The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current, December 28, 2018, Image 15

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The times., December 28, 2018, Image 15

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Newspaper Page TextNick Bowman Features Editor | 770-718-3426 | life@gainesvilletimes.com She (Times gainesvilletimes.com Friday, December 28, 2018 Dr. Mohak Dave, chief of Emergency Medicine for Northeast Georgia Medical Center, has been awarded the Emergency Department Director of the Year Award from the Georgia College of Emergency Physicians. SCOn ROGERS The Times A symphony of moving pieces The Times file photo Hospital personnel work Christmas Day in the emergency department at Northeast Georgia Medical Center while Dr. Dave was an emergency physician. Local doctor Mohak Dave earns award for his emergency department work scon ROGERS I The Times Dr. Dave has been at Northeast Georgia Medical Center since 2005. Even as chief of Emergency Medicine, he still works shifts in the emergency department, where he ensures staff perform at a high level. BY LAYNE SALIBA lsaliba@gainesvilletimes.com Dr. Mohak Dave can’t walk the halls of the Northeast Georgia Med ical Center or even sit in the hospi tal’s cafe without someone shaking his hand, giving him a high five or waving from across the way. “That’s Nancy, who just walked by,” said Dave, medical director of emergency services at the hospital, after greeting her for a moment while sitting at one of the cafe’s tables. “She’s a triage nurse, so she’s the very first person that you’ll see if you come into an (emergency room) and tell them what your complaint is. Without her doing her job and doing it well, that patient is going to have a bad experience.” Without her, and a lot of other people working in the emergency department at the hospital, Dave said the award he was given on Nov. 29, naming him emergency depart ment director of the year, never would have made its way to him. “I think it’s unfortunate that I’m the one who gets acknowledged for the work that hundreds of people in all three of our ERs are doing on a daily basis,” Dave said. The statewide award is given to a medical director who’s part of the Georgia College of Emer gency Physicians and “has demon strated outstand ing improvement in operational and clinical standards in the following areas: quality patient care, oper ational effective ness, education, patient satisfac tion and through put,” according to the association’s website. Dave has been at Northeast Geor gia Medical Cen ter since 2005 and over that time, he said the hospital has “seen tremen dous growth in what we deliver in terms of services to patients.” He said everything from cardiac care to trauma care, stroke protocols to sepsis pathways, has improved. “We look at our processes and see how to refine them so that we cannot just rest on our accolades, but always continually improve our community,” Dave said. He didn’t decide to go into emer gency medicine until his fourth year at the University of South Car olina School of Medicine, but he’s always had an interest in medicine. “I was always interested in ambu lances and fire trucks as a young kid growing up,” Dave said. “I real ized I wanted to work with people. I really enjoyed that.” As he went through college at the University of North Carolina at Cha pel Hill, he worked as a volunteer emergency medical technician. He was on the rescue squad, help ing out with 911 calls and emergen cies, so his interest in emergency medicine, specifically, continued to grow. The rush of emergency medicine is what sold Dave on the profes sion. He said he, along with most of his coworkers, have personalities where they want quick results. “Patience is not always a virtue in emergency medicine,” Dave said, laughing. As the medical director of all three Northeast Georgia Medical locations in Gainesville, Brasel- ton and Barrow, Dave said he is charged with ensuring the emer gency departments perform at a high level and offer the best, most efficient care to its patients. Even with an award like this, though, Dave said he still works shifts just like everyone else in the emergency department. His days, nights and weekends are full of tak ing care of patients and the ER as a whole. That’s one of the toughest parts of the job. He said a lot of people get into emergency medicine because when they clock out for the day, they’re done. They can forget about work and enjoy their time off. But as medi cal director of emergency ser vices, he has to be available at all times. Even if he’s not physi cally at one of the hospitals, he has to at least be able to answer a phone call. “Oftentimes, if you don’t know when to stop or give yourself a break, it can actually impact patients,” Dave said. He