by Kathryn Millhorn for Grays Harbor Talk

Original Article

As much as we love them through thick and thin, kids are adorably wild little germ magnets. Whether exploring in the yard, swapping items at school, or playing rough-and-tumble sports, growing up means plenty of trips to the pediatrician. Having a family doctor you can turn to throughout their childhood years is truly a blessing. At Harbor Regional Health (HRH), Dr. Hong Nguyen joined their growing family to help guide yours from infancy through the teenage years.

The Harbor Regional Health pediatrics team offers a wide variety of services, including well-child visits; sports physical, hearing or vision screening; specialized treatment for obesity, ADHD, depression, anxiety, or cardiovascular issue; and of course, treatment of illnesses and injuries. No matter the reason, they’re happy to help.

Dr. Nguyen joined the staff on March 1, 2021, and is excited for the future. With a lifelong love of working with children, she attended Yakima’s Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences for medical school and completed her residency in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

What drew her to pediatrics and speaks to her the most? It’s simple. “Because kids are the best!” she says. “I enjoy every moment of their growth and being their advocate to a healthy future. I have enjoyed caring for children ever since I started babysitting my nieces and nephews. I went on to volunteer at a children’s hospital and found that pediatrics was my calling.”

In medical school, Nguyen worked a rotation with Harbor Regional Health and always knew she wanted to return to the Pacific Northwest, especially near the gorgeous Washington coastline. Since being hired, the transition has been a smooth one. “I like the cohesiveness and friendliness of the staff. Everyone has been very welcoming and made me felt at home.”

When not working, Nguyen enjoys discovering new foods and recipes and hanging out with her adorable—but very active—Siberian Husky puppy. Over the next few years, she hopes to develop strong relationships with her patients and spend more time participating in advocacy programs in the Gray Harbor community.

A boisterous family of their own, the care providers of Harbor Regional Health—formerly Grays Harbor Community Hospital and Harbor Medical Group—all work towards the singular mission “To heal, comfort, and serve our community with compassion.”

Their nearly 500 employees at the hospital and clinics across Aberdeen, Hoquiam, Westport and Montesano, live and work within their chosen community and strive to make Grays Harbor County strong, healthy and vibrant. Like Dr. Nguyen, they have found their unique and special calling and work hard for families across the region, especially during the long stressful months of 2020.

During quarantine and statewide safety mandates, many of us postponed non-emergency medical visits during COVID-19. But now’s the perfect time to reach out to your child’s healthcare team. Doctors report that during the pandemic “nearly 80% of children were missing their well-child, routine appointments…With fewer children enrolled in school, routine well-child visits become much more critical.” Double-check your kid’s immunization and well-child visit schedule or set up sports physicals for newly reopened summer teams and recreation leagues. HRH staff are always happy to talk through concerns, worries and development milestones. That way your family will be healthy and up to date as schools and summer programs slowly start to reopen.

To learn more about Harbor Regional Health’s pediatrics department or schedule an appointment, visit their website or call 360.537.6332 or 866.537.2778. While online, you’ll find tremendous resources like articles about coping with a new baby during COVID-19, mood-boosting tips for families during the pandemic and advice on how to navigate the pandemic with your special-needs child.

During your child’s formative years there isn’t an awful lot of consistency. Their tastes, preferences, style, moods and hobbies will change almost as fast as they outgrow their most recent pair of shoes. Having a pediatrician like Dr. Nguyen by your side for the journey makes the inevitable bumps and bruises less scary for everyone. Let her and the whole HRH Pediatrics team be a resource from the first diaper change through their gangly high school years. You don’t have to face the challenges alone.

by Kathryn Millhorn for Grays Harbor Talk

Original Article

Being a kid is exciting. There are endless things to climb, build, jump off and splash through. There are new things to try around every corner and adventures await each new day. But growing up brings inevitable bumps and bruises along with colds, broken bones, allergies, aches and pains. This is where Dr. Tiffany Blankenship can help. A new member of the Harbor Regional Health pediatrics team, she’s right there to support the health of your child from day one.

Blankenship was born in Guam, lived in the Philippines until the age of five, and recently joined the HRH team after moving from Houston, Texas. She attended medical school in El Paso and completed her pediatric residency in Houston. This global perspective on life is showcased in her love of food. “I love baking and taking photos of food to put in my foodie Instagram,” she shares. “I love exploring different cultures and cities through the food scene. Some of my photos were even showcased in some restaurants’ Instagram’s in Houston.”

The move west was to follow her heart. “While I was in residency, I met a boy and he is currently in the Navy,” explains Blankenship. “He was stationed on Whidbey Island October 2020. To close the distance between us, I decided to move to Washington once I graduated from residency. I found Harbor Regional Health through some work with recruiters and Aberdeen is definitely much closer than Houston, so I applied for the job. Since I started in October 2021, I have been surprised by the amount of rain in Aberdeen, gotten used to the cold, and I’ve grown to love the people I work with. The patient population is so much fun, and I really have a chance to get to know the families I work with. It’s been an amazing experience so far!”

Working with kids has been her goal for a long time. “I chose pediatrics as a specialty because I have always felt that children have a profound resiliency and amazing strength. You can see the change right away once you’ve treated them or become inspired by how they push through to either relearn how to walk after an accident or deal with their chronic disease. I know it is certainly helped me put some perspective in my own life.”

More than just Washington’s rain and cold, moving to a smaller facility took a little getting used to. “Coming from the Texas Medical Center, starting at a rural hospital setting was definitely an eye opener,” Blankenship admits. “I was accustomed to having the ability to just text questions to our specialty consult services or call a social worker or case manager for any questions about home health needs. However, in a rural setting I have definitely had to get creative in providing the same resources to my patients.”

But the change is a welcome one. “It has been an adventure learning how to obtain this information and managing some things myself without the direct accessibility of a fellow pediatrics specialist. It is a steep learning curve, but I love the challenge and it has been a lot of fun to become more of a jack-of-all-trades kind of physician. During my time at Harbor Regional Health, I hope to become a more well-rounded physician. Being in a rural setting, it kind of forces us to learn to think outside of the box and do all that we can do for a patient because they may not have the resources to get to that appointment in Seattle to see a specialist right away. By working at Harbor Regional Health, my hope is to gain the knowledge to provide for each patient’s different needs and this in turn will help me become the type of physician I strive to be.”

Blankenship also has some advice to offer, especially to new moms. “During my short time here, I have had the pleasure of seeing a lot of newborn babies,” she says. “Some of the things we get asked about newborns are ‘Is it weird that my baby has hiccups?’ and ‘Why is my baby’s skin peeling?’ These are great questions because not many people know about them.”

“Hiccups are normal and often occur with feeding,” she explains. “They usually go away on their own or with the help of some formula or breast milk. Don’t scare the hiccups away, all this will result in is an unhappy baby.”

“Peeling skin on an infant is normal as well. No matter how much it rains in Aberdeen, the outside environment is a lot drier than the womb, and this causes the baby’s skin to peel. Ways to help are to moisturize the baby’s skin with products such as Aveeno, Aquaphor or baby Dove as well as only bathing the baby once every other day. Avoiding products such as Johnson & Johnson is also a great way to help prevent too much skin peeling. Johnson & Johnson smells great and reminds us of that iconic baby smell, but it actually dries the skin out and makes the peeling worse.”

There’s no rule book to parenting so a caring local care team is vital. Thankfully, with the tireless support of pediatricians like Dr. Blankenship, your family can tackle whatever life throws at you…or your kid does.

Hear the Interview with Kyle Pauley