Uyemura Family Medicine

09/22/2025

07/31/2025

July 31, 2025

Thank you to all Uyemura Family Medicine members. I have thoroughly enjoyed starting this practice and trying to meet the healthcare needs of everyone who has signed up and joined my direct primary care clinic. When I started this clinic, my goal was to enroll 500 members, and I am happy to say I have reached that goal. Except for immediate family members of existing members and special circumstances such as new employees of participating businesses who offer membership to my clinic as an employee benefit, as of September 1, 2025, I will no longer be accepting new members.

Thank you for the privilege of being your primary care physician.

31 de Julio de 2025

Gracias a todos los miembros de Medicina Familiar Uyemura. He disfrutado muchísimo iniciando esta clínica y tratando de satisfacer las necesidades de atención médica de todos los que se han inscrito y se han unido a mi clínica de atención primaria directa. Cuando abrí esta clínica, mi meta era inscribir a 500 miembros, y me complace decir que la he alcanzado. Salvo los familiares directos de los miembros actuales y circunstancias especiales, como los nuevos empleados de las empresas participantes que ofrecen la membresía a mi clínica como beneficio para empleados, a partir del 1 de septiembre de 2025, ya no aceptaré nuevos miembros. Gracias por el privilegio de ser su médico de atención primaria.

Monte Uyemura, MD

12/28/2023

My family got stranded in Otis yesterday when they closed highway 34 due to the blizzard. A big thank you to Fire Chief, Trent Alexander and his family for opening the Otis fire hall for weary travelers and treating us to a home made spaghetti dinner. Super nice to have access to a bathroom for our overnight stay.

09/24/2022

What shots should my family get this fall?

Should my family be thinking about getting any shots as the cold and flu season approaches? Absolutely. Here is some information on the flu shot and the somewhat complex information about Covid vaccine boosters.

First, the simple answer, anybody over 6 months of age should get their flu shot this fall. If you have an allergy to eggs or you think you are allergic to any ingredient in the vaccine, or if you have a history of Guillain-Barre Syndrome speak to your doctor first, but otherwise I highly recommend you get a flu shot this year. Because of the lack of influenza infections last year, and the lifting of social distancing policies, this year’s influenza season could be worse than usual. The flu vaccine is generally anywhere from 10 - 70% effective in preventing influenza, depending on how well the vaccine matches the strain that circulates that season, but it is safe, and can be given any time in relation to a Covid vaccine, including on the same day. The Wray Clinic is giving flu vaccine on a walk in basis on Tuesday, October 11 from 9 AM to 5 PM, and again on October 18 if supplies last.

What about the Covid vaccine? At the peak of the pandemic, I recommended people get the vaccine, not only to protect themselves, but to protect each other and to prevent overwhelming our hospitals and healthcare system. At this point I think our hospitals are going to be OK, so you can make your decision solely on what is best for you and your family. Of the two mRNA Covid vaccines, the Wray Hospital and Clinic carry the Moderna vaccine. The CDC recommends Covid vaccine for anyone 6 months or older. After millions of doses, I believe that beyond reasonable doubt that the covid vaccines are safe and have a very low risk of serious side effects. Therefore I endorse the recommendations regarding Covid vaccination by the CDC. If you have underlying medical conditions and the older you are, the stronger my support for Covid vaccination. The Hospital is giving Covid shots (Moderna monovalent primary series, Moderna Bivalent boosters and Novavax) on September 27 from 12:30 PM to 4:00 PM in the hospital south education room.

If you are 18 years old or over and have not received a Covid vaccine and not had a Covid infection in the last 3 months, there is enough safety and efficacy data now that I strongly recommend you get the primary two shot series now. No matter what you may have heard about the dangers of the vaccine, after millions of doses, the Covid vaccine is safer than getting Covid infection. Vaccinated adults have been less likely to die than unvaccinated adults. If you are young and healthy, you are likely (but not guaranteed) to get through a Covid infection without getting seriously ill, but getting a covid infection can still be a major inconvenience. The Covid vaccine will decrease your chance of getting Covid, and even after the protection wanes, it still decreases the chance you will get seriously ill if you do catch Covid. Maybe we’ll get lucky and Covid is going away, but I wouldn’t count on it, and the vaccine is safe.

