Family Medicine at Pioneers in Calexico
Family Medicine Specialists provide continuing and comprehensive healthcare to the entire family. Dr. Clara Padron-Spence, Medical Director at Pioneers Calexico Health Center, discusses what to expect from a family medicine practice.
Featuring:
Clara Padron-Spence, MD
Dr. Clara Padron-Spence is the Medical Director at Pioneers Calexico Health Center in Calexico, CA Dr. Padron-Spence graduated with honors from University Of Iowa College Of Medicine in 1995. She has more than 24 years of diverse experience, especially in family medicine and general practice. Dr. Clara Padron-spence cooperates with many other doctors and specialists in the area and organizes an annual county-wide sports physical clinic for local student-athletes. Transcription:
Scott Web (Host): Family Medicine is a fairly broad topic, but we have a great guest today to help shed some light on Family Medicine and the work that these doctors do. My guest today is Dr. Clara Padron-Spence and she’s the Medical Director at Pioneers Calexico Health Center in Calexico, California. This is Pioneers Memorial Health Talk, the podcast from Pioneers Memorial Hospital. I’m Scott Webb. Doctor, thanks for joining me today. Tell listeners about yourself and what you do as a Family Medicine Specialist at Pioneers Calexico Health Center.
Clara Padron-Spence, MD (Guest): So, I am a Family Medicine Specialist here at the Pioneers Calexico Health Center. I provide continuing and comprehensive healthcare to the entire family. That’s what Family Medicine is. It encompasses all ages, all genders, each organ system, and every disease entity that you could possibly think of. My training included infants all the way to our geriatric elderly patients. With time, Family Medicine has grown so much including diseases that I had to make the decision to kind of narrow that down, so I no longer provide care for infants or children or the delivering of babies. So, I’ve limited my practice to patients 14 years and older. There is no upper age limit and I actually have a few patients in my practice who are nearing 100 years old.
Host: So, you’re treating patients from 14 up to 100 years old. That must present some interesting challenges just because even though the human body is the same roughly no matter how old you are; there’s a big difference between 14 and 100, right?
Dr. Padron-Spence: Right. Huge difference. It’s interesting because we do see that disease progression from the age of 14 all the way up until past the age of 65. So, it requires a lot of continuing training on my part to be able to keep up with how diseases change and what treatments are now appropriate that may not have been available years ago.
Host: Yeah and it’s so important. I think that we as patients, we just think that somehow doctors just somehow through osmosis, they just gain all this information but the reality as you say is you really do have to keep up and you have to go back for more training to deal with everything that all of us are dealing with, right?
Dr. Padron-Spence: Right. Everyday, it’s training every single day and we’re constantly presented with new symptoms and new diseases that I may not know the answer to today; but I promise you and all of my patients that I will learn, and I will make sure I have an answer eventually.
Host: That’s great. So, speaking of answers, let’s talk about some of the most common illnesses that you treat there, the most common things, whether it’s colds, flus, whatever might be. What are the most common things that you deal with?
Dr. Padron-Spence: Well I practice in Calexico which borders the Mexicali, Mexico border. We have a large Hispanic population and with that, we have a very high percentage of diabetes. So, probably on the top of the list would be diabetes. And in no particular order of course are your common coughs and colds and tummy aches, but also, I see a lot of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and I see just large, large numbers of depression and anxiety. Along with abdominal pain and you know your common things.
Host: Wow, that’s quite a range and it is so great to hear you talk about the fact that you really tailor your knowledge, your education, your treatment to the people who are actually there, right? Speaking of that, so I understand you spearhead an annual event that offers more thorough sports physicals to student athletes in the Imperial Valley. Tell us about that and what inspired you to get that going?
Dr. Padron-Spence: This started a long time ago. I had young kids who were in elementary and then moved on to the junior high and then to the high school. Once they got into high schools, I spent a lot of time just volunteering at the high schools. Soon enough, the athletic directors found out that I was a doctor and they said heh, why don’t you do our sports physicals in the gym which is what is traditionally done in the United States. We bring huge numbers of kids and it’s like herding cattle. We just bring them through the line and examine them. And I’ve done these physicals for many, many years but I always felt uneasy. Like I was missing something. We are doing these physicals too fast in the gym. We don’t have the right equipment. We need to bring them into the office. But that’s not the way it was encouraged. We do them in the gym.
About five years ago, I was inspired by a program the EP Save a Life Foundation that provides heart screenings free of charge to people, I think it’s 12 to 25 years old. Their mission is to eliminate sudden cardiac arrest and death in young adults and student athletes. So, I had the idea to mesh that together, to not only do a basic sports physical in the gym, but to do also a heart screening. So, I asked a cardiologist friend of mine, heh would he be willing to help me. He loved the idea. So, we brought in an electrocardiogram, and ECG, EKG and an echocardiogram.
