BROUGHTT OYOUBY
DOCTORS OF DAYTON
Dr. Amit Goyal
CARDIOLOGIST Premier Cardiovascular Institute
W
hen people think of vascular problems they often think of the heart, but that’s not always the case, says Dr. Amit Goyal, a cardiologist with Premier Health. “If you have heart disease you’ll have (problems) through the body as well,” he says. Peripheral vascular disease, for example, is a clogging of the arteries in the arms, legs and brain that blocks blood flow and can lead to symptoms such as leg pain. “Sometimes when people start slowing down they think it’s just part of the aging process but in reality it’s more than just the aging process it’s vascular disease,” he says. Goyal, who has practiced in the Dayton community for 26 years, says that generally people are getting healthier as they are tracking their numbers like blood pressure and cholesterol and thinking more about their exercise and eating habits. However, he says that people could avoid larger problems if they were more willing to seek help early on. “I think one of the biggest problems we have in cardiology is that oftentimes patients don’t pay attention to their bodies. They say, ‘Oh, this is getting older, this is due to this or that,’ but they don’t really seek the help they need,” he says. “I think getting patients to be more aware of themselves, getting them to doctors so they can be evaluated for routine care as well as if they’re having some issues, is important. We are there to help patients but if patients don’t come to us we can’t help them.” - CORINNE MINARD
DAYTON MAGAZINE . December 2018/January 2019
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DOCTORS OF DAYTON
Dr. Jennifer Lee
PHYSICIAN Wright State Physicians Family Medicine
D
r. Jennifer Lee, a physician and assistant professor of family medicine at the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine, grew up loving literature. “I always liked to read and was interested in writing and literature,” says Lee. She graduated from Loyola University Chicago with a major in English and a minor in psychology. But something kept tugging at her. “I was like, well, I do like medicine. I think it’s interesting,” she says. “But I didn’t want to do medicine because that was what I was familiar with,” Lee says. That familiarity with medicine stems from her parents. Her father, who is from Myanmar, is a doctor and her mother, a Mennonite, is a physical therapist. The diverse cultural back-
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DAYTON MAGAZINE . December 2018/January 2019
ground of her parents also spurred her love of different cultures. So when she found herself working with children who had emotional and behavioral disturbances on a Native American reservation in South Dakota following her college graduation that tug got a little stronger. “I guess it just made me interested in being able to help people maybe from a more medical standpoint,” says Lee. “It was like even if I was trying to go away from (a medical career) it always was there.” She finally decided her calling was a career in medicine and not literature. Or, as the writer in her explains, “It was how could I live a life that’s worth writing about?” She graduated from West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine in 2013 and completed her residency at Greenbrier Valley Medical Center in 2016 and has been living a life that’s worth writing about ever since. – ERIC SPANGLER
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Dr. Michelle R. DeGroat SURGEON Premier Physicians Network
“I
just really love surgery,” says Dr. Michelle R. DeGroat. Born and raised in Dayton and Englewood, DeGroat was determined to be a surgeon from early on, seeing it as a way that she could really help those in need. “As long as I can remember I just wanted to do something involving medicine,” the surgeon and mother of two says. “I like the fact that if someone comes to you with a problem you can really do something to fix it and then they get better. As opposed to some other specialties where the patient may be suffering from something that you cannot fix or cure—you just treat it.” DeGroat, a member of the Pre-
mier Physicians Network, is a 2005 graduate of the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine. She completed her residency in surgery, also at Wright State. DeGroat now works closely with Miami Valley Hospital North and joined the Gem City Surgical Associates and Hernia Center in 2010. She has been practicing for 13 years. As a board certified surgeon, DeGroat specializes in colonoscopies and hernia procedures and also participates in the MD Anderson Cancer Network, a program of MD Anderson Cancer Center at Premier Health. The MD Anderson Cancer Network works to improve the quality of cancer care nationwide by partnering with local providers and hospitals. She lives with her husband and their two children on their farm in Germantown. – TIM WALKER
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DAYTON MAGAZINE . December 2018/January 2019
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DOCTORS OF DAYTON
Dr. Leesa A. Kaufman
OB/GYN Premier Physician Network
D
r. Leesa Kaufman, an OB/ GYN with the Premier Physician Network, knew that she wanted to work in health care from an early age. “It’s the classic story of following in your father’s footsteps,” the doctor says. “My father was an endocrinologist—most of my childhood that I can recall he was in administrative medicine, but he was also on the care team for President Reagan when he was shot in March of 1981. I was really proud of him for that, and excited, and I thought ‘I want to do something like that one day. I want to help people like my dad is doing.’” Based in Maryland at the time,
Dr. Atiba Jackson
ORTHOPEDIC SURGEON Orthopedic Associates of Southwest Ohio
A
lthough Dr. Atiba Jackson specializes in sports medicine, his skills as an orthopedic surgeon run the gamut of injuries, from the sports-related such as anterior cruciate ligament and rotator cuffs tears to the replacement of hips, shoulders and knees. “I pretty much do whatever comes in the door,” Jackson says. Based with the Orthopedic Associates of Southwest Ohio, Jackson splits his time between patient evaluations, surgery and taking calls in hospitals for patients with urgent injuries. During office hours Jackson evaluates new patients, checks on rehabilitation progress and follows up with patients on which he has performed surgery. Those surgeries typically start early in the morning a couple days a week and depending on the procedure and number of surgeries days in the operating room can run nearly 12 hours.
