A completely renovated Emergency Department and rehabilitative therapy offerings at the University of Mississippi Medical Center Holmes County means so much more than enhanced health care, residents there say.

“For UMMC to make this investment is really good for the county,” said Charlie Joiner of West, the Holmes County administrator and one of dozens of people who Friday toured the refurbished hospital in Lexington. “It's a promise from UMMC that they're going to be there for us.”

Ashley Maryland's two medical procedures done to figure out why she was having trouble becoming pregnant were like night and day.

“It was awful,” Maryland, a Vicksburg resident, said of the hysterosalpingogram, or HSG, performed there in 2013. “It was overwhelming pain, and there was nothing I could do. It was the worst pain ever.”

But her most recent procedure, performed in 2015 by Dr. Preston Parry, University of Mississippi Medical Center associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, was anything but.

“I anticipated it hurting. I prepared myself for it. But it didn't hurt at all, and I got to watch it on a screen,” Maryland said. “It was as lovely as it could be for that type procedure.”

Not just patients, but their doctors despise HSG, a test that's been used for decades to examine a woman's fallopian tubes to see if they're blocked. It uses a combination of X-rays and dyes to take a picture of the uterus and typically is done in a hospital. Parry, a reproductive endocrinology specialist and chief of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility, has come up with a technique that minimizes discomfort while also being more accurate, faster, cheaper, safer and convenient.

It's called the Parryscope, not a piece of equipment, but instead a specific procedure that replaces HSG. During HSG, a physician inserts either a stiff or flexible tube into a woman's cervix on the way to her uterus. Dye is passed through the inserted tube; if the fallopian tubes are open, the dye will flow through, but if they're blocked, it won't.

Patients don't receive anesthesia, painkillers or drugs to deaden the affected area.

“There are so many women who say it's the most painful thing they've been through,” Parry said. “Women have told me it was worse than childbirth.”

What's different about Parry's procedure: He uses a narrow, flexible fiber-optic camera, saline and air to determine if the saline and air bubbles can enter the fallopian tubes and if the uterus is receptive to pregnancy. Dye isn't used at all. “If the air bubbles don't go in, the sperm may have trouble getting in, too,” Parry said.

“The camera is the width of a coffee straw,” he said. “We use technology so small and gentle that the speculum for a Pap smear is typically worse.”

During her first procedure, Maryland said, “one of my tubes was closed, and they forced the dye through it. It was 100 times more painful than the Parryscope. I'll never forget it.” 

Swapping scrubs for a business suit is a common transition for many holding administrative positions in health care today. The role of health-related administrator often follows a successful career as a health-care provider.

Those more comfortable in an exam room than a board room may search for additional education to make the transition easier, but there's not much time for sitting in a classroom talking theory. What is needed is a practical, focused education that can be immediately applied in the trenches.

For Sherry West, assistant professor of radiologic sciences and program director for Nuclear Medicine Technology at the School of Health Related Professions, the Doctor of Health Administration program at SHRP gave her practical knowledge that she has already applied at the Medical Center. West is a member of the first DHA cohort, which completed the program in May of 2015 and will walk at commencement in May of 2016.

As we enter a new year at UMMC, the Division of Information Systems (DIS) would like to remind everyone to beware of phishing scams that could attack your personal and professional email accounts. Phishing is a form of online fraud in which an attacker tries to gain access to your account information by pretending to be a reputable individual or company via email.

The Medical Center is proud to announce the following additions to its faculty and leadership staff:

A national periodontology organization taps a School of Dentistry faculty member for a teaching fellowship, while dentistry student volunteers at the Jackson Free Clinic help earn a community leadership award.