And every single kid that went through the line, not only had a physical exam, their vision, their blood pressure, we had a physical therapist doing the musculoskeletal exam. We had the physicians, nurse practitioners and PAs doing the physical exam, listening to the heart and lungs. We had every single person get an EKG. If that EKG or the physical exam alerted us to heh, there may be something more with this kid, elevated blood pressure, family history of heart disease. We then had them do an echocardiogram. And this helped me to ensure that all the kids that went through the line had a thorough physical and if they had any sort of heart condition; we were going to identify it there and hopefully treat it so in the end, we would prevent say a sudden cardiac death while this kid is on the court, on the baseball field, on the basketball court or on the football field.
We have screened probably close to 500 kids and have found one child that needed further screening that needed the care of a cardiologist. So, that has made me feel so comfortable that now I’m doing a good job of screening these student athletes.
Host: I mean my only response to that is wow. I have two kids who are totally active in sports. our lives are consumed with sports. it’s truly inspiring. I mean that is amazing. I think I know the answer to this because I can hear the passion in your voice, but what do you enjoy most about practicing at Pioneers Calexico Health Center?
Dr. Padron-Spence: I work for a great hospital. Administration is very supportive of what I do and the dreams and plans that I have. Working in Calexico, the people of Calexico. They are so humble. They are so appreciative of what we do and what we provide for them. I can’t see myself working in any other area but Calexico for Pioneers.
Host: You make is sound like such a great place to go. If only you weren’t treating illnesses there, right?
Dr. Padron-Spence: That’s the toughest part is when you have bad news to share with a patient, it’s not easy or with my elderly patients that are reaching their end of life; we’ve gotten to know them or each other very well. We are almost like family and that’s what makes it so tough. But then there’s a lot of happy times too and that’s what we have to take to heart every day.
Host: It’s so awesome that there are doctors like you there at Pioneers and while we have this opportunity and this forum, anything else you’d like listeners to know about Family Medicine, the importance of sports physicals, the work being done at Pioneers, anything else?
Dr. Padron-Spence: Well we love to see new patients at Pioneers. Every provider that we have here in the Pioneers Calexico Health Center is looking for more patients. We want to be able to help care for the people of Calexico and the Imperial Valley and keep them healthy. And we can’t do that if they don’t come to see us.
Host: Doctor thanks so much for your time and expertise today. That’s Dr. Clara Padron-Spence, Medical Director at Pioneers Calexico Health Center in Calexico, California. For more information on Dr. Padron-Spence and all of her other providers at Pioneers in Calexico, visit www.pmhd.org. And thanks for checking out this episode of Pioneers Memorial Health Talk. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and be sure to check out our entire podcast library for other topics that may interest you. Thanks and we’ll talk next time.
Scott Web (Host): Family Medicine is a fairly broad topic, but we have a great guest today to help shed some light on Family Medicine and the work that these doctors do. My guest today is Dr. Clara Padron-Spence and she’s the Medical Director at Pioneers Calexico Health Center in Calexico, California. This is Pioneers Memorial Health Talk, the podcast from Pioneers Memorial Hospital. I’m Scott Webb. Doctor, thanks for joining me today. Tell listeners about yourself and what you do as a Family Medicine Specialist at Pioneers Calexico Health Center.
Clara Padron-Spence, MD (Guest): So, I am a Family Medicine Specialist here at the Pioneers Calexico Health Center. I provide continuing and comprehensive healthcare to the entire family. That’s what Family Medicine is. It encompasses all ages, all genders, each organ system, and every disease entity that you could possibly think of. My training included infants all the way to our geriatric elderly patients. With time, Family Medicine has grown so much including diseases that I had to make the decision to kind of narrow that down, so I no longer provide care for infants or children or the delivering of babies. So, I’ve limited my practice to patients 14 years and older. There is no upper age limit and I actually have a few patients in my practice who are nearing 100 years old.
Host: So, you’re treating patients from 14 up to 100 years old. That must present some interesting challenges just because even though the human body is the same roughly no matter how old you are; there’s a big difference between 14 and 100, right?
Dr. Padron-Spence: Right. Huge difference. It’s interesting because we do see that disease progression from the age of 14 all the way up until past the age of 65. So, it requires a lot of continuing training on my part to be able to keep up with how diseases change and what treatments are now appropriate that may not have been available years ago.
Host: Yeah and it’s so important. I think that we as patients, we just think that somehow doctors just somehow through osmosis, they just gain all this information but the reality as you say is you really do have to keep up and you have to go back for more training to deal with everything that all of us are dealing with, right?
Dr. Padron-Spence: Right. Everyday, it’s training every single day and we’re constantly presented with new symptoms and new diseases that I may not know the answer to today; but I promise you and all of my patients that I will learn, and I will make sure I have an answer eventually.
