Clinic addresses overall women's health needs

Doctors Mira Choe and Laura DenOuden opened CoxHealth Internal Medicine for Women May 15 at 3850 S. National Ave., Ste. 700.

Plans are for the clinic to eventually employ five female doctors and to have all of the personnel and equipment necessary to take care of women’s health needs on-site, including a mammogram, EKG and laboratory work, according to Sandie Lyon, clinic manager.

“The focus is on getting women to not be hesitant to get annual checkups and be very aware and responsible for their well-being and their health,” she added.

The all-female staff has big plans centered on a friendly, comfortable place where women can have medical checkups and take care of their health.

Dr. Sylvia Garcia joined the practice Oct. 1, moving the clinic closer to its goals for growth.

“We figure when we get four (doctors), we can really start putting pressure on Cox to get us a mammogram in here, and then we can get a bone density in here, and (we) would love to have a psychologist, because so much of practicing internal medicine ties in with stress and depression,” Choe said.

Currently the Springfield office has a laboratory and can perform EKGs on site, in addition to offering full-scale internal medicine practices, which means the doctors can treat a patient for anything from a routine physical and Pap smear to headaches and high blood pressure.

Two of a kind

DenOuden and Choe have wanted to open an all-encompassing practice for women since they began working together nearly a decade ago at CoxHealth’s The Diagnostic Clinic. DenOuden worked at a women’s division of the Mayo Clinic outside Phoenix, Ariz., for a couple of months just after her residency, but it sparked an interest in that type of care. The group had a women’s health focus with female staff and female patients.

“I only spent two months there, but it was just implanted that that’s what I wanted to do,” she said.

DenOuden spent nine years practicing medicine at The Diagnostic Clinic, where she built a solid patient base and worked with Choe.

“We had been back and forth, and we’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, but it’s all timing,” said Choe, who practiced at the Diagnostic Clinic for 10 years. “One day we said, ‘We should do it.’ We approached Cox and there was a space available and we grabbed it. It’s a start. We’re certainly not where we want to be yet, but we have huge dreams and we have to start somewhere.”

Patient needs

Before starting the new practice, Choe and DenOuden polled their female patients to see how many of them followed up with recommendations to have mammograms and other preventative procedures.

“We were really surprised at how many patients don’t get their mammograms done because they don’t want to come back,” said Choe, who explained that many patients travel from outside of Springfield for these routine procedures and checkups. “We had been frustrated for our patients that they don’t have the opportunity to go to one place and get everything done.”

DenOuden added that it’s difficult to watch patients avoid the preventative testing they need.

“The more we can offer and the easier access to it, it will help patients complete those tests,” she said.

Setting a standard

Both of the area’s largest health care providers, CoxHealth and St. John’s, have services focused on women’s health.

“St. John’s Women’s Services’ goal is to provide women of all ages the most updated technologies to manage their health care needs in the most efficient way,” said Susanne Miller, RN, vice president of St. John’s Women’s Services. “We offer a full continuum of care for women, from mammograms, EKGs, women’s heart assessments and Dexa scans – all at comfortable settings throughout our campus for the convenience of the women in our community.”

But DenOuden’s and Choe’s CoxHealth clinic is the first in Springfield to focus solely on internal medicine for women, with care provided by women, all in one place, Choe said.

She noted that CoxHealth has a Women’s Center that focuses on reproductive health.

“We really want to get the message out to women that women’s health is so much more than reproductive health,” said Choe. “They need to see what their cardiovascular risk factors are, and they need to get mammograms and pap smears, but they also need to get their blood pressure checked and get it treated, and get their cholesterol screened and talk to somebody about what their risk factors for heart disease are and how they’re different from men.”[[In-content Ad]]