FOOTBALL 101 IS A WINNER
For 10 years, women have come together on an autumn evening to make sense of football and gridiron chatter, earn their membership in the Raider Nation, and donate to a great cause. With silver and black fingernails and all manner of T-shirts and jerseys being the unmistakable Raider's logo, female fans attend Football 101–a fundraiser sponsored by Alta Bates Summit Medical Center and the Oakland Raiders.
This year's October 30 gathering found eager participants learning about the game from players and coaches who gave a rundown of the rules, training, and strategies–followed by the popular "backstage" tour of the Raider's training facility in Alameda. In between, there was plenty of time to nosh hors d'oeuvres and win raffle prizes, including game tickets and autographed Raiders memorabilia. Popular and always entertaining Renl Brooks-Moon of 98.1 KISS FM performed her magic emcee–just as she has done for the past eight years.
Thanks to dedicated fans and "students of the game," Football 101 has raised more than $250,000 since its inception in 1997. Proceeds from the $150 workshop tickets and the $250 game tickets benefit Alta Bates Summit's breast cancer programs and services for low-income women. Teaming up with the silver and black "is just great" says Dorine Tanaka, director of special events for the Alta Bates Summit Foundation, which helps spearhead the event. "They're very helpful, and over the years, top players and coaches have attended–including Jerry Rice and John Gruden." This year, fans were thrilled to hear from Raider greats such as CEO Amy Trask, Head Coach Lane Kiffin, Coaches Rob Ryan and Don Martindale, linebacker Thomas HOward, cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha, wide receivers Ronald Curry and Johnnie Lee Higgins, and strong safety Jarrod Cooper.
Dorine went on to explain that "women come from all over the country. In fact, one year we had a contest to award a prize to whomever came the furthest–and the winner was someone who'd come all the way from England!" Here's to the next 10 years of Raider fun and fan support!
CT SCANNER TRAVELS TO RAIDER NATION
It's impossible to know how many at Alta Bates Summit number themselves among Raider Nation. But like players of the silver and black, those loyal fans would undoubtedly be glad to learn that a portable eight-slice computed tomography (CT) scanner called a CereTom (capable of detecting head and neck injuries) was making the round trip from the Medical Center to McAfee Coliseum to be available to the Oakland Raiders amd their opponents during home games. "NeuroLogica, the compan that owns the device, let us use it on a trial basis for the 2007-2008 football season," says Cliff Lew, Alta Bates Summit's director if business development.
The 800-pound scanner (just five feet tall and four feet wide) has wheels on the bottom "like a grocery-store cart, and can be moved to just about any location," Cliff says. "The device is operated by one of the Medical Center's radiology technologists and a radiologist on-site. If there is head trauma, seconds are critical, and if the player requires medical assistance, that information can be immediately dispatched to the hospital so the emergency department can be prepared to administer immediate treatment."
Just to know: On game day, the scanner was kept in the Raider's locker room and wasn't visible from stadium seats or the parking lot. "You weren't able to order up a bratwurst and a scan from a tailgate party," Cliff jokes. And when the scanner wasn't at the ready at McAfee Coliseum for the players? It was put to good use, Cliff says, in the Medical Center's adult Intensive Care and Neonatal Intensive Care units–for current and future Raiders fans.
SCHOOL NURSES GET SCHOOLED
In the closing days of summer and as school bells were about to sound, Alta Bates Summit's Ethnic Health Institute (EHI) hosted its seventh annual daylong seminar providing East Bay school and public health nurses with updates on leading issues in pediatric health and assisting them in their care of youth.
"We try to provide nurses with information that is useful, timely, and leading edge in their field so they can continually improve their knowledge base and skills," says Joyce Gray, M.H.A., EHI's program director.
New guidelines for the treatment of asthma, detailed by EHI cofounder Michael LeNoir, M.D., were a hot topic among the approximately 80 attendees at the August 21 event held at the Health Education Center on the Summit Campus. So was information about the new papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine–developed for young women ages 9 to 26 to help prevent cervical cancer. This session was presented by Eileen Yamada, M.D., M.P.H., from the Immunization Branch of the California Department of Health Services. Perhaps the day's liveliest discussion focused on coping with violence in schools, inspired by the presentation of Alex Briscoe, from the Alameda County of Health Services Agency.
Attendees "felt that the day was incredibly worthwile," says Joyce, "and provided invaluable updates about what's going on in the community." According to evaluation surveys, 92 percent of the nurses in attendance described the information that was presented as "excellent" and "extremely useful."
From EHI's perspective, the event's continued success reconfirms its needs, adds Joyce. "EHI's mission is to reduce, if not eliminate, disparities in health care and disease, and this is just one tool we use to accomplish that."
