With his wife, Jennifer, by his side, the 62-year-old says he’s confident he’s got the best team of professionals with the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging at UAMS as he faces a life that’s slipping away.Tom Webb knows a lot about building confidence, teaching strategy and working toward a goal as a team. “I was…
Only a few nerves kept Lisa Shelton’s left arm attached to her body when she arrived at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) after it was almost severed by a truck door. In December 2012, Shelton, of Jerusalem, was on her way to meet her sister for lunch in Morrilton when her car…
Lynne Reynolds’ journey to UAMS started with a tumble down 19 stair steps. “I blacked out,” Reynolds said of that September 2007 mishap, which resulted in an ambulance ride to the nearest hospital, an eventual diagnosis of nonalcoholic liver cirrhosis and a liver transplant. Mike Scott’s path to a UAMS liver transplant began on Christmas…
In the neurology clinic at the Jackson T. Stephens Spine and Neurosciences Institute of the UAMS, Dr. W. Steven Metzer performed the initial programming of Tommy Rickman’s deep brain stimulator. “There are four little electrodes down in your brain,” explained Dr. Metzer, a neurologist. “I’m trying to find the best one,” he said. He plugged in…
As an ordinary 11-year-old girl, Emalyn Daniel had two questions for her doctor: “Will it hurt?” And, “When can I go swimming?” Emalyn’s medical condition, hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT), is anything but ordinary. So her parents, Emma and Forrest Daniell, had many questions to ask UAMS interventional radiologist Mollie Meek, M.D. In her father’s family, one…
“In 20 years of singing, I’ve never had anything like this happen,” said Deleen Davidson, a lyric soprano, formerly with the New Orleans Opera. Deleen, who now heads up The Muses Creative Artistry Project in Hot Springs, began to experience sinus and allergy problems in November, but within weeks her laugh changed, her speaking voice…
Rhonda Smith’s stroke was about as severe as they come. Her chance for survival was slim without immediate access to a stroke neurologist who could correctly diagnose her type of stroke so she could receive a powerful clot-dissolving drug. Fortunately, the 42-year-old wife and mother was working just a block away from Northwest Medical Center…
As any new mom would, Maria Borja worried when her 3-month-old son, Brian, developed chills, a rash and a high fever. She took him to a series of doctors in nearby Texarkana and Little Rock, but all were unable to determine the cause. “I was always told that he was a very special boy and…
Audiologist Samuel R. Atcherson, Ph.D., has a more personal view of hearing loss than some in his profession since he began losing his own hearing at age 3. Atcherson has used a hearing aid in his left ear, a cochlear implant in his right ear and his lip-reading ability to perceive sounds and communicate. But with…
“I’ll trim it so it’s not so bulky,” James Y. Suen, M.D., said as he folded, then snipped a tiny edge of gauze off before he placed it on his patient’s right jaw. He has cared for 23-year-old Jasmine Gray ever since she was 11 when she traveled from Memphis, Tenn. to see him after…