Boback Announces the Unanimous Passage of Veterans Bills Package by the House Rep. Karen Boback (R-Lackawanna/Luzerne/Wyoming), majority chairman of the House Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee, announced the unanimous passage of the Veterans Day package of bills through the House today. “Just in time for tomorrow, Veterans Day, we took action this week in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to support our veterans and their families,” said Boback. “This package of bills that passed through the House today will enhance the lives of our veterans community across the Commonwealth. “The package seeks to improve professional licensure provisions, increases the blind and paralyzed veteran pension program and provides for improvements to the Pennsylvania National Guard Life insurance program. It also allows for further protections in military discharge records and the care of veterans graves. Additionally, we took action to create a recognition day for veterans of the Persian Gulf War and the Global War on Terrorism, in which many of my House and Senate colleagues valiantly served. Lastly, we passed a resolution I authored with the minority chair of the House Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee to commemorate Veterans Day 2021 in Pennsylvania. “I am grateful to my colleagues in the House for their support of the legislation that was before us this week. I look forward to continuing to provide veterans throughout Pennsylvania with the benefits and services they so rightfully deserve.” The Veterans Day package of bills includes House Bills 1055, 1220, 1612, and 1868; House Resolution 153; and Senate Bills 248 and 550. For more information on the legislation, go to www.legis.state.pa.us.
Waverly Community House to Host 38th Annual Artisans’ Marketplace Volunteers are needed! If interested in volunteering, call The Comm office at 570-586-8191.
Geisinger Marworth Tops Newsweek List of “Best Addiction Treatment Centers” Geisinger Marworth Treatment Center has been named to Newsweek’s 2021 list of America’s Best Addiction Treatment Centers as the top-ranked facility in Pennsylvania. The America’s Best Addiction Treatment Centers 2021 list highlights the nation’s top facilities based on quality of service, reputation and accreditation relative to in-state competition. Facilities in the 25 states with the highest number of addiction treatment centers, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), were included in the survey. The rankings feature the top 300 inpatient/residential and long-term addiction treatment centers. The evaluation process included quality and accreditation scores as well as recommendations from peers. “Geisinger Marworth is dedicated to providing quality, evidence-based treatment for people with substance use disorder, and we are honored to be recognized by this survey and by our peers for the care we offer,” said Margaret Jarvis, M.D., chair of addiction medicine at Geisinger. “Marworth provides a safe and supportive environment to help people gain remission from addiction diseases.” Geisinger Marworth, located near Scranton, offers individualized, holistic inpatient and outpatient treatment to help people overcome alcohol and substance use disorder, including medication-assisted treatment, individual and family therapy, and support groups. Marworth cares for patients from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and New England, and more than 40,000 people have chosen Marworth for treatment since 1982. For more information about Marworth and addiction medicine care at Geisinger, visit Geisinger.org/NewsweekMarworth.
Johnson College Announces New Two-Year Associates Degree Students can now enroll in Johnson College’s new Mechatronics Technology program. The program will start during the fall 2022 semester. The two-year associate degree program prepares students for entry-level work in the multidisciplinary field of Mechatronics, which includes energy, plastics, computer and communications equipment manufacturing, and aerospace technology. Students learn the theoretical principles and measured values required to troubleshoot electrical, electronic, and mechanical systems. The program also teaches customer service, supervisory, and professional communications skills to help students excel in their future roles as Mechatronic technicians. Graduates will work in careers such as electro-mechanical and mechatronics technologists or technicians and have the opportunity to earn a median annual income of up to $59,800. “Johnson College’s industry partners have shared with us the importance of students entering the workforce with interdisciplinary skills. These are the students they want to hire.” said Dr. Katie Leonard, Johnson College’s President and CEO. “The addition of the Mechatronics Technology program addresses their need for versatile employees with dynamic troubleshooting skills.” For more information about or to enroll in Johnson College’s Mechatronics Technology program visit johnson.edu/mechatronics or contact Johnson College’s Enrollment Department at 570-702-8856 or enroll@johnson.edu.
