Vol. 1 - ISSUE 10 - SEPTEMBER 2012
FOR SASKATCHEWAN WOMEN
magazine
The Women of
SASKATCHEWAN ASSOCIATION FOR SAFE WORKPLACES IN HEALTH A Day In the Life of... fill that gap between primary and acute care. I have a facility. I have a trained staff who know how to deal with women’s care, who know the forms that are required and who know the tests and the care that is required.” All she needed were health care providers to provide the care itself.
Dr. Corrine Jabs - Gynecologist (OBGYN) Who
Recruiting two female doctors who concurrently have other practices and clinics they provide care through, Dr. Jabs was also lucky enough to discover and recruit nurse practitioner Amanda Scollan.
When
Dr. Corrine Jabs
cialist. If we can have people who are competent at prenatal care, seeing the people who need low risk prenatal care, that frees up our obstetrician to actually see high risk prenatal as well as gynecology patients that require the skills of a specialists in gynecology. And that,” adds Jabs, “is ultimately what we’re aiming for.”
Amanda is originally from Philadelphia, where she was trained as a women’s health nurse practitioner, a certification never before seen in Saskatchewan. Starting out as a Registered Nurse, the health region soon realized she had a number of specialized skills that weren’t being used, and introduced her to Dr. Jabs. Dr. Jabs immediately saw the value in having a nurse practitioner certified in women’s health on staff.
August 15th. 2012
10 Questions
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF Dr. Corrine Jabs
EVERYDAY HERO
Written by 10 QUESTIONS WITH Marian Donnelly
Where Regina, SK
Gail Jansen-Kesslar
low risk prenatal visits.”
There’s no such thing as a typical day for Dr. Corrine Jabs. Every day she wears more than one of her many different professional hats. “Every single day of the week can be very different,” says Dr. Jabs from her office during a rare moment of downtime. “But that’s just the crazy life I lead.” An obstetrician/gynecologist with an office practice in Regina for the past 12 years, Dr. Jabs is also the Department Head of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Regina. This requires her to spend at least one day a week in meetings and with administrative work.
Having seen first-hand a number of patients those in the medical profession call “orphan patients,” or those who don’t have a family doctor to call their own, Dr. Jabs says that many women in their 20s, 30s and 40s, when a woman is typically quite healthy, don’t have a need for specialized care or referrals to specialists. They simply require a level of “wellness care” that can keep them on the path to continued good health, with someone who understands their particular healthcare needs. This is something Dr. Jabs is aiming to provide at the SSWC.
“Once the volume of the South Saskatchewan Women’s Clinic grows to exceed the capacity of the two family physician providers that I currently have, then Amanda will be providing primary care as well.” While Dr. Jabs’ main motivation for opening the clinic was the need to fill the gap between primary care for women and specialized or acute care, she happily admits the clinic was started to serve a secondary purpose as well: freeing up specialists’ limited time that can better be spent doing operations or dealing with high risk situations.
with Marian Donnelly
Zorka De L Scrimshaw Amanda Scollan and Dr. Corrine Jabs
by Lee Parent Now in talks with Planned Parenthood and the Saskatchewan Can-
When guiding her staff as they answer telephone inquiries at the clinic, Dr. Jabs tells them as a rule of thumb: “If the complaint that they have is something that a guy can have, then it’s not an appropriate reason to come to this clinic.”
cer Agency to potentially provide some of the tests and screenings they normally do for women, Dr. Jabs is also hoping the clinic will be able to help free up some of their limited time and appointments as well.
Fashion column by Riley Lawson | beauty column by Sara Lindsay 1 4 “Not everybody wants their male family physician to listen to their complaints about vaginal discharge, urinary incontinence, or concerns about sexually transmitted infections, or contraception,”
“This clinic is just down the hall from the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency office, so that was one place that we went to and asked if they had people calling who don’t know where to go for a pap
they won’t see her for her prenatal visits. So, sometimes she just doesn’t get care, and sometimes she’s referred to a gynecologist with long waiting lists for care that doesn’t really need to be done by a specialist.”
day in the not too distant future Dr. Jabs says she hopes to be able to expand the clinic’s reach even further.
Add to that the on-call work at the hospital doing caesarean sec- states Dr. Jabs matter-of-factly. “So instead a woman will get her They said “absolutely What thoughts led up to the moment when you decided Which other womensmear. inspire you?– on a regular basis.” We said to them tions, the labour and delivery cases she handles, the patients she birth control pills at a medi-clinic, but that medi-clinic may not be “here we are.” This is the kind of service that we want to provide.” in Emergency and the additional surgical work she performs, willing to do a pap smear for her. They’ll do a pregnancy test, but to run forsees mayor? Still in its early days, the future is looking bright for the clinic. One as well as a wide variety of other clinics at the hospital she attends related to the other gynecology procedures and diagnostic tests, and it would seem on the brink of insanity to add anything else to this otherwise long list of duties. But that’s exactly what she’s done by opening the South Saskatchewan Women’s Clinic (SSWC),
I’ve actually been thinking about it for some time. I have been dealing with all three levels of government since I moved back to Re-
I have to start with the women in my family…my mom, grandmas “I would like to see us provide more group-styled she and and aunts, sisters and sisters-in-law. I have seven education,” brothers
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