Transforming new ways we care for our patients
“Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is love of humanity” ~Hippocrates
When I joined this practice 18 years ago, I was fresh out of residency at Arnold Palmer Hospital and ready to use all of the medical knowledge I had learned over four grueling, sleepless years. I felt confident with my surgical skills, and felt that I could handle just about any obstetric emergency that came my way, diagnose any female-type rash or infection, and help women navigate the twisty turns of menopause. Dr. Marnique Jones and I came through the four years of residency together, and were fresh, 30 year old doctors eager to join this practice that Drs Diebel and Lazar had founded many years before. We were both busy from the start, and rapidly gained a large group of patients who would follow us both for many years to come.
Fast forward to 2013, and now Dr Jones and I find ourselves moving higher up on the sign in front of our office, becoming more senior physicians in our group in what seems like the “blink of an eye”. In our new roles we now share in more of the responsibility for the practice’s daily operations and try to come up with ways we can better serve our patient’s needs. We have both been taught countless lessons from Drs Diebel, Lazar and Wilstrup and our loyal patients in these past 20years that have enabled us to move into our new leadership roles within the practice. We look forward to new endeavors ahead of us which include how we as a practice will be able to continue to offer our patients the best possible care.
We will continue to utilize those important lessons taught by our founding physicians which include giving you the most compassionate, professional and experienced ob/gyn care. Staying current with the advances in medicine and using the best possible technology to make healthcare more safe and efficient are also very important to us. We understand our patient’s lives are incredibly busy so we aim to provide most of the services that would be needed at our office to keep the amount of traveling for patients to a minimum. For annual visits we are able to schedule mammograms in one date and location to help make these appointments more convenient for you. We offer a more extensive range of services than many groups because we have specially trained physicians within our practice to perform them. This helps decrease the need to refer patients elsewhere. Five of our physicians are daVinci robotic trained surgeons who perform minimally invasive hysterectomies. Minimally invasive surgeries are proven to help patients recover and get back to their lives more quickly. We have 12 physicians total who each have special skills in infertility, other minimally invasive surgeries, ultrasound detection of genetic problems, menopause and hormone management, high-risk obstetrics, urinary incontinence, and annual preventive care to name a few. Our physicians work together to ensure our patients receive the best possible experience.
As we work towards advancements in healthcare, this includes improving communications between our patients and their doctors. We are doing this in a HIPAA-compliant way with our secure patient portal where questions can be emailed to, and answered by, our medical team. The patient portal may also be used to make appointments, request prescription refills, and make online payments.
About a year ago we began to work on ways to improve our patient’s experience and provide them more valuable resources and information. One vision is to help our patients build a closer connection to our practice by building an online community filled with resources and information. We understand that patients who are more closely connected to their doctors are more likely to seek medical care when it is needed most. We realize our patients will benefit from having a closer connection with their doctors than the brief time spent in appointments so we have established this web site and blog along with a social media presence on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Our new online presence has helped enable us to extend our expertise beyond our appointments with you. You can be assured that we will continue to share with you the best and most up-to-date information in women’s care in order for you to live healthier lives.
We may seem like a large group of doctors, but we strive to make you feel like you are our only patient. The size of the practice offers our patients the advantage to always have one of our physicians on call to care for them. When the office is closed, our providers are available 24 hours, 7 days a week. We feel this accessibility is vital for patients and reinforces our commitment to you. The size of our practice also allows us to offer you same-day appointments when needed and provides you with many different options for surgery. Together our physicians have more than 200 years of combined experience with the primary goal to give the best possible care to our patients.
We welcome you to our new website and blog and encourage you to be an active part of our new online community. Our physicians will begin sharing their thoughts on various topics in women’s healthcare with the hopes that it may benefit, influence, and inspire our patients in ways we weren’t able to do as effectively before we created this community. We welcome you to make recommendations for new subjects or information that you feel would benefit our patients. If you wish to offer us feedback about the operation of our office or any feedback about our practice we encourage you to participate in our online survey. Your input will help us make continued positive changes. We are constantly learning new ways of doing things better for our patients, and are committed to this endeavor.
More than 20 years ago when I began my career as a doctor I never imagined how much my career would evolve and change, and how much about providing great medical care I would learn from the patients themselves. Though many of the ways that all of us care for patients may continue to evolve and transform, our compassion, understanding, and ability to stand right beside our patients through the challenging and uplifting moments in their lives will remain an important part of our jobs as physicians. We invite you all to be a part of our online community and connect with our practice as we move forward in our endeavor to constantly improve medical care.