Judy Peterson's wheezing can be heard across the room as Dr. Grant Scarborough gets her to take a deep breath.
"How do you feel like you're breathing?" he asked.
"Fine," Peterson said.
"You've got a little bit of wheezing back there," Scarborough said.
It is Peterson's eighth visit to Christ Community Health Services in Augusta since May 2009, and there is an easy familiarity between them as Scarborough asks Peterson about her husband and smoking.
"You stopped smoking and he kept smoking," he said.
"Well, kinda sorta," she said.
"Oh, so the truth comes out," he joked. "You both kept smoking a little bit."
It is the kind of patient visit Christ Community wants to have, where the physician can deal with all of the aspects of the patient's life affecting health, where the patient has a "medical home," said Dr. Robert Campbell, who co-founded the clinic with Scarborough. They aim to make that home much bigger. And more historic.
Christ Community will hold a groundbreaking at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the old Widows Home property at 124 Greene St., where the clinic operates.
Christ Community is in the midst of raising $3.1 million, with $1.7 million so far, to renovate the venerable old building completed in 1887 and operated as a home until 2003, according to Christ Community.
The site housed the original City Hospital and Medical Academy of Georgia, Campbell said, which later became University Hospital and Medical College of Georgia, respectively.
"It's got a lot of history that is going to make that an exciting place to work in," Campbell said.
That history of service to the needy and medical education is in keeping with the clinic's own mission. Medical students and residents rotate through the clinic, and residents will follow their own patients, said Ronald Skenes, the director of communications and development.
"They learn what it is like to develop a relationship and have that continuity of care with patients, which is obviously what they'll be dealing with most likely" in the future, he said.
"We teach them to really care for the whole person and try to demonstrate and encourage compassionate primary care that addresses people both physically and spiritually," he said.
Dr. Russ Ayers saw that when he rotated through as a resident. He joined Christ Community about a week ago, after finishing his residency in family medicine. The mission he liked is embodied in the name.
"It's more the character of the people and hopefully the love of Christ that shows through each person here," he said.
Even if they have to dodge one another all day. As Campbell talks in a conference/lunchroom, doors fly open every few minutes as another staff member speeds through.
"We're jimmied in here tight," Campbell said.
The expansion will allow them to go from seven exam rooms to 12 and provide more room for the nurses and physicians, and to add space for other services, such as pediatric physical therapy, he said.
Staff will also be able to see more patients, three-quarters of whom are uninsured. That is the best kind of health reform, Campbell said.
"I think the most effective reform is on an individual, one-on-one basis of people moving into communities and moving into neighborhoods with a service mentality," he said. "That's reform of the heart and is the most likely reform to succeed."
Christ Community Health Services will hold a groundbreaking at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the old Widows Home site, 124 Greene St. The group is going to renovate the home to expand its clinic. Tours will be provided.
The Augusta Chronicle ©2012. All Rights Reserved.
Back 