Host: That’s great. So, speaking of answers, let’s talk about some of the most common illnesses that you treat there, the most common things, whether it’s colds, flus, whatever might be. What are the most common things that you deal with?
Dr. Padron-Spence: Well I practice in Calexico which borders the Mexicali, Mexico border. We have a large Hispanic population and with that, we have a very high percentage of diabetes. So, probably on the top of the list would be diabetes. And in no particular order of course are your common coughs and colds and tummy aches, but also, I see a lot of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and I see just large, large numbers of depression and anxiety. Along with abdominal pain and you know your common things.
Host: Wow, that’s quite a range and it is so great to hear you talk about the fact that you really tailor your knowledge, your education, your treatment to the people who are actually there, right? Speaking of that, so I understand you spearhead an annual event that offers more thorough sports physicals to student athletes in the Imperial Valley. Tell us about that and what inspired you to get that going?
Dr. Padron-Spence: This started a long time ago. I had young kids who were in elementary and then moved on to the junior high and then to the high school. Once they got into high schools, I spent a lot of time just volunteering at the high schools. Soon enough, the athletic directors found out that I was a doctor and they said heh, why don’t you do our sports physicals in the gym which is what is traditionally done in the United States. We bring huge numbers of kids and it’s like herding cattle. We just bring them through the line and examine them. And I’ve done these physicals for many, many years but I always felt uneasy. Like I was missing something. We are doing these physicals too fast in the gym. We don’t have the right equipment. We need to bring them into the office. But that’s not the way it was encouraged. We do them in the gym.
About five years ago, I was inspired by a program the EP Save a Life Foundation that provides heart screenings free of charge to people, I think it’s 12 to 25 years old. Their mission is to eliminate sudden cardiac arrest and death in young adults and student athletes. So, I had the idea to mesh that together, to not only do a basic sports physical in the gym, but to do also a heart screening. So, I asked a cardiologist friend of mine, heh would he be willing to help me. He loved the idea. So, we brought in an electrocardiogram, and ECG, EKG and an echocardiogram.
And every single kid that went through the line, not only had a physical exam, their vision, their blood pressure, we had a physical therapist doing the musculoskeletal exam. We had the physicians, nurse practitioners and PAs doing the physical exam, listening to the heart and lungs. We had every single person get an EKG. If that EKG or the physical exam alerted us to heh, there may be something more with this kid, elevated blood pressure, family history of heart disease. We then had them do an echocardiogram. And this helped me to ensure that all the kids that went through the line had a thorough physical and if they had any sort of heart condition; we were going to identify it there and hopefully treat it so in the end, we would prevent say a sudden cardiac death while this kid is on the court, on the baseball field, on the basketball court or on the football field.
We have screened probably close to 500 kids and have found one child that needed further screening that needed the care of a cardiologist. So, that has made me feel so comfortable that now I’m doing a good job of screening these student athletes.
Host: I mean my only response to that is wow. I have two kids who are totally active in sports. our lives are consumed with sports. it’s truly inspiring. I mean that is amazing. I think I know the answer to this because I can hear the passion in your voice, but what do you enjoy most about practicing at Pioneers Calexico Health Center?
Dr. Padron-Spence: I work for a great hospital. Administration is very supportive of what I do and the dreams and plans that I have. Working in Calexico, the people of Calexico. They are so humble. They are so appreciative of what we do and what we provide for them. I can’t see myself working in any other area but Calexico for Pioneers.
Host: You make is sound like such a great place to go. If only you weren’t treating illnesses there, right?
Dr. Padron-Spence: That’s the toughest part is when you have bad news to share with a patient, it’s not easy or with my elderly patients that are reaching their end of life; we’ve gotten to know them or each other very well. We are almost like family and that’s what makes it so tough. But then there’s a lot of happy times too and that’s what we have to take to heart every day.
Host: It’s so awesome that there are doctors like you there at Pioneers and while we have this opportunity and this forum, anything else you’d like listeners to know about Family Medicine, the importance of sports physicals, the work being done at Pioneers, anything else?
Dr. Padron-Spence: Well we love to see new patients at Pioneers. Every provider that we have here in the Pioneers Calexico Health Center is looking for more patients. We want to be able to help care for the people of Calexico and the Imperial Valley and keep them healthy. And we can’t do that if they don’t come to see us.
Host: Doctor thanks so much for your time and expertise today. That’s Dr. Clara Padron-Spence, Medical Director at Pioneers Calexico Health Center in Calexico, California. For more information on Dr. Padron-Spence and all of her other providers at Pioneers in Calexico, visit www.pmhd.org. And thanks for checking out this episode of Pioneers Memorial Health Talk. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and be sure to check out our entire podcast library for other topics that may interest you. Thanks and we’ll talk next time.