compared it to aviation, say ing pilots have a certain amount of time they are required to rest between flights. The medical field “has been slow to move the nee dle in the right direction” when it comes to ensuring its people are taking enough time off, Dave said. So, as often as he can, Dave shuts things off. He goes out on the lake with his family, exercises on his new Peloton machine or simply watches Netflix — never any medi cal shows, though. During that time he gets with his children, Dave said he’s always trying to teach them things. Even though they haven’t shown any interest in the medical field, Dave said he uses his job to teach them life lessons, especially about facing challenges. “It’s not easy sometimes, espe cially in emergency medicine,” Dave said. “You don’t know what’s going to happen. You could have a seemingly normal day, and then you have the hardest airway to manage in an infant, and that can terrify you. You have to make sure you’re prepared to meet those chal lenges, and that’s what I think I want my kids to know is don’t ever shy away from a challenge, face it and you can do it.” Overcoming those challenges himself and winning emergency department director of the year, Dave said, wouldn’t be possible without all the people around him. Many people, just like Nancy who passed by in the cafe, make the emergency department run day in and day out. “That’s really what I love most about being a medical director,” Dave said. “When you sit back and you think about how many differ ent pieces have to work together to provide the best care, it’s really amazing.” ‘That’s really what I love most about being a medical director. When you sit back and you think about how many different pieces have to work together to provide the best care, it’s really amazing.’ Dr. Mohak Dave Chief of Emergency Medicine Georgia weather for 2018 essentially turned into Seattle It has been an interesting year in the agriculture and natural resource world. I thought I would recap 2018’s biggest factor for all agriculture and horticulture, tem perature and moisture. Georgia has essentially turned into Seattle. This year was wet and cool, which I confirmed with www.GeorgiaWeather.net. That website hosts data from UGA’s series of weather stations across the state that anyone can use to monitor all kinds of indicators from the agriculture industry. In the Gainesville area, we have a station that I refer to when gath ering local data. That station is actually called “Gainesville” and is near the lake. The statistics I present here are year to date as of December 20,2018. Temperatures averaged about 1 degree cooler in comparison to last year. Now, don’t go into the “I knew the temperatures aren’t rising” because according to his torical data, they are. Our aver age temperatures in 1961, 1971 and 1981 were all about 2 degrees cooler than this past year and 3 degrees cooler back then than the past two years. The summer was pretty mild compared to other years. I don’t think we got above 95 degrees all summer. That 95 degrees is a threshold that will really mess with a plants cooling system. Mine too. And then there was rain. So far we have had over 68 inches of rain CAMPBELL VAUGHN ecvaughn@uga.edu which is way over our normals. Last year, we had 56 inches of rain by this time and only 33 inches in the nasty drought of 2016. The Gainesville area has had 135 days with rain so far this year. In comparison, that is 30 more days of rain than 2016. There was only about a three week period of no rain in August where things actually had a chance to dry up some. In the very wet spring, farmers had to replant corn because the saturated soils rot ted the seeds. Saturated soils can cause a good bit of disease issues in plants. Some of the issues will be slow and painful if we don’t start drying up some. Chill hours are the amount of time the temperature stays below 45 degrees. Fruiting plants like peaches, apples, blueberries and plums all have a minimum requirement in chill hours to pro duce. Chill hours are measured from the fall through the spring since the chilling requirements start over after harvest. Currently, we have had about 555 hours below 45 degrees. This is high compared to the past 4 or 5 years. In 2015 we had only had 229 chill hours at the same time. And we are about 140 chill hours ahead of where we were last year. Hopefully that will lead into some good production next harvest season. I don’t know what 2019 has in store for us, but we know that Georgia’s weather is not going to be the same year after year. Although I am ready for a few Sat urdays without having to wear a rain jacket. Happy New Year. Campbell Vaughn is UGA Extension- Agriculture and Natural Resource Agent in Richmond County. He can be reached at ecvaughn@uga.edu.