For healthy children 6 years - 17 years old, I recommend getting the Covid vaccine because studies show the vaccine reduces serious illness and death in adolescents and reduces hospitalizations in the younger children in this age group.

For healthy children 6 months to five years old, the vaccine appears to be safe, but since children in this age group don’t often get seriously sick, studies have not yet shown a significant reduction in serious illness. So unless your child has an underlying illness or risk factor, if you have some skepticism about the Covid vaccine, I wouldn’t fault you for having your 6 month to 5 year old child skip the Covid vaccine this fall, but for those of us who have confidence in vaccines, consider that in children 6 months to 11 years, death from Covid infections still exceeds the pre-vaccination death rate from chicken pox for which children are now routinely vaccinated. Having your child catch Covid, if nothing else, can be stressful and inconvenient. Since children already get quite a few shots at their well child checks, for children in this age group, my unscientific strategy would be to try and get the Covid vaccine this fall at a visit other than a well child check when the child is already getting routine childhood immunizations and possibly a flu shot.

For those adults 18 years and older who are still apprehensive about the mRNA vaccine, the Wray hospital is now carrying the Novavax vaccine which is manufactured by a traditional process. The Johnson and Johnson vaccine is no longer recommended when you can get a mRNA vaccine, and it is not carried by the Wray Hospital.

If you have completed the primary mRNA Covid vaccine two shot series, at least 5 months ago, adults 18 and over should get a booster, and if you are over 50 years old or have an immunocompromising condition, and it has been over 4 months since your first booster dose, it is recommended that you get a second booster vaccine. All primary series Moderna Covid vaccines are still the monovalent original Covid vaccine, but for all booster doses the only vaccine being used is the new bivalent vaccine that includes both the original and omicron variant coverage. So if you are due for a booster, it will be the bivalent mRNA Moderna vaccine at the Wray Hospital. The CDC recommends all individuals 12 years and older receive the bivalent dose, but the Moderna bivalent vaccine is not authorized in people 12 - 17 years old so people in this age group will have to go elsewhere (Walgreens or Health department) to get the Pfizer booster dose. Even if you are fully vaccinated and boosted for your age category, if you are 12 years or older and have not received the bivalent Covid vaccine, the CDC recommends getting a bivalent booster at least 2 months after your last Covid vaccine dose. The studies on the bivalent vaccine are preliminary and are not nearly as robust as the studies which led to the emergency use authorization of the original Covid vaccines during the pandemic. The authorization and approval of the bivalent vaccines is not based on proven safety and efficacy. It is more based on the short term safety profile and the fact we expect the long term safety to be similar to the experience we have had with the original vaccine produced by the same process. The efficacy data is based on blood tests that show improved antibodies against the omicron variant, not a demonstrated decrease in infection and serious illness with the omicron variant. It is the same decision process that officials use each year with the flu vaccine. They try to guess which influenza variant is going to spread across the world. As is the case every year with the flu vaccine, we don’t know how effective the bivalent Covid vaccine will be this season. It’s pretty complex so try not to worry. Any covid vaccine you have received or can get this fall will likely give some protection.

06/17/2022

https://www.kunc.org/community/2022-06-02/passion-community-drive-new-businesses-in-rural-yuma-county-despite-recession

The pandemic forced Colorado industries to shut down storefronts and put up with supply chain issues and inflation. Despite the financial squeeze, the state’s new business filings have skyrocketed during the last three years, nearing a 10-year peak last quarter. And the economic development is hap...

05/28/2022

Correction on CDC recommendation. The CDC recommends the second booster vaccine for the general public 50 years old and older, 4 months after your first booster. My previous post said 70 years old. Anyway with the numbers in Yuma County now, unless you have additional health risks, or planning travel or higher risk encounters, I think it is reasonable to consider delaying your second booster until the fall, closer to the cold and flu season. If you haven't been vaccinated for Covid at all I recommend that you start now.

