When a woman goes through menopause, her body is changing rapidly, and many women have a lot of questions about how to cope with the changes.
Dr Liz Zubek wants to answer all her patients’ questions, but sometimes an office appointment is just not long enough to impart all the information her patients need, especially when a long chat might be needed. That’s why Zubek’s group medical visits for menopause are so popular.
“I like to have my patients fully informed, so I love the group visits as a doctor,” says Zubek, a family physician in Maple Ridge. “I can sit back and talk without a time limit, without worrying also how many people are waiting for me in the waiting room. It’s very invigorating to have these group visits.”
Group medical visits are one of the practice innovations popularized by the Practice Support Program (PSP), a joint initiative of Doctors of BC and the BC Ministry of Health that provides training and support for physicians and their MOAs designed to improve clinical and practice management and to support enhanced delivery of patient care.
Zubek attended PSP sessions on practice efficiency methods, such as group medical visits, and working with patients on mental health issues.
She has been holding group medical visits for different groups of patients for a few years now, including groups for heart health, nutrition, aging, chronic pain, and diabetes. But Zubek says her menopause groups bring a different tone to the notion of a group visit.
“Some groups are more medical, some more of a teaching session, but my menopause group is really a cluster of women gathering together,” she says. “We have up to a dozen women after office hours gather in my waiting room, and we can cover everything. It’s really a lot of back and forth, with chatter all the way through.”
Zubek holds the menopause group session a few times a year. Her patients can sign up online if they want to attend the next session, as they can for all her group visits. Patients of other doctors in her clinic often ask to attend, and if she has room, they can.
Each group visit begins with a discussion about privacy and confidentiality, and every patient signs a confidentiality agreement. Some women start out at the group as the shy ones, nervous about asking questions on some topics. “ Some of the more outspoken women usually ask the questions at first, like about sex during menopause, or hormone replacement therapy, and I can see that the shyer ones are really benefitting from my answers,” notes Zubek.
For Rosie Keating, 57, the menopause group visit was an important experience.
Keating said the age range of the patients also helped her, allowing her to hear from older women who could share their journeys through these big changes.
“I went in with my own questions, but having others in the visit with me made me listen to their questions and the answers, and it made me reconsider decisions I’d made about how to treat my symptoms,” she says.
While Zubek plans the menopause groups to last an hour, she says they always go a bit longer. “And there’s always a lot of laughter,” she says.
“I believe in medicine that information is power,” adds Zubek. “I’m trying to let patients make the best choices for treating the symptoms of menopause. In the group visit we get to spend a lot more time discussing the options.”
The PSP began as an initiative of the General Practice Services Committee (GPSC) – a joint committee of Doctors of BC and the BC Ministry of Health (the ministry) – and now receives additional direction, support, and funding from the Shared Care Committee and the Specialist Services Committee (also partnerships between Doctors of BC and the ministry).