Women needed a place where their complaints would be taken seriously. In 1980, I began to plan a women's center where family doctors and specialists interested in women and women's health problems could pool their efforts to give women the best care available, a center where preventive medicine was key. There, women would have the results of their mammography, or sonography, within minutes. It took five years to get a bank loan. But in 1985, the Penny Wise Budoff, M.D., Women's Health Center finally opened, because my husband finally found one bank president who believed in me and my idea.
Compliance is a major problem in the practice of medicine today.
Having multiple services under one roof makes patient compliance more likely. It's hard to miss your mammography appointment when the doctor walks you down the hall to the X-ray technician. Perhaps equally important is the fact that each patient in the center has one chart, no matter how many physicians she may see over the years. One chart helps to assure that there is no overprescription or medications that don't mix. A complete history of prior illnesses, therapies, and lab tests is on one chart so that duplication of lab tests or X rays is avoided.