Methodist Healthcare San Antonio Women’s Health Services

Methodist Healthcare has instituted several proactive measures to address the swine flu health advisory including the initiation of appropriate patient protocols and the activation of emergency management procedures to handle all levels of the situation. We are following all CDC, Texas Department of Health and San Antonio Metropolitan Health guidelines and are actively involved in the Regional Medical Operations Center.

Should you have immediate questions about flu symptoms in adults or children, please call Healthcare’s Call-A-Nurse triage line at 22-NURSE (68773).

You can find more information about swine flu, including symptoms, guidelines on taking care of flu patients in your home and prevention tips by clicking here: www.cdc.gov/swineflu.

San Antonio woman shares family story and wins $1,000 for Threads of Love.

A San Antonio woman whose premature twin girls were given only a 30-percent chance of survival and who now are leading healthy, normal lives because of the care they received at Methodist Hospital has been named the first winner in Times of Your Life, a contest sponsored by Methodist Healthcare.

The contest invites the public to share personal stories about how placing their trust in Methodist Healthcare has enhanced their lives during pivotal life changes, such as the birth of a child, a battle with a life-threatening disease or the loss of a loved one.

Erin Pruetz is the first of three Times of Your Life winners. As a special gift to the community, Methodist Healthcare is making a $1,000 donation in her name to Threads of Love, Pruetz’s charity of choice. Threads of Love is a non-profit, non-denominational ministry dedicated to the production and distribution of clothing and care items to premature babies, living and deceased, serviced by San Antonio hospitals and care centers. Her entry also is posted on www.SAWomensHealth.net and will be featured in San Antonio Magazine. Additional winning entries will be selected in March and April, and the same prizes will be awarded.

Pruetz was admitted to the Women’s Pavilion at Methodist Hospital in April 2006, pregnant with identical twin girls who shared both an amniotic sac and a placenta. This condition is very rare, occurring only in about one in every 60,000 twin births. The risks included cord entanglement and death. “During my five-week stay, my twins experienced many heart-rate decelerations, in which the nurses had to act quickly to determine the cause and make a recommendation on treatment,” wrote Pruetz in her entry. “Acting too slowly could mean death for both babies, so a keen eye and excellent decision making were important.”

Pruetz said that at Methodist her girls were treated to some of the finest medical talent around. “The doctors, nurses and specialists treated our babies as if they were their own,” she wrote. “We owe our family of five to Methodist Hospital and believe that without Methodist Hospital’s pool of talent and passion, we would have never made it to today.”

People interested in entering the contest by sharing their stories can log on to SAWomensHealth.net and follow the instructions. Visitors can post their stories along with related photos, letters, drawings and videos. Entries are still being accepted for March and April.

For additional information on Times of Your Life, phone the Methodist Healthcare HealthLine, 210-575-0355, 1-800-333-7333 or visit www.SAWomensHealth.net

Surgeons at Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital are providing an alternative type of hysterectomy using laparoscopy methods leading to fewer complications and a speedier recovery for many women. Total Laparoscopic Hysterectomy (TLH) allows surgeons to perform surgery with minimal tissue injury by using miniaturized video equipment and customized instruments. A small, but growing, number of surgeons are now performing an entire hysterectomy with the removal of the cervix and the ovaries through a laparoscope. TLH is becoming the preferred procedure for hysterectomies for many women.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hysterectomy is the second most frequently performed surgical procedure, after cesarean section, for women of reproductive age in the United States. Approximately 600,000 hysterectomies are performed in the United States annually, and more than 20 million U.S. women have had the procedure. Reasons for hysterectomy vary from endometriosis and fibroid tumors to cancer.

Every hysterectomy involves removal of the uterus and sometimes the ovaries as well. Total abdominal hysterectomy, the most commonly performed type of hysterectomy, requires a four- to eight-inch abdominal incision to remove the uterus and ovaries, if needed. This procedure usually entails four to six days in the hospital and four to six weeks away from work for recovery. Vaginal hysterectomy is the next most frequently used technique of hysterectomy. During this procedure, the surgeon operates entirely through the vagina. There is no abdominal scar. The hospital stay is usually two days with about two weeks away from work. Vaginal hysterectomy is usually the preferred choice for women with small uteruses, absence of cancer or vaginal laxity.

“The advantages of laparoscopic hysterectomy are the use of small incisions, better access, improved visibility allowing more detailed dissection, avoidance of vaginal shortening and faster recovery,” says Bernard R. Cavazos, Jr., M.D., one of only a few surgeons in San Antonio trained to perform TLH. Dr. Cavazos performs the surgery at Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital.

The procedure reduces the complications that can be associated with more traditional surgeries and shortens a patient’s recovery time to approximately seven days, compared to four to six weeks for traditional hysterectomy. Most patients experience minimal post-operative discomfort. It is also cost-effective, reducing a patient’s hospital stay from three days to one. Abdominal scars consist of two to four incisions, each one-half of an inch long. TLH can be performed on women who have never had children, women with narrow or long vaginas, women with previous surgeries, women with cancer and women with large organs.

“Our goal as physicians is to advocate excellence in women’s health care. We constantly search for safe, less invasive and cost-effective treatment alternatives that complement the needs of today’s active woman,” Cavazos added.

Click here to search for physicians performing this procedure.