Dobrivoje Stokic of Ridgeland, M.D., D.Sc, has been named vice president of research and innovation at Methodist Rehabilitation Center in Jackson.
Dr. Stokic is a senior scientist for MRC’s Center for Neuroscience and Neurological Recovery and most recently served as the hospital’s administrative director of research. During his tenure, the CNNR received more than $8 million from external funding and more than $9 million from the donor-supported Wilson Research Foundation at MRC.
Karen Hudson Reeves of Madison has joined the staff of Methodist Rehabilitation Center as Director of Human Resources.
Reeves is a seasoned HR practitioner with over 30 years in the field. She has worked across different industries including banking, insurance, legal, employee benefits and, most recently, a local civil engineering firm.
Justin McQueen of Moss Point has little memory of a year most people would like to forget.
The 32-year-old started 2020 recovering from a traumatic brain injury that left his memory of the year blank at worst and hazy at best.
“I don’t know where 2020 went,” Justin said. “I don’t remember nothing of what happened.”
Methodist Rehabilitation Center has announced Clinical and Support Service Employees of the Quarter for its Jackson hospital and external campuses.
For the first quarter of 2021, the honorees include Olivia Waddell of Jackson, a physical therapist for MRC’s spinal cord injury program; Kyle Hairston of Madison, biomed technician at MRC’s main campus; Sam Loden of Meridian, a certified orthotist at Methodist Orthotics & Prosthetics in Meridian; and Twylas Holmes of Ridgeland, a unit secretary at Methodist Specialty Care Center in Flowood.
When you call customer service, you never know who that voice on the other end of the line could be.
It might be someone as cordial and devoted to helping as 27-year-old LaBrittany Knight of Indianola.
She works from home, answering calls for Whirlpool’s warranty services department from her wheelchair. Knight was born with cerebral palsy, a group of disorders that affect a person's ability to move and maintain balance and posture.
Nov. 24 was the most thankful Thanksgiving ever for the family of Picayune’s Gavin Miller.
Just a week before, a hit-and-run driver crashed into the 17-year-old as he was walking to a school bus stop.
A resulting head injury left his mother, Hesper Miller, worrying: “Is he going to be like himself afterwards?”
“He’d wake up, and it would just be a blank stare,” she said. “Thanksgiving day was his first good day. He was awake and alert and I said: ‘There he is, that’s my kid.’ He was making little jokes, and I was so happy.”
“You do what you have to do.”
That’s the attitude J. Carmen Arevalo took when he was told his leg needed to be amputated after it was crushed in an on-the-job accident.
And it’s the mantra he adhered to as he learned to walk again with an above-the-knee prosthesis from Methodist Orthotics & Prosthetics in Flowood. And one he repeated as he continued to amaze his caregivers at Methodist Outpatient Therapy.
“I’ve seen very few people at any age with his type of injury do what he can do,” said his physical therapist Karen Klein.
On Oct. 24, Jody Jones of Flora added irony to injury.
While trying to remove an unsafe tree stand, he fell 22 feet to the ground.
The impact crushed his right heel and fractured his right femur, pelvis and some vertebra in his spine.
Still, Jones feels fortunate. “I don’t know how I landed like I did. I should have landed flat on my back or head,” he said. “The Lord was watching out for me is all I can say.”
On Aug. 16, doctors doubted Undray Love of Houlka could survive a brain-injuring ATV crash.
“They initially told me he would not make it through the night,” said his wife, Chastity. “They never gave us much hope, really. While we were in critical care, every day, every minute was life or death.”
Love ultimately endured brain surgery, a 32-day coma, a lung collapse and a serious infection. But he began an unbelievable turnaround after arriving at Methodist Rehabilitation Center on Oct. 1.
A Code Blue used to send Dr. Michael Montesi running to help a patient in distress.
But on July 26, the alarm brought people dashing to save his life.
“I don’t remember any of it,” he said. “They found me on the floor face down, and then I went into respiratory arrest. They called the code because I had stopped breathing, and they didn’t know if my heart had stopped.”
Like many of the patients he treated at Bolivar Medical Center in Cleveland, Montesi had been stricken with COVID-19. By the next day, he was headed by plane to Baptist Medical Center in Jackson.