Lianne Marks, MD, PhD, is an internist at Scott & White Healthcare - Round Rock.
“Taking care of our
mental state is tied
into our physical
health, too.”
— Dr. Marks
find the right program,” she says. “We try
to help patients determine how they can do
things to facilitate their own health.”
Reaching out
Dr. Marks is involved with an initiative
sponsored by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. Its ACHIEVE
communities (Action Communities for
Health, Innovation, and EnVironmental
changE) develop and implement policy,
systems and environmental change strategies
that can help prevent or manage health risk
factors for heart disease, stroke, diabetes,
cancer, obesity and arthritis. Williamson is
one of 53 counties in the country currently
selected for funding.
Specific activities will be directed
toward reducing tobacco use and exposure,
promoting physical activity and healthy
eating, and improving access to consistent,
high-quality preventive health services.
“This is a fantastic program that
focuses on preventive care for a whole
community,” says Dr. Marks. “I’m looking
forward to seeing a lot of successes.”
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THE CATALYST Fall 09 | sw.org
Steps to wellness
Dr. Marks says there are three essential
steps to achieving wellness:
Decide: Make a firm decision and
commitment to improve your personal
health.
Plan: Create and institute a
comprehensive plan that you are willing to
stick with. Make your physician a partner
in your plan.
Be consistent: Implementing a plan is
difficult, as is following through. Dr.
Marks recommends that patients keep an
exercise calendar and record their weight
on a calendar once a week, since frequent
and consistent weight checks are associated
with weight loss. This tool should be
placed in a prominent location in the
house as a reminder and also brought to
visits with your healthcare provider.
Role of mental health in
overall wellness
“Mental health support is critical these days.
People are under tremendous stress, but still
some carry the belief that it’s somehow an
expression of weakness to receive help,” says
Dr. Marks. “My hope would be to convey to
my patients that therapy is something that
they can benefit from, especially if an area of
their life is not working.”
Scott & White Healthcare - Round Rock
is about to break ground on the Healing
Garden, a quiet, supportive environment
for patients, staff and families. The garden
was made possible through philanthropic
donations. “The Healing Garden will be a
place to go that’s designed to support
healing. Taking care of our mental state is
tied into our physical health, too,” says Dr.
Marks. “Helping people find healing—and
protecting their health—is an important
goal for all of us at Scott & White.” ■
Dr. Marks also is an associate clerkship director
for internal medicine and an assistant professor
of medicine, Texas A&M Health Science Center
College of Medicine.
A HELPFUL RESOURCE
Office of
Development
Update
There’s an air of excitement at Scott & White.
We’re expanding our services with new locations and partnerships to serve more
people than ever before. If you’ve read the article in this issue of THE CATALYST
about our affiliation with Hillcrest Health System in Waco, TX, you know that we
are committed to caring for the people in Central Texas.
And recently, ground has been broken for utility lines in preparation for the
construction of the Scott & White Lake of the Hills Regional Medical Center in
Marble Falls, TX. It will be easier for patients in the Hill Country to seek specialty
care through a state-of-the-art hospital, outpatient clinics and physician medical
offices. We’re also working in partnership with Llano Memorial Hospital and
physicians there, whose commitment mirrors ours.
We believe that working with local communities results in the best care for
patients. So we invest in those communities and leverage their strength. Offering
access to the substantial resources of Scott & White to other areas in Central Texas
empowers people to live healthier lives because they have access to quality care in a
way that’s convenient. It lets them know we’re on their side.
We thank you, our community of supporters, for being on ours.
NANCY BIRDWELL
Chief Development Officer
Scott & White Healthcare
Dr. Marks believes in providing her patients with resources to help
themselves. One book she recommends is Spark: The Revolutionary New
Science of Exercise and the Brain, by John J. Ratey, MD. It explains how
aerobic exercise prepares your brain to learn, improves mood and
attention, lowers stress and anxiety, helps stave off addiction, controls
the sometimes tumultuous effects of hormonal changes, and guards
against and even reverses some of the effects of aging on the brain.
sw.org | Fall 09 THE CATALYST
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