Vaccine Update

Vaccines have been researched very thoroughly for many years and save lives. The research behind the COVID-19 vaccines has been going on for decades. If you do not get the vaccine, you will probably get COVID-19. So far, only one person has died from getting the COVID vaccines. Also, very few people who were given any of the vaccines being studied died of COVID after the vaccine had time to work, and they all had serious conditions that decreased their immune response. GREAT NEWS! Let's put this pandemic behind us and all get vaccinated. We have seen a lot of sickness and death from the coronavirus, plus long term effects in even young people. The Delta varient is more contagious and more deadly, so time to get vaccinated and to encourage those you love to do the same. Vaccines.gov is an easy spot to find out who has which vaccines at this point. 

Our main concern is to continue to be able to provide care to our patients for all of their illnesses. We have many elderly patients who need us and our office staff to be available for their medical needs so we are offering televisits as well as seeing patients in the office. The current wisdom is that a person seeing a case of Corona virus is only safe from this infection if wearing a full suit of protection with a special respirator mask to filter out the virus. We do not have this equipment and cannot risk shutting down our office to see patients who have respiratory symptoms. We are offering tele-visits for people with symptoms that could be due to COVID and for people who would rather visit online.  We can refer our patients to drive-through testing if needed. If you become ill with any of these symptoms: cough, fever, runny nose, sore throat, body aches, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of taste or loss of smell, call us for a tele-visit over your smart phone or computer. We are seeing patients in the office who do not have symptoms or contact with COVID.

To avoid infection:

Wash your hands for 20 seconds often. 
Do not touch your face.
Do not shake hands. In fact, give up shaking hands forever- fist bumps and elbow bumps are less likely to spread many different infections- or a simple bow will do. 
Disinfect surfaces often. 
Cover your cough or sneeze, but not with bare hands. Cough into your elbow or a tissue, then wash your hands. 
STAY HOME unless you have been vaccinated!!! Try to shop without going into stores, and only for groceries. Stay at least 6 feet away from people. Experts are receommending extreme social distancing until infections go way down in Tennessee. Unfortunately, as of July, 2021, Tennessee is again in the Red Zone for COVID infections. 

August, 2017: Family Practice Partners is pleased to announce they are again the recipients of the Best Practice Award given each year by PPRNet, a national research group dedicated to combining research with improving healthcare.  This award is given to practices in the top 10% of the practices in the research group. Our patients are much more likely to be up-to-date with immunizations, Pap smears, mammograms, as well as cholesterol, prostate cancer, colon cancer and blood pressure screening than most patients.  Our patients are receiving excellent care for diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and other chronic diseases, as well as being given excellent care of respiratory illnesses, depression, tobacco and alcohol abuse.

Dr. Susan Andrews 615-890-9191
Dr. Randall Rickard 615-890-9191