Rockford's Mercyhealth REACT Helicopter Program Is Impressive

What's Up, Doc? is a weekly health segment on WROK sponsored by MercyHealth. Each week they highlight a different doctor/healthcare professional to come on our show and talk to us about their specialty. It has turned into one of our favorite segments. All of our doctors have exhibited a "human" side that people don't always get to see with their physicians. We encourage you to check out some of our past episodes here. We've done about 30 of these segments highlighting everything from Lyme disease to hernia repair to finding a health care plan and everything else in between. We've learned a lot and hope you can too.

First of all, no offense to any of the other doctors and health professionals that we've had on our What's Up, Doc? segment, but Dr. John Pakiela was the coolest guest we've had on the show since we started last May.

Dr. Pakiela is part of Mercyhealth's REACT program. That's the program that sends the helicopter out during emergencies. Dr. Pakiela explained to us that the REACT program is unique in the area, and compared to most hospital helicopter programs around the country, because actual physicians are usually on board when the aircraft goes out to an emergency scene. Most emergency helicopters are staffed with only paramedics. This means that hospital quality care is being given at the earliest moments of the worst emergencies.

We had an absolute blast talking with Dr. Pakiela. I think we only got to about half of the questions we wanted to ask because we were so excited to talk to someone that flies regularly on helicopters.

I highly encourage you to listen to the whole interview, we learned quite a bit and I'm sure you will too.

We thank Dr. Pakiela for his time and look forward to our next guest on What's Up, Doc?

A new What's Up, Doc? can be heard every Thursday morning at 8:35 on 1440 WROK.