Oklahoma's Nursing Times is published throughout the Oklahoma City and Tulsa metro areas. With more than 28,000 weekly readers in print, 6,000 weekly e-subscribers and nearly than 80,000 online each month, Oklahoma's Nursing Times is the largest weekly health care publication in Oklahoma. If you have a news idea, press release, announcements or personnel changes that affect the industry - call Priya Jenkins, editor at 405-631-5100 or email news@okcnursingtimes.com. If you are recruiting nurses call Annette Deckard in Oklahoma City or Melanie Mitchell in Tulsa, classified advertising at 405-631-5100. If you wish to advertise your retail location or product call Char Posey, retail advertising at 405-631-5100. You can also reach either by email advertising@okcnursingtimes.com

Mary Teresa Ragland has cared for countless patients during her lengthy career with Mercy Health Center in Oklahoma City. Photo by James Coburn

Laughing with Elizabeth By Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal, RN

Each week we visit with health care professionals throughout Oklahoma. If you would like us to visit your facility, please email Priya Jenkins at: news@okcnursingtimes.com

Since 1979, Fresenius Medical Care has been providing quality care to Oklahomans in need of dialysis treatment. Now the international company wants to make the public more aware of the life-saving treatment Fresenius nurses and technicians provide on a daily basis.

Volunteers from the Kohl's Cares for Kids program help out in the Aikman's End Zone and were on hand during the Teddy Bear Clinic held March 16, 2005. March is National Child Life month and the End Zone celebrated its sixth anniversary March 1, 2005. Photo by Elissa Crocker

The Oklahoma Gerontological Nursing Association (OGNA), a non-profit organization and a chapter of the National Gerontological Nursing Association (NGNA; www.ngna.org.) will hold a one-day Conference on Best Care Practices in Long Term Care on Wednesday, April 20 at the Metro Technology Business Conference Center, 1900 Springlake Drive, Oklahoma City. Registration starts at 8 a.m.

Close to 5,300 Americans under the age of 18 were hospitalized with ATV injuries between 1997 and 2000 -- an increase of 79.1 percent during that time period, said study author Dr. Mary Aitken, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Medicine and a staff physician at the Arkansas Children's Hospital, in Little Rock.

Red dresses provided by several famous Oklahoma Women were on display in February at the Oklahoma Heart Hospital to promote Women and Heart Disease Awareness Month across the nation, says Denise Bragg, OHH cardiac rehab director. Photo by James Coburn

The flowers are blooming and the rains are returning. Spring is around the corner and so is Norman Regional’s Spring Into Action Health and Safety Fair.