Clear Lake Area Chamber Of Commerce: Clear Lake Connections Podcast Episode 28 | Resources And Opportunity In Your Own Backyard.

Press release from the Clear Lake Area Chamber Of Commerce:

July 29, 2021

Dr. Jared Caruso is the Director of Pediatric emergency medicine at the UTMB Clear Lake Campus.

This is a new realm for this area and at a UTMB facility is very novel. They started this in the end of February of 2020 before the pandemic. Over the last year, they have been growing this program. They have several physicians that are pediatric emergency trained and collectively have decades of experience. They also have pediatric nurses who have come from various children’s hospitals who also have a plethora of knowledge.

Their goal is to provide children’s hospital type of care in our community. He feels as though he was able to attract people to this area and he feels ad though they are enjoying their experiences. As they capture to grow, their volume is increasing, and he feels as though families are appreciating the aspect of having this available to them.

When dealing with children, daily he sees a lot. His advice for parents for when the ER is necessary is after you talk to your child’s general pediatric doctor, whether you can get through to them or not.

During the summer, they are seeing mostly water submersion injuries. This is something preventable. When it comes to advice to prevent drownings and learning about water safety, his advice is to have supervision when children are swimming or near water. Instances like these can happen very quickly and it is important to educate the children on how they can be safe in these types of situations. He suggests swim lessons as a good source of knowledge and safety as well.

Some other types of summer activities that need to be monitored when it comes to children’s safety is their time in the sun. By making sure they have on the correct sunscreen, reapplication or a hat are very important.

He is the first Director of this program, and the first six months were interesting. The first month had a lot of volume because the community realize they were there. The numbers at the emergency department were the same considering COVID because people were practicing social distancing and washing hands. With the lift of the mask mandate, they do have a lot more of an uprise especially now with the delta variant.

There are a lot of specialists available at their campus. His vision for the program in the coming years is to have a hospital in the area that has children’s hospital services out in our community. We have the resources; it is just a matter of getting the word out. Once this level of care is recognized here it will allow them to have more resources as well. He wants to give people the opportunity to have these things right in their own backyard.

This press release was produced by the Clear Lake Area Chamber Of Commerce. The views expressed here are the author’s own.