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Health and Fitness

Dirk DePagter talks to Kate Wadley about Hotel Columbia's donation to Telluride Medical Center's Feast. See the videocast at the end of this article.


Dirk DePagter remembers Telluride's wild and wooly days of the 1970s. A  master carpenter/contractor back when, he was hired to do the remodel that transformed a shed owned by the Idarado Mining Company into the building that is now the Telluride Medical Center. What remains of his handiwork is the eastern part of today's structure.

Dirk, who became a developer, is now the proud owner of his first hotel: he and his partners purchased the Hotel Columbia from close friends Jim Lincoln and Jeff Campbell in January 2008.

07 March, 2009 /

FEAST baskets 005 Dr. Jeff Ptak wears two hats in the Telluride community: he is a board certified plastic surgeon with a private practice and the dermatologist at the Telluride Medical Center. In both contexts, however, he regularly confronts the vicissitudes of altitude and aging on skin and finds solutions.

Dr. Ptak first visited the Telluride region 40 years ago. Since then, he has watched the community grow and change, and the town's small "clinic" grow into a Medical Center now bursting at the seams, just as the demand to deliver more and better state-of-the-art services is growing.

01 March, 2009 /

The Telluride AIDS Benefit is Robert Presley’s legacy. It now reaches out in many ways to many different places/institutions: locally, through its education initiative; regionally to the Denver Children’s Hospital Immunodeficiency Program (CHIP) and Brother Jeff’s Health Initiative; internationally, through The Telluride Project in Manzini, Swaziland, Sub-Saharan Africa and Ethiopia; and to neighbors on the Western Slope through TAB’s primary beneficiary, the Western Colorado AIDS Project or WestCAP.

In 1994, WestCAP  was still a very small nonprofit operating out of Grand Junction under the direction of a small board of directors and administered part-time by a nurse, Shelley Nielsen. Nielsen did great work with the Mesa County Health Department and as part-time executive director/case manager for WestCAP. Clients being served lived primarily in Mesa County, until Presley worked his magic.

26 February, 2009 /

by Dr. Susannah Smith

Hypnosis is a natural, normal state of consciousness, characterized by the focus of attention on one concept to the exclusion of others.  We experience hypnotic states all the time: when we are reading a book and don't hear someone who is calling our name; when we drive to work and are lost in thought, not really focusing on each turn and location; when we are listening to an "entrancing" story; or when we are in the mystical state drifting on and off into sleep.

I took my first course in hypnosis because I was fascinated.  I did not think anyone could snap their fingers and make me bark like a dog!  What I discovered was a profoundly helpful understanding of hypnosis in general, and what we clinicians call "therapeutic hypnosis."  For most purposes, a light trance state produces the beneficial results we are seeking.  For those who want to experience the deep states of hypnosis, practice is required.  We can learn to put ourselves into a hypnotic state and to choose our areas of focus.

Why would anyone want to practice hypnosis?  The benefits are infinite.  Athletes use hypnosis to focus on the game and to exclude the anxiety of the crowd and noise.  We cleanse ourselves when we go into hypnotic states, feeling refreshed and rejuvenated.  We can teach ourselves how to use hypnotic states to help overcome phobias and anxiety attacks.  In a deep trance state, surgery without anesthesia can be performed.

24 February, 2009 /

[click the "Play" button to hear Susan's conversation with Lauren Fong]

Itsola on Telluride AIDS Benefit runway

Designer Lauren Fong is cut from a different sort of cloth.

Her career in fashion began improbably at USC Business School. A move to Tokyo for a career in banking sharpened her aesthetics perhaps more than her numbers skills.

Back home in the U.S., Lauren obeyed her muse. Good-bye suits, hello Itsola.

24 February, 2009 /

Telluride's New Sheridan Hotel, Restaurant and Bar partners with Med Center's FEAST

She was the heart of the social scene back in the days Telluride's streets were paved with gold. About 117 years later, however, she was clearly overdue for some major "work."

Telluride's new plastic surgeon, Dr. Jeff Ptak – also the dermatologist at the Telluride Medical Center – had nothing to do with the New Sheridan Hotel, Bar & Restaurant's $7 million facelift. Credit for the handiwork goes to world famous interior designer Nina Campbell, who returned the grande dame of Main Street to her original Victorian splendor.

22 February, 2009 /

Among the elements that make Telluride "Telluride" are community involvement and the spirit of volunteerism. Nowhere are these more apparent than among our young citizens. Emma Gross and Brittany Altman were Rizzo and Sandy in the recent SAF Young People's Theatre revival of "Grease."...

22 February, 2009 /

Flap our gums, as is our wont in the Telluride community, about the need for expansion and new equipment,  at the end of the day, for a key player in this area such as Kristin Holbrook, it is a no-brainer: through her store,Two Skirts, she is a big time supporter of the FEAST, or Fund for Expanding and Supporting Telluride's Medical Center,  because she is here for the long haul and wants to be assured of state of the art medical services for her young family. Watch the video below to preview the Two Skirts' shopping spree, one of the auction items.

The facts on the table seem plain enough: The Telluride Medical Center has outgrown its existing building.  Between 2001 and 2007, TMC’s emergency service volume grew 81% and  community population projections indicate the TMC’s primary service area should grow by 39% over the next 10 years. With a new facility, the TMC would be able to double the capacity of the ER, and add specialty services such as pediatrics. 

15 February, 2009 /