STANDARD BLADE B R I G H T O N
SERVING THE COMMUNITY SINCE 1903
75cI
VOLUME 117
Issue 5
WEEK OF FEBRUARY 3, 2022
January 18 designated as Dr. Cardos day Dr. Cardos retired after 46 years of service BY BELEN WARD BWARD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Dr. Stephen Cardos after more than 46 years in since July 1975 serving generations of families children has retired and was honored by Brighton’s City Council with January 18th as Dr. Stephen Cardos day. “I feel thankful that my life’s work was meaningful and was appreciated,” said Dr. Cardos. Cardos was born in Brooklyn, New York and graduated from New York University Medical School and did his residency at Bellevue Hospital, New York. After leaving New York City in 1973 he spent two years in Omaha, Nebraska hospital, and then joined Air Force. “I was the chief of Pediatrics in the Air Force, at a very busy clinic,” said Dr. Cardos. Dr. Cardos wanted to be a doctor since was very young and also had asthma so he had lots of exposure being around doctors. It was one role model that inspired him and he knew going forward it was what he wanted to do. “It’s was tough especially when my friends were having parties- I was studying,” said Dr. Cardos. When training at Bellevue hospi-
tal Dr. Cardos was seeing primarily homeless people who were living on the streets or where ever. “It was very frustrating to have them as patients because you could get them all cleaned up to get rid of their body lice or all their diseasesthen two weeks later- they were back in the hospital with the same thing all over again,” Cardos said. It was so frustrating for Dr. Cardos and it gave a distorted view of what real medicine was like and also for the rest of the country. It was when he decided he wanted to go into pediatrics. “Kids are innocent and had no say over their social situation. It’s has been very enjoyable to work with children. Cardos moved to Brighton in April 1975, purchased a home, and started working in July at his practice. Also, he was the only pediatrician in all of Adams County for over 20-years. Before COVID, Dr. Cardos was slowing down was only seeing patients three days a week. Then COVID hit it was he stopped seeing patients. “The practice had a big decrease in the number of patients. You would think the opposite, everybody’s sick and would come in, but nobody came in because they were afraid,” he said. “So the practice went down and I stopped seeing patients and managed the practice for the next two years.” Best moments for Dr. Cardos, he had seen four to five cases of
Dr. Cardos receiving a certificate of recognition from Mayor Greg Mills proclaiming COURTESY OF CITY OF BRIGHTON January 18th as Dr. Stephen Cardos Day.
three generations of families. The grandmother, the parents, and their children. “Multiple generations of the parents being my patients and then their children are my patients.
It’s kind of nice that we all had long, long relationships.” In addition, Dr. Cardos has been involved with a lot of community SEE CARDOS, P4
Doctors speculate on what flu season will look like Omicron hinders data-gathering process for influenza BY THELMA GRIMES TGRIMES@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
With talk of COVID around the clock, winter is still a time for other illness and viruses, including influenza, which has reemerged this year
after being nearly non-existent in 2020-2021. Doctors across the Front Range said hospitals and clinics started seeing the flu pop up in October and November. Flu season generally lasts through mid-April, leaving doctors along the Denver metro area to say they are not quite sure what to expect as flu season moves into full swing. At Children’s Hospital Colorado, Dr. Suchitra Rao, a pediatric infec-
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tious disease specialist, said they started treating young patients with the flu dating back to October. Rao said the number of cases doctors are seeing at various Children’s Hospital clinics in Douglas, Jefferson and Arapahoe counties are on par with what the levels used to be prepandemic. As of Jan. 27, Rao said Children’s Hospital has had 400 confirmed influenza cases, with 100 of them needing hospitalization.
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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while states like Texas and New Mexico have “very high” numbers of flu cases, Colorado is still in the “minimal” stage, meaning not many cases are currently being recorded. Rao said flu cases started dropping again when the omicron variant of COVID-19 sparked up. As cases of omicron increased, for some reason, SEE FLU, P17
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