about why people live longer today.
“It’s very interesting to me, looking back over 100 years and seeing what we’ve accomplished, not just physicians but things that have happened nationwide. For example, what was the most common cancer in the 1930s? We don’t see it anymore. I don’t want to give it away, but it’s the start of my lecture,” Dr. Anderson said.
“At the same time, people started smoking and you see the incidence of lung cancer going up and up and up.”
The date and time of Dr. Anderson’s lecture is expected to be announced soon. Additional lectures will be held in Windsor, Healdsburg, and Cloverdale.
Lynda Hopkins can be reached at [email protected].