Director of Addiction Services at The Wright Center for Community Health Participates in PA Panel Discussion Maria Kolcharno, L.S.W., director of addiction services for The Wright Center for Community Health, recently participated in a panel discussion at the Pennsylvania Perinatal Quality Collaborative Learning Session that addressed working relationships between Opioid Use Disorder Centers of Excellence and maternity care providers in the commonwealth. Kolcharno addressed numerous collaborative relationships The Wright Center for Community Health’s Healthy Maternal Opiate Medical Support program (Healthy MOMS) has formed with regional Children & Youth Service agencies, OB-GYN providers and hospital maternity units since it was founded in 2018 to better deliver services. During the program’s breakout sessions, she outlined workflow charts to assist others in replicating the collaborative relationships and processes the Healthy MOMS program has established with Centers of Excellence and maternity care teams. Topics discussed included best practices in connecting patients with opiate use disorder to local Centers of Excellence. Established in 2016, The Wright Center for Community Health’s Opioid Use Disorder Center of Excellence is one of 50 in the state. The program helps individuals in recovery reshape their lifestyles from the comfort of their own communities. Patients visit any of The Wright Center’s primary care practices in Lackawanna, Luzerne or Wayne counties to connect with supportive certified recovery specialists, case managers, social workers, and medical providers who collectively help them break the cycle of addiction through outpatient care. Linked to The Wright Center’s Opioid Use Disorder Center of Excellence, the Healthy MOMS program was co-founded with multiple agencies to assist women who are pregnant and have a substance use disorder. Healthy MOMS provides prenatal, perinatal and postpartum care, including medication-assisted treatment to women coping with a substance use disorder, and strives to break the stigma associated with it while building their self-esteem during and after their pregnancies, ideally engaging them in recovery support services. The Pennsylvania Perinatal Quality Collaborative includes 61 birthing hospitals and newborn intensive care units and 14 health plans in the state. Overall, the organization works to reduce maternal mortality and improve care for pregnant and postpartum women and newborns affected by opioids. For more information about the Healthy MOMS program, call 570-995-7821 or text healthymoms to 555888. Information about the program and its partners is also available online at healthymoms.org. Go to thewrightcenter.org/services for information about the Opioid Use Disorder Center of Excellence.
University of Scranton Professor Awarded Six-Figure National Science Foundation Grant Bryan Crable, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology at The University of Scranton, was awarded a $198,265 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for a two-year study of the impact of plastic debris on the physiology of freshwater microorganisms in Lake Lacawac. In addition to Dr. Crable’s role as principal investigator, the research project will involve and train approximately eight undergraduate students in field, laboratory and computer simulated investigations. According to Dr. Crable, microplastics are plastic particles less than 5 millimeters in size that are a common pollutant that have seen widespread accumulation in the environment since World War II. “This type of research is important because we really don’t have a good understanding of how plastics influence ecosystems,” said Dr. Crable. “For the longest time, we thought that microplastics didn’t really impact the local ecosystem. Over the last five to ten years, we have begun to get a better understanding of their impact. In the last few years, researchers have discovered there are microbes that degrade plastics and, although that can be beneficial, the overall impact has to be studied much more.” According to Dr. Crable, comparatively, there has been lots of research on the effects of plastic debris in marine environments, but there has been very little research in freshwater environments. “Lake Lacawac is only about 30 minutes away from campus and is a near pristine freshwater watershed. The lake was privately owned for a few hundred years. There has been essentially no development on the lake and there is no known microplastic intrusion,” said Dr. Crable. “Our experiment will use water from the lake in microcosms that we establish in a lake side field lab. In the first year, we will look at microbial communities which colonize plastics versus natural debris such as leaf litter. In the second year of the study, we will analyze the impacts of different types of plastics on microbial communities.” The project will provide full-time summer research opportunities to two to three students each summer for two years. Dr. Crable noted that students will gain experience using state-of-the-art software programs for analyzing microbial communities as well as learn critical programming languages used for statistical analyses. “One of the great things about the University is that undergraduates are doing actual research projects,” said Dr. Crable. “The benefit undergraduates get out of research, especially working on larger projects in a faculty member’s labs, is that they get to take ownership over some part of a project. The students are able to take the seeds of an idea and move it forward – to design the necessary experiments, carry them out and analyze the results to answer a question,” said Dr. Crable, who noted that students also have the possibility to present their studies at conferences, with some undergraduates having their research published in an academic journal. Through the research project, Dr. Crable will also develop an advanced undergraduate curriculum on microplastics, which will be integrated into the Special Topics in Biology – Environmental Microbiology course. Dr. Crable joined the faculty at Scranton in 2018. His research focuses on the fields of microbial physiology, environmental microbiology and microbial biotechnology. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Saint Vincent College, his master’s degree from Duquesne University and his Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Oklahoma. In 2010, Dr. Crable was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship by the Institute for International Education to conduct research at the University of Wageningen in The Netherlands.
