UPDATED August 30, 2010, 11:42am

By Dylan Thomas

Decorated in neutral tones and blond wood flooring, the infusion room at the Hennepin Comprehensive Cancer Center was designed to feel calm and welcoming to the roughly 500 patients who receive chemotherapy treatments there each year.

Center Manager Kelly Porter said one session may run up to six hours, so patients — who receive their infusions in recliners in one of 11 small patient bays ringing the room — are made to feel comfortable. They read, watch TV or, like 48-year-old Desiree Jackson of Minneapolis, three months into chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer in March, simply relax as much as possible.

“I just try to nod off a little,” Jackson said. “I just like to get it done and over with.”

From his desk in the center of

UPDATED August 30, 2010, 11:39am

By Dylan Thomas

A typical call to the Hennepin Regional Poison Center begins at a home on laundry day.

A parent pours out a cup of bleach, preparing to add it to the wash. The phone rings and the parent leaves to answer it. A child reaches up for cup of the clear liquid.

We’ll let poison center Managing Director Debbie Anderson take over from here:

“A child takes a swig [and] they immediately throw up. So, what do parents do? They panic; they call 911.”

Anderson said that call would be patched through to her call center in HCMC, where a staff of specially trained pharmacists and pharmacy students take calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The staffer would assure the parent vomiting was

photo by danny guy

Neurologist Mark Mahowald, director of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center, show’s off some of colleague Dr. Michel Cramer Bornemann’s energy drink collection.

By jake weyer

There’s little question that folks today are hooked on finding ways to stay awake. The massive collection of energy drinks on display in a room at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center is a testament to that.

Voluntary sleep deprivation, not surprisingly, is the most common cause of drowsiness during the day. Neurologist Mark Mahowald, director of the center, sees it all the time.

“People always ask, ‘well how do you know if you’re sleep deprived?’ Our first question is, ‘do you use an alarm clock to wake up in the morning?’ If you use an alarm clock, you are by definition sleep deprived because if your brain had collected as much sleep as it needed, you would have awakened before the alarm went off,” he said.

photo by danny guy

Philip Myrman, 21, of Burnsville landed in the Emergency Department after getting in a car accident.

By Sarah McKenzie

No one wants to end up here.

But if you do end up in HCMC’s Emergency Department, you’re in place that has a long and successful track record in trauma care. The department, housed in the hospital’s Red Building, 730 S. 8th St., takes up an entire city block and has six specialized team centers.

In 1989, HCMC became the first hospital in the state certified as a Level I
Trauma Center by the American College of Surgeons. The distinction means that the hospital has significant operating room capacity and surgeons available to deliver emergency medical care trained in a variety of specialties.

The hospital’s Emergency Department is the busiest in the state with more than 100,000 visits a year, said Michelle Noltimier, director

PHOTO BY CRISTOF TRAUDES

Nurse manager Lynn Parish shares a book with twins Cielo and Mar, who were visiting HCMC’s pediatric unit. Pediatrics makes it a goal to give a book to every child who walks through the door, whether they’re there for themselves or for a sibling or parent

By Cristof Traudes

Welcome to the part of HCMC that handles severe accidents but also cuts, scrapes and bruises, the part that deals with burn victims and pregnancy but also tonsil trouble and literacy.

This is “peeds” — as staffers of pediatrics call it — where health care is only half of the story. Anybody up to age 18 is sent to the department and sometimes 21-year-olds are, too. As a result, peeds is set up much like a tentative parent — to entertain and educate wee ones but steer clear (as much as possible) from stepping on the toes of teens.

It’s a department with yellow walls and fruit-themed hallways in one section and sleek grey walls and self esteem-boosting posters in another. Every child that walks through the door is given a

photo by danny guy

HCMC CEO Art Gonzalez said it’s time for “HCMC to grow responsibly.”

By Cristof Traudes

// Art Gonzalez talks about the health care landscape, General Assistance Medical Care and the future //

Art Gonzalez, CEO of Hennepin County Medical Center, sees change on the horizon. More than just health insurance is getting an overhaul; the way hospitals will be graded on success is, too. In the second and final part of his interview with the Downtown Journal, he talks about what that means for HCMC right now and what it will mean down the road.


Downtown Journal: What’s your sense of state leaders’ views of HCMC?

Gonzalez: I get the impression that we’re well known and well regarded. They recognize the impact that we provide in the region.

Obviously, the

photo by danny guy

Women’s and Children’s Services Program Manager Anna Mueller (left) and Rita O’Reilly, director of the hospital’s Nurse Midwife Service.

By Sarah McKenzie

Hennepin County Medical Center is home to the state’s first Nurse-Midwife Service.

Since 1971, midwives at the hospital have been helping women have natural birth experiences.

Rita O’Reilly, director of the hospital’s Nurse Midwife Service, said HCMC practices the “true midwifery philosophy.”

“We believe in the normal birth process; keeping birth as natural as possible,” she said. “We discourage elective inductions of labor without a medical indication. We encourage families to be participants in the decision making affecting their pregnancy, labor and births.”

The hospital’s nurse midwives deliver more than 800 babies each year. The nine-bed unit’s cesarean section rate is 12.7