Clinic's specialty is women veterans

Leigh Anne Boostrom laughs a little when she talks about her military injury.

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Chris Thelen/Staff

Dr. Jennifer Ward chats with patient and Army veteran Leigh Anne Boostrom during a visit to the VA Medical Center. Women represent about 10 percent of patients at the Augusta hospital.

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"My foot got run over by a Humvee," she said as she sat in an exam room at the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center. "My boss ran over it."

That exam room, inside a new Women's Health Clinic, is what finally persuaded Ms. Boostrom to start using the VA about a month ago.

Since the VA began treating women veterans in 1988, women have grown from 4.4 percent of patients to a projected 14 percent in 2010, the VA said. At the Augusta VA, they are about 10 percent of patients -- about 3,000 women veterans over the past two years -- about 2,200 of whom regularly use the VA's primary care clinics, said Michael Spencer, associate chief of staff for primary care. They helped spur the Augusta VA to open the women's clinic in the Downtown Division.

"Some of the feedback we got was it would be nice to have a clinic especially for women veterans," Medical Center Director Rebecca Wiley said. "Now women have a choice. If they want to stay with their primary care physician that they've had for years, they can do that. However, if they want to move into our women's clinic, they're free to do that, too."

The VA's Women Veterans Health Strategic Health Care Group provides support, and in 2008 the VA sent $32.5 million in supplement funding to VA hospitals to improve care for women veterans. They tend to be much younger than male veterans -- average age is 47 compared with 61 for men -- and the largest group of women veterans served in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to VA statistics.

That means some women veterans of those conflicts may be currently treated through the VA clinic while others might be served by the new women's clinic, Dr. Spencer said.

"That is one of the challenges is for us to merge those two roles," he said. "And we've done that fairly well, really quite well overall. We do have definitely tailored services for those patients."

Women veterans also are more likely to have suffered Military Sexual Trauma, either sexual assault or harassment, with 22 percent of them reporting in a 2007 survey that they had experienced sexual trauma during their service.

"That's a tough issue," Dr. Spencer said. "It's a tough issue to talk about, it's a tough issue to get out in the open sometimes. It takes some real sensitivity for the people involved."

It is one reason the Augusta VA strived to have people in the women's clinic who have served in the military, he said.

"In this clinic, we made sure that we had people who have lots of experience dealing with our patient population," Dr. Spencer said. "They've got really an ability to interact with the patient in a more meaningful way."

The Augusta VA is also different from many VAs because it has a full-time gynecologist assigned to the facility, he said.

The clinic schedules longer appointments to allow more time to delve into patient issues, said internal medicine physician Jennifer Ward.

"This is complete care," she said. Instead of being sent around to various clinics for different procedures or exams, "here, they get everything."

And that's just what Ms. Boostrom (and her foot) were looking for.

"I work at a doctor's office myself, and I really value the patient-and-doctor relationship," she said. "I want somebody who I know is going to look at me and really be understanding and know what I'm going through and try to help me versus just trying to rush me out."

Reach Tom Corwin at (706) 823-3213 or tom.corwin@augustachronicle.com.