Group of Women Doctors Has Winning Way : Doctor’s Office for Women serves 100 patients daily. Secret of success is respect for patients, founder says.
There is something unquestionably feminine about these doctors’ offices. French doors lead into the waiting room, which is furnished with overstuffed chairs in lavender chintz. A huge bouquet of silk flowers tops one table.
Such decor would seem the obvious choice for obstetricians and gynecologists. But it is so unusual that many patients remark on it, noting that it makes them feel welcome and comfortable.
“Is it important? As opposed to a sterile office where you feel like just another file? Sure,” said Lisa Kitsuta, a Newport Beach lawyer and mother who is a patient there.
The Doctor’s Office for Women, across the street from Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, has grown steadily from one doctor in 1986 to six now--all female. It serves about 100 patients a day.
“That’s a very successful practice,” said John Seitz, a medical group consultant in Fountain Valley. As for targeting women specifically, he said, “It’s a great strategy, and I don’t know of anyone else who’s doing it.”
Merely hanging out a sign saying “obstetrics and gynecology” would seem to be enough to let the public know that the office serves women. However, from its name to the non-traditional services the office has added over the years, the Doctor’s Office for Women has made the extra effort to recognize and meet patients’ needs.
For example, Dr. Stephanie N. McClellan, who founded the practice in 1986, said she soon learned that women saw her office as a place to bare their souls. They confided in her, she said, about being sexually abused, deserted or forced into other changes for which they were not prepared. So McClellan invited a four-person psychology practice to join her in the building.
Also, an ultrasound technician shares the office, McClellan said, so women can have that service available without traveling to a hospital. There is also a radiologist on staff to read the ultrasound as it is recorded.
Health-care consultant Robert C. Bohlmann said an increasing number of obstetricians nationwide are adding those services. He is the director of management consulting for the Medical Group Management Assn. in Englewood, Colo.
McClellan, 39, said she did not set out to create an office run by women doctors. It evolved, she said, because she was looking for people to work with who shared her desire to combine career and family.
“We think similarly,” she said. “We cover for each other when one of us wants to go on a school field trip or drive in the car pool.
“I’m not saying that men wouldn’t, but I think mothers look at their role differently than fathers do. I think that is more innate than people want to admit.
“My husband is a very gentle, loving father, and he spends more time with our kids than I do. But in the middle of the night, it’s me they wake up.”
McClellan said she decided at age 7 to become a doctor. Her inspiration was a school film about the brain.
When she told her parents about her plan, they were skeptical. Later, when she told a college counselor at USC that she wanted to enter the premed program, she met with more skepticism. “He said, ‘Honey, girls like you marry doctors, they don’t become doctors,’ ” she recalled. “I told him to humor me.”
She married after her first year in medical school, and she and her husband had a baby during her third year. The family has been able to manage, she said, because her husband is a committed father and owns a business.
The success of her practice has surprised her, she said, and there is some jealousy among colleagues: “They call us ‘the girls,’ as though we’re dingbats who get our nails done and fell into this because we’re lucky.
“Our secret is that patients prefer to be treated with respect, as though they are people who can decide in an interactive way about their health.”
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