FHWC Hosts Men's Health Seminar

Medical technology and treatments keep progressing, often times more quickly than hospitals can keep up with, even if they had unlimited resources to pay for them. However, Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel (FHWC, located off Bruce B. Downs [BBD] Blvd.) does a good job of staying at the forefront of technological innovation and offering new treatments to the community, as it recently did during its first Men’s Health Seminar.

Held in June in honor of “Men’s Health Month,” FHWC put on a free seminar tailored exclusively for men in the surrounding areas in order to educate them about some of the newest medical procedures and research about medical conditions that commonly affect aging males — most notably pulmonary disease, gastrointestinal issues and cancers of the colon and prostate. 

In a conference room on the second floor of the FHWC Health & Wellness Center (located adjacent to the hospital), more than 40 men and a few women gathered to hear presentations throughout the afternoon from three FHWC doctors, including Martin Fernando Britos-Bray, M.D., Internal Medicine & Pulmonary Disease; Joseph S. Cody, M.D. Gastroenterology; and Dr. Bertram A. Lewis, M.D., Ph. D. Urology. Attendees also got to enjoy a healthy, catered lunch from Corporate Caterers.

“Anytime we have people coming out to learn about their health and how to better themselves, it’s a good thing,” said FHWC spokesperson Tracy Clouser. “You can tell that the Wesley Chapel community is highly educated. (The attendees) have done their own research (about these topics before coming to the health seminar) and have really been asking great questions.”

While we weren’t able to cover the whole event and subsequently missed Dr. Britos-Bray’s presentation about the problems and symptoms of pulmonary disease (responsible for one-in-six deaths in the U.S.) and Dr. Cody’s presentation about the importance of gastrointestinal endoscopy (a procedure that involves using a long flexible endoscopic tube with a camera at the end to see the lining of the upper GI tract), this reporter was able to sit in on Dr. Lewis’ presentation about a revolutionary new procedure that reportedly takes a lot of the guesswork out of prostate cancer screenings, the most common type of fatal cancer in men.

FHWC has employed the new UroNav Fusion Biopsy System, which can help create a detailed, three-dimensional view of the prostate that the urologist can use to guide precision biopsies for identifying cancerous prostate lesions.

Dr. Lewis explained that, traditionally, doctors have to “go in blind” to take prostate biopsies using an ultrasound and run the risk of completely missing an area that could be affected, or only getting a sample of an area that has a lower grade of cancer, but isn’t a good representation of how serious the cancer might be in another area of the prostate. Basically, he says it’s much easier to misdiagnose using the “old” system.

“This is sort of the next generation when it comes to prostate cancer diagnosis,” Dr. Lewis said, adding that the procedure pairs the normal real-time ultrasound biopsy with a recent MRI (magnetic resonance image, performed by FHWC’s impressive 3 Tesla MRI machine) to provide a better visualization of the biopsy needle during the procedure.

“The key to (UroNav) is there is actually a radio wave detector that lies over the patient’s abdomen and can tell where the probe is during the biopsy,” Dr. Lewis said. “It’s a fairly elaborate system that allows for more accurate biopsies.”

New Tampa residents Logan Mitchell and George Galiouridis, both members of the FHWC Health & Wellness Center’s fitness center, heard about the seminar through an email. Both had attended similar seminars at another local hospital in the past.

“The doctors are learning,” Mitchell said. “They’re more advanced than we are, but they’re learning, as well. I think I (now) have more information about what I would do (if diagnosed with any of the diseases covered) and my options. Mentioning that (detecting and diagnosing prostate cancer) is not an exact science, that was very important to me because I want to know that.”

Mitchell also said that these types of seminars are a boon to the area. 

“There’s no doubt about (this being good for the community),” Mitchell explained. “You have to have these classes. The community needs this material. Everybody has their own stories and they’re very eye-opening.”

For more information about upcoming free classes at FHWC, please visit FHWesleyChapel.org.