05/24/2022

Covid Update
Covid numbers are down, but unfortunately rising again. Nobody knows for sure what the future holds, but here are a few things to consider.
As the cases have been down this spring, for people asking about a booster I have been recommending holding off until the fall in order to have protection during the cold and flu season, however, the CDC is recommending a second booster now for people over 70. In the past three days we have had several positive covid cases in Wray, so it's a judgement call if you are elderly or have risk factors. Either be cautious, practice social distancing and consider a mask in public and take a chance and hold off until fall, or get a booster shot now, knowing your protection will be waning by the cold and flu season.
For the rest of the population who are fully immunized but potentially due for a booster, I would keep an eye on the numbers, but as of now I would still try to postpone an initial or second booster until the fall.
Another thing to be aware of is that Paxlovid, a combination of two pills taken for 5 days, has been shown to decrease hospitalizations and death in unvaccinated outpatient covid patients with at least one risk factor. There are some risks if you have liver or kidney disease or are on certain medications, but Paxlovid was well tolerated and when started within 3 days of symptoms there was a 0.7% rate of hospitalization or death in the treated group vs 6.5% in the placebo group. Unfortunately vaccinated people were excluded from the study. An unpublished study on less than 1000 people including vaccinated people with at least one risk factor showed 0.7% hospitalization in the Paxlovid group and a 2.4% hospitalization in the placebo group but the results were not statistically significant.
Pardon the numbers, but the bottom line, if you get Covid and are unvaccinated and have at least one risk factor for more serious illness, you should consider Paxlovid if you do not have contraindications. Others could also benefit from this outpatient regimen, but the data is not as strong. I'm not sure I can prescribe Paxlovid if you have no risk factors.
Remember this is the best advice I can give today. It may change day to day.
Stay healthy. Be kind.

Monte

01/23/2022

Covid Update: What is that light at the end of the tunnel?

First the bad news. Covid is everywhere right now. Back in August we had 8 positive cases per day per 100,000 population. At that time Mississippi was having a crisis with 120 cases/day/100,000 people, a rate I had calculated would overwhelm our county’s hospitals. In September our case rate had gone up to 20. Today in Yuma County we are up to 87, and this number does not include the people who choose not to get tested or do home tests that don’t get reported to the state. Recently, over half the covid tests run in Wray have been positive. The state of Colorado is at 194. Alabama is testing positive at 387 cases/day/100,000 population.

The possible good news. Hospitals should be absolutely overwhelmed and sick people should be spilling out into the streets. Some hospitals in the country are in crisis, but many are managing. The 12 hospitals in the University of Colorado Hospital system have seen a peak in covid hospitalizations about equal to the peak seen in January of 2021. If the rate of serious illness with covid infection was the same as it was a year ago we should be seeing twice, three time, or five times the number of hospitalizations. Right now two thirds of the patients in the University of Colorado hospital system with Covid are in the hospital for something else, and just happened to have a positive Covid test. Could this be the beginning of the end of the pandemic? The light at the end of the tunnel? A lower percentage of Covid infected people may be getting seriously sick because the OImicron variant may be less virulent or because more people are vaccinated or have already had Covid once. It could be that our hospitals are about to get slammed beyond belief in about a week and that light at the end of this damn tunnel may be an oncoming train, but I am hoping, hoping…

No matter what the light at the end of this tunnel turns out to be, remember, Covid is all around us right now. Please take care, especially if you are in a high risk group. The relief of warmer weather will be coming soon. Even more tragic are the battle casualties that occur while the leaders of countries are meeting to negotiate the end of the war. If you haven’t had Covid in the last 3 months, and you are old, I highly recommend you get vaccinated. Old can mean over 30, or if you feel “old”, or if you are older than Tom Brady. After over a year of vaccinating millions of people the covid vaccines have not shown any surprising serious complications, and are safe beyond reasonable doubt. If you have any medical problems, are more than 10- 15 pounds overweight, are pregnant, a healthcare worker or have frequent close contact with someone in a high risk group, I highly recommend getting vaccinated with either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. For these high risk people, I would recommend the vaccine even if the risk of severe side effects such as anaphylaxis and myocarditis were ten times what I believe the risk to be.

Pregnant women are at higher risk of serious complications if they catch covid in the second half of their pregnancy. I would usually recommend pregnant women get the Covid vaccine at the end of the first trimester not because there is any risk of vaccinating at any time during pregnancy, but because naturally about 15% of pregnancies miscarry, usually in the first trimester. Aklthough there has been no evidence that the Covid vaccine causes miscarriage, it would be hard to convince a woman who miscarried after receiving the Covid vaccine that the vaccine did not cause the pregnancy loss.