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DAYTON MAGAZINE . December 2018/January 2019
Formerly the team physician for the Detroit Lions and Western Illinois University, Jackson and his team currently assist area high schools when the need arises, providing support, treatment and evaluations for young athletes. One area that has progressed greatly in the last decade involves injecting plasma and stem cells into areas of the body in lieu of surgery. Sports biologic, or platelet-rich plasma therapy, was used to treat hamstring injuries when Jackson was working with NFL players in 2009 and 2010, but the technology has advanced to treat all manner of injuries for everyday patients since that time, says Jackson. Those treatments are especially beneficial as Jackson prefers to avoid surgery when possible while still providing patients with the highest level of care. “I take the approach of doing the least amount to give you maximum benefit,” he says. “I’m not looking to operate on everyone, but I will prescribe the treatment for you to reach your maximum potential.” – SCOTT UNGER
Kaufman’s family later relocated to Florida when she was 16, and it was there that she completed medical school and her residency. She then practiced in Texas for five years before moving to the Dayton area with her husband in 2007. Kaufman sees patients at Premier’s Lifestages Centers for Women as well as Miami Valley Hospital, and since 2009 Kaufman has been the only doctor in the Dayton area performing single incision laparoscopic hysterectomies. It is the patient interaction, however, that is her favorite part of being a physician, and as an OB/GYN and mother of two she especially enjoys working with women through all the different stages of their lives, from early years to childbearing age and on into pre- and post-menopausal patients. “It’s important to me to help them get there in a healthy way,” she says. – TIM WALKER
DOCTORS OF DAYTON
Bihu Sandhir
MEDICAL DIRECTOR OF QUALITY FOR PRIMARY CARE Kettering Physician Network
A
s Medical Director of Quality for Primary Care at the Kettering Physician Network, Dr. Bihu Sandhir is “captain of the ship,” charged with overseeing overall patient care and directing individuals to the appropriate specialist when needed. “Our patients come to us for everything for their medical care and then we direct it,” Sandhir says. “Your care starts with us. We decide what we can manage and what we can’t we direct to an advanced specialist.” As an internist with a specialty in adult medicine, Sandhir can often handle patient problems associated with the heart, blood pressure or diseases such as diabetes through routine visits. When a larger problem comes up Sandhir is able to direct
patients to the appropriate specialist and monitor their progress through the use of electronic medical records. The use of electronic medical records makes tracking a patient easy and allows cross coordination among primary doctors and specialists. “All Kettering doctors and Ohio doctors are on the same (electronic medical records),” Sandhir says. “We’re able to see data from everywhere so you don’t have to keep repeating tests.” Sandhir finds it essential from a leadership role to also practice daily with patients so she can lead by example and maintain close contact with her clients, who receive checkups approximately every four months. “Pat ients don’t get to be t hat sick because of regular checkups. We’re able to keep the patient even healthier because we’re all working together,” Sandhir says. “It is really patient-centric.” – SCOTT UNGER
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DAYTON MAGAZINE . December 2018/January 2019
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DOCTORS OF DAYTON
Dr. Corey Ellis
PHYSICIAN Wright State Physicians Family Medicine
A
s a former pitcher and captain on Wright State University’s baseball team in the 1990s Dr. Corey Ellis is used to working with athletes. But instead of throwing baseballs Ellis, now a team physician for Wright State University Athletics and Fairborn High School, is striking out athletes’ injuries. It was those four years of undergraduate school on the baseball team that piqued Ellis’s interest in becoming a doctor. “I guess some of my interest was related to the physicians working with the athletic programs or the athletic teams and the athletic trainers themselves, so I always thought that was kind of interesting,” he says. Working with athletes is the best part of his job, says the assistant professor of family medicine and orthopedic surgery at Wright State. “They’re young,
they’re healthy and they want to get better,” he says. One of the most important things he does as director of the Wright State Physicians Concussion Clinic is counsel and treat patients with concussions. Most coaches and parents today are aware of the importance of treating a concussion properly, something that wasn’t always the case when he started practicing medicine 12 years ago, says Ellis. Another important change since he started practicing medicine has been the way physicians treat tendon injuries, he says. “Twenty years ago every tendon that hurt was tendinitis,” says Ellis. “Now we kind of realize it’s not just an inflammatory state; it’s often a chronic degenerative state and just resting is not always the best option.” Ellis listens carefully to a patient’s input and gives them all the options available for treatment before allowing the patient to decide. “You make the best decisions for you,” he says. – ERIC SPANGLER
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DAYTON MAGAZINE . December 2018/January 2019
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