Our 400th radio show!

This Sunday morning, September 4, at 7:30, Denny Long and I will take to the veranda at the WCCO Radio booth at the Minnesota State Fair.  It will be our 16th time doing a show live from beneath the shadow of the Giant Slide and sandwiched between Sweet Martha’s cookies and the Ye Olde Mill.  But more significantly, it will be the 400th Healthy Matters radio broadcast.

That’s right.  Since our first broadcast in January 2009, we have done 399 one-hour shows and I tell you what – we’re going to keep doing it until we get the hang of it!  The 400th attempt will be on Sunday which just so happens to be one of our popular State Fair shows.

So consider this your invitation to join Denny and me on Sunday morning!  Last week we had a pretty good crowd at the radio booth around the corner of Underwood and Carnes, and that was only for the 399th show, small potatoes compared to the awesome-ness of the 400th show.

Love this Tweet from my awesome friends at HCMC (hint – hit the play button on the picture):

 

So come to the fair on Sunday, Minnesota (and Wisconsin, and Iowa, and North Dakota, and South Dakota, or where ever you are from . . . last week we had a wonderful woman from San Diego . . .).  If you ask a medical question live on the air, I just may have a special gift for you, one never knows . . . !  

As life-changing and memorable as it will be to be in the audience for the 400th show on Sunday, there is LOTS more to do at the Fair.  Here’s a recap of some cool activities related to medicine.

Minnesota Healthy Brain Initiative

If you caught last week’s broadcast, you’ll know that I interviewed Dr. Uzma Samadani from the veranda.  She is a leading researcher in Traumatic Brain Injury (hereafter referred to as “TBI” to spare me all that extra typing and the resulting carpal tunnel syndrome).  Dr. Samadani holds the Rockswold-Kaplan Endowed Chair in Traumatic Brain Injury at HCMC where she conducts research at the cutting edge of science.  She’s also a practicing neurosurgeon and despite her extensive national and international experience, we learned that she hails from our part of the country (Beaver Dam, Wisconsin!).  That’s us in the picture on the WCCO veranda just last week.

Which brings me to something cool to do at the Minnesota State Fair:  Dr. Samadani is conducting part of her brain injury research right at the fairgrounds, in the Health Fair 11 booth.  Her focus (pun entirely intended) is currently on “eye-tracking” – which is a technique in which the movements of your eyes are used to help doctors and researchers evaluate your brain function.  The application for future brain injury patients – well it is exciting and potentially will be a large part of how we care for patients with TBI in the future.

I checked out the eye-tracking (Dr. Samadani and her team are keeping a close watch on me, apparently to make sure I don’t goof off):

Dr. Samadani invites YOU to join her research and have YOUR eyes tracked as part of the Minnesota Healthy Brain Initiative.  Her team needs all sorts of volunteers to be part of the study.  So I encourage you to go to the Health Fair 11 booth at the Minnesota State Fair and be part of research.  Have fun while making a contribution to medical science – it’s a win-win situation.  Join the many hundreds of people who have already had their eyes tracked!

Here’s a short recent video piece on the project to give you a better idea of what is involved:

For more information about the Minnesota Healthy Brain Initiative, click here.  You just may get a cool T-shirt like the one I’ll be wearing on Sunday.

Dr. Samadani has lots of other informative links and information on her research lab site, which you can find here.

Lastly, check out this article featuring her as she talks about head injuries in athletes, including her own son.  It was featured in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune this week.

Flu shots and a 7-foot St. Bernard

But there’s more at the Fair . . .

• Why not make getting a flu shot an annual tradition at the Fair?  MVNA (part of the HCMC family) will be at Health Fair 11 every day from 9:00 – 6:00.  An easy way to get this important preventive health step done.

• Blood pressure checks.  Do you know your blood pressure?  Well you should (there I go getting all preachy again).  We have you covered here as well . . . MVNA will be happy to check your BP at the fair as well.  9:00 a.m all the way until 9:00 p.m.

• Every wonder if you’ll be called upon to do CPR some day on a loved one?  Or on a stranger?  Do you get just a little freaked-out about that whole “mouth-to-mouth” bit?  Well you’ll be glad to know that “hands-only” CPR is a skill you can not only learn but is now the accepted way for non-medical people to do CPR.  Stop by the HealthFair 11 booth to learn how to do it from Hennepin EMS experts.  (By the way, I get lots of questions about one of the country’s leading Emergency Medical Services departments – Hennepin EMS.  Learn more about them here).

There are lots of other activities at the booth – trauma prevention tips, booster seat fittings, and maybe best of all, you can meet Bernie the Rescue Dog from 10:00 – 1:00 daily.  Believe me, kids love Bernie (and so do I)!

Check out the complete HCMC HealthFair 11 schedule here.

 

And that’s just from HCMC.  You can also get your hearing screened, blood typing done, get nutrition information, talk to a newborn health expert . . . . there are some 18 organizations at the HealthFair 11 booth to check out.

Help me celebrate 400 live radio shows of Healthy Matters at the Minnesota State Fair, Sunday morning 7:30, WCCO Radio at Underwood and Carnes!

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-David