If you are not in a high risk group, there are a lot of other reasons to get vaccinated. It is less common, but young people also get seriously sick from Covid. Over 1000 children under 18, many with underlying medical conditions, have died so far from complications of Covid in the United States. Like H1N1 influenza, I believe Covid will be around for years to come and the vaccine appears to be safe enough that why not give yourself the chance of having some protection against serious illness in the future? Even more than the inconvenience of catching the common cold, catching Covid is a significant inconvenience due to restrictions and quarantines. You might be more likely to choose to get vaccinated if you haven’t been infected yet, if you believe in vaccines, if you want to avoid the nuisance, if you have a future event like an athletic competition, wedding or family vacation you really want to attend, or feel like it is for the good of the community. You might be less likely to choose to get vaccinated if you already had covid, live an isolated existence without human contact, or remain skeptical of the safety of the vaccine. Besides the information I have researched on the vaccine from trusted sources, I believe the vaccine to be safe because I haven’t seen serious complications in Wray after over a year. My wife and I and my 19 and 16 year old sons are vaccinated. There is no higher endorsement for the vaccine that I can give.

12/30/2021

My wife, called me at work today and said, "You gotta come home and see this." We have a couple dying big cottonwood trees in the narrow space between our house and the fence. To make things even more challenging, in that space is a "Catio" and birdhouse. I didn't know how I was going to get the trees cut and trimmed. Dan Strange and his daredevil crew from Quality Tree Service got the job done without a scratch to our home or Catio and provided a couple hours of entertainment.

12/24/2021

In 1959 Bertrand Russell sent us a message to a world in a pandemic.

In 1959, Bertrand Russell, the Nobel Prize-winning philosopher, mathematician and peace activist was just short of his 87th birthday, when he gave wide-rangi...

12/24/2021

A Holiday Wish during the Pandemic

As we enter another holiday season under the uncertain storm of the pandemic, I have two wishes. The first is that we might all agree that Covid poses a real threat especially to those with certain risk factors. If we can agree upon that, than it follows that as a society, everybody, including those who are not higher risk, should do their part to protect those at risk, and prevent overwhelming our hospitals, and minimize death and suffering, each in their own way. The truth is hard to find. Do masks work? Are vaccines safe? Are there effective drugs to treat those infected? I think most people know my opinion, but I’m not pretending to know all the answers, and here today, I am only asking people to agree that Covid is real, seek the truth and do what they think is right. In this rural county, I think that might be enough.

Second, I’m wishing even harder that we might regain our humanity. In 1959, the philosopher, Bertrand Russell was asked what advice he would give to future generations. He gave a two minute answer that is especially prophetic to our struggles these past two years. I encourage you to watch his answer. In it he discusses the search for truth and then says, “love is wise, hatred is foolish.” I think I understand his reference to love as more than just romantic, passionate or parental love, but also to mean empathy, compassion, tolerance and general good will to your fellow human beings. Hatred is more than the loud and violent type from which we absolve ourselves. Hatred can also be quiet, smoldering and ignorant. We have all hated during this pandemic. We have wished ill will upon someone for what they said, or did or believed. My second wish is that we all try our best to love instead. Try to have tolerance, forgiveness and good will towards our neighbor regardless of whether he shares our opinion on politics, vaccines, masks or Ivermectin. Perhaps worse than causing illness, the Covid virus, with the help of social media, has divided us and cultivated hate. The Covid virus may linger after this pandemic, but it will be a greater tragedy if we are unable to eradicate the seeds of hate it has sown.

12/18/2021

A gentleman came into my clinic yesterday, and spent over an hour talking about his views on the Covid vaccines, Ivermectin and conspiracy theories. I mostly just listened and I perceived him to be a very intelligent person. I agreed with him on a couple points, but for the most part we are polar opposites in our opinions on Covid issues. He suggested about a dozen things for me to look up. I decided to pick just one of his suggestions, so I went to YouTube on my computer and searched "Peter McCullough and Joe Rogen." To illustrate why the internet is widening the divides in our community, below is the link to the top YouTube hit that came up from my search. Except for a couple minor points, this hour long video exactly supports MY views, and I'm pretty sure this video would not come up at all if I had conducted the same YouTube search on this gentleman's computer. I wonder what my visitor and those on the other side of the divide would think of this video, but I recommend it for all of us who are simplying continuing to search for ever elusive truths.

An examination of each one of Dr. McCullough's claims along with ways we might better evaluate science and health information.Your support keeps us independe...