There is no rest for the wicked, the old saying goes. But, if we’re being honest, heroes don’t often get much of a breather, either.

Case in point: our nonprofit St. Tammany Health Foundation and our STHS Community Engagement team.

Working together, they are both just coming off the annual monthlong push that is our breast cancer awareness campaign – and must now pivot and direct their attention to our monthlong lung cancer campaign.

Nothing like following a marathon with another marathon.

Nationally, breast cancer gets all the headlines, but the life-saving potential of lung cancer screenings is every bit as important. Arguably more so.

Consider this eye-opening stat: Cancer is the second-leading cause of death in the United States, with lung cancer accounting for 26% of cancer deaths among men and 25% among women.

Sobering stuff, that.

The good news is that with early detection – which can be accomplished with a quick, painless lung scan – the survival rate soars.

If undetected until the disease advances to Stage 4, the survival rate for lung cancer patients is only 10%. But if detected early, it rockets to 68% to 92%, studies have shown.

Those numbers are hard to ignore, which is why we are so excited about our second annual lung cancer campaign – formally called St. Tammany United in Lung Health – and the one-mile walk we will be hosting Nov. 16 to raise awareness of lung cancer screening opportunities and to honor those who have endured this deadliest of cancers.

We hope to see you there; it’s important.

We also hope you enjoy the following headlines from our St. Tammany Health System newsroom.

Thanks for reading, and thanks again for choosing St. Tammany for your family’s healthcare needs.

Paul Clifton remembers it vividly, even now, months later.

He was at the Cardiac Rehab gym at St. Tammany Health System’s Paul D. Cordes Outpatient Pavilion, working out as part of his recuperation from a recent surgery. He had already put in 40 minutes on a treadmill and had just sat down for a turn at a hand bike.

That’s when he got a strange feeling, “like my batteries were draining.”

“I just felt a strange sensation,” he said. “I knew something was happening, because I uttered the words ‘Oh, no’ to the attendant that was there … and that was it. It was lights out.”

For her part, the first thing St. Tammany Health System nurse Courtney Jee remembers was the thud.

Together again 

Care providers from St. Tammany Health System’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit reunited Sunday (Oct. 27) with some of their former patients, the first such reunion held by the Northshore’s leading provider of maternal care since the onset of the COVID pandemic in 2019.

Here come the holidays

Halloween is nigh, which means the holiday season is just around the corner. Fortunately for those with little ones on their “nice” list, the experts at the St. Tammany Parenting Center have released their updated toy guide for 2024, arranged as always according to age range. 

70 for 70: Wild horses

As part of our ongoing history series highlighting 70 artifacts that help tell our 70-year history, today we spotlight a beloved work of healing art from a local artist that hangs in the halls of St. Tammany Cancer Center – a Campus of Ochsner Medical Center.

Best Places to Work

For the third year running, St. Tammany Health System has been named one of New Orleans CityBusiness’ Best Places to Work in the New Orleans metro area, recognized in the largest of the three sized-based categories, for organizations with 250 workers or more.