Caitlin Whyte (Host): A look at women's health on this episode of Curating Care, a podcast brought to you by St. Clair Health, expert care from people who care. I'm Caitlin Whyte, and joining me is Dr. Tera Conway, an OBGYN here at St. Clair Health. Dr. Conway, it's great to have you with us today.

Tera Conway, MD: Thanks for having me.

Host: So, to start us off, can you share just a bit about your journey into obstetrics and gynecology? What inspired you to specialize in this field?

Tera Conway, MD: I really came about wanting to go into this field when I was actually in med school. I entered med school knowing that I wanted to be a doctor, but wasn't really sure what type, and was very open to kind of exploring my possibilities. And when I did my rotation in my third year on obstetrics and gynecology, I fell in love with it.

 I loved being able to see women through all aspects of their life. I loved the mix that it brought about of office, surgery, and of course, delivering babies. It happened to be my first rotation, and any one that I did after that, I just really didn't love as much.

And any time that there was something that had to do with OBGYN in any other field, it was my favorite part of the rotation.

Host: I love that. I love what you said about kind of seeing women through all aspects of their care throughout their life. What would you say is the most rewarding aspect of your career?

Tera Conway, MD: Exactly, honestly, just what you said, is being able to see women through all aspects of their life, starting in oftentimes in their teenage years, going through to pregnancy, then going through to just kind of routine annuals, menopause, and any problems that they may occur. I, Love, again, the mix of it, being able to do deliveries plus be in office and being able to fix many of the problems women have through either medical management or surgical management.

I'm, I don't have to refer a lot of times. Sometimes we do, but many times we're able to really take care of anything that we're, women are faced with.

Host: Hmm. You know, I moved a couple years ago away from my gynecologist that I've had most of my life, and now I live about an hour and a half away, and I still travel there once or twice a year because that connection, like you're saying, is so important. I'm like, I don't want to find a new one.

Tera Conway, MD: Yep, I definitely have several patients who live in Florida or Colorado most of the year and when they're back visiting family they come for their gyne appointment.

Host: Oh, that's so funny. I'm not the only one.

Tera Conway, MD: Nope.

Host: Well, St. Clair Health offers a full complement of services from that personalized obstetric and gynecologic care to advanced treatment of more complex disorders. Can you share with us just the range of services that you offer?

Tera Conway, MD: So I guess starting with our more basic services, we do in the office, you know, routine gyne annual exams, for women who are just there for preventative care. Issues that women may be having with their menstrual cycles, abnormal pap smears, issues with pelvic pain, some basic urinary complaints.

 We at St. Clair Health, if some of those things that if we're not able to take care of are able to refer people, within our system, for some of the more complex that are issues that are outside of our scope. For pregnancy care, we're able to take care of certainly all routine pregnancies, and many of the issues that can come along with both routine and more complicated pregnancies.

We're very lucky to have the services of one of the tertiary care centers, maternal fetal medicine doctors, with us weekly to help advise us on care, and if we need to, have them or take over care, they're able to do that, but most of the time we're able to take care of a woman's pregnancy here at St. Clair.

Host: Well, let's get into family planning and pregnancy. What advice would you give to those wanting to start a family now?

Tera Conway, MD: Ideally, I would say trying to be at your best health possible, is going to lead to the healthiest pregnancy for someone. So making sure that you're taking care of your body, having a regular exercise routine, keeping a good healthy diet, if you have any medical problems, trying to have those managed, as best as you can through your primary care doctor or specialist so that they're at an optimized level of treatment before planning a pregnancy.

Host: Hmm. And how about expectant mothers in particular? What advice would you give them to really ensure a healthy pregnancy to the best of their ability?

Tera Conway, MD: For expectant mothers, I would start by saying one, assure that they're continuing their healthy lifestyle. Most women, continuing approximately the same healthy diet that they had pre-pregnancy, is what they want to do. Plus just a few additional calories with a yogurt or a piece of fruit, making some good healthy choices there. Most women are able to continue exercising and that helps to decrease their chance of hypertension, diabetes during pregnancy.

It will make for an easier labor and delivery process. Making sure that they keep their prenatal appointments and bring any questions or concerns with them to those appointments. We're able to better go over things that they can continue to do or may want to change Also, just knowing that things may come up during their prenatal care that could change our course of monitoring or advice on exercise and diet, and that pregnancy is something that needs to be a very flexible process as unexpected things happen and our advice can change during the course of their care.

Host: Yeah, so a lot can happen in a pregnancy. So many different events and situations. St. Clair Health's Family Birth Center is known for providing that compassionate and really personalized care. Can you talk a little bit about the type of experience families can expect when they're with St. Clair Health?

Tera Conway, MD: When someone comes in to the family birth center for their pregnancy, whether it be for labor or a triage or increased monitoring; patients can expect that after they get situated, somebody will be with them in a timely manner to assess their current needs. Once we have a picture as to what's going on, the whole team of nurses and physicians really act as a team to make you feel as informed and comfortable as we can.

 Keep our patients updated as to what's going on, what we expect may happen, or if we're not as clear as to what the course may be, what possible options that could happen, and really try to keep our patients in the loop as best as we are as to the care, treatment, and what the course of the day is going to look like for them.

Host: Great. Well, my next question, we kind of talked a bit about, but I'd love to dig in a bit more. You know, we were mentioning how OBGYNs take care of women throughout the course of their lives from first period to last period. Really talk about the importance of establishing that relationship and connection with your patients.

Tera Conway, MD: In our field in OBGYN, I feel like it is particularly important to establish that relationship given the sensitivity of our field. We certainly want to do everything we can, in all locations of our care, whether that be the office or an operating room or labor and delivery to make a patient feel at ease, because if she doesn't feel at ease with us, it's going to be difficult to build that trusting relationship that allows us to do the more sensitive parts of the exam, as well as talk about the more sensitive topics that oftentimes come up in our field.

Host: Hmm. Hmm. Well, how do you approach educating and empowering your patients about their health and especially, you know, those more sensitive topics.

Tera Conway, MD: I think the first part of being able to educate and empower is to start by just listening to the patient and really taking the time to hear what they're saying, what their concerns are, what barriers they may have before we can start developing a plan going forward. Once we know those things, then I like to try and talk through my thought process with patients about here is what I understand is going on with you.

Here's the best way and tests that we can run to help figure out what the problem may be. If it's this, then, treatment options would be X, Y, or Z, or if it's that, it may be one or two other things, and then trying to walk down those different paths with the patient and what is going to be the best approach for them, and going over the risk benefits of each one for them so that they can have the most informed decision on their health.

Host: Well, as we begin to wrap up here, Doctor, what recent technological advancements or medical breakthroughs have significantly impacted OBGYN practices?

Tera Conway, MD: There's so many of these. I'll go through a couple of them, I think, a lot that's on the forefront that in the next few years could be really exciting as well. Recently, I think that the fact that we've been able to develop COVID and RSV vaccines have just had such a positive impact for our patients being able to help moms avoid the various, you know, serious implications of getting COVID, both outside of, and particularly during a pregnancy when they're more susceptible to diseases and being particularly sick with them.

And the RSV vaccines, now during RSV season able to vaccinate moms to help protect their little ones once they're born from a very serious disease, that has lots of infants hospitalized every year. And the fact that we're able to help decrease these things, I think is incredible.

 Again, on the obstetric side, I think that while it's not necessarily specifically OB, there has been just so many advancements with neonatal care, that are available to women for premature babies or babies with other issues, that we've come a very long way with that, and a better understanding of about some of the pregnancy complications so that we're able to diagnose and treat them better.

And oftentimes able to get a pregnancy further along, closer to term for some women who have some serious illnesses during pregnancy. On the gyne side of things, that's where I, I'm not going to list some specific things, but I would say that I have been reading about technologies that are currently being developed and studied and we could really be going a long way in the next few years with fertility care, menopausal care.

I think that there's a lot of things on the horizon that are really exciting there.

Host: Well, some really, really essential information here today. Doctor, thank you so much for taking the time to share it with us.

Tera Conway, MD: Absolutely. It was my pleasure to be here.

Host: To learn more about Dr. Conway or to schedule an appointment, visit stclair.org. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social media. You can also check out our entire podcast library for even more episodes. This is Curating Care, a podcast from St. Clair Health. Thanks for listening.