EO and Grace Family Medicine

Dr. Morehouse with mom and new arrival!

      

Many of you know that Sandi and others at Embracing Options are busy quietly meeting with young women in crisis (over 200 this year), offering pregnancy tests, counseling regarding abstinence and STDs, and helping the girls find pro-life solutions to their dilemmas. These are complex problems in lives that are mixed up and sometimes appear hopeless. Many come to Christ as the gospel is shared and their lives turn around. What you may not be aware of is that often these girls find a safe place for prenatal care at Grace Family Medicine where Dr. Morehouse goes on to deliver their rescued babies. The young women continue to bring their new children for care at our office. This gives us a wonderful opportunity to continue the care and discipling that was begun upstairs at Embracing Options. What an amazing collaborative effort in His Kingdom! Isn’t God good? We need your help to keep this effort going!

Sliding Fee Scale

Due to rising costs and loss of employment, more and more of our patients are using our Sliding Fee Scale, which bases the cost of their visit on their income, to pay for appointments. In addition, many patients come to us with Medicaid to pay for their visit. After submitting claims to Medicaid and applying our sliding fee scale, we’re paid significantly less than our usual “fee for service” charges. With the increase in patients that are uninsured or on Medicaid we’re finding that we can’t keep up with our overhead costs of staffing, building, vaccines, malpractice insurance, etc.

Many of our patients are on several medications, which they must pay for out of pocket. In the past, drug representatives have given us samples to help them out. Recently, the sample donations are dwindling, leaving us no avenue to help these patients. There are many health care needs in this community. We need your help in filling the gap between what the patients and insurers can provide and what it actually costs us to provide that care. Please help us keep our doors open to the uninsured and underinsured!

We’re still accepting new patients! Please call one of our offices for more details!
Grace Family Medicine   585-235-2250

Joy Family Medicine   585-697-0004

Health reform hits reality

POST, TX - Another morning at the clinic. Far away in Washington, the debate over health-care reform drags on, while here in barren West Texas, Ben Edwards is moving fast. He grabs the chart for his next patient, his ninth of the day, and enters Exam Room 5, where Alma Lopez, 51, waits to see the only doctor in town...

"I'm always behind," Edwards says, summing up what it's like to be the only doctor within a 45-mile radius, and in that simple statement is his worry about what reform will mean:

What will happen in a place like Post, where the uninsured are waiting for a system to see a doctor regularly - and there's only one doctor to see them all?

If all of Post's 3,708 residents had full health coverage, Edwards believes they would flock to his clinic, but his practice is already full with more than 2,000 patients. He has no idea how he would fit in anyone else.

In this working-class outpost in this vast, flat no man's land, the everyday health-care needs of an entire community fall to Edwards. Health-care reform is on its way, and it is up to him to care for everything - every sniffle, ear ache and fever, every anxiety and sleepless night, every bad back and stomach pain and bladder infection.

And the truth is this: Edwards will not have time to treat them all.

Click here to read the full article in yesterday's Washington Post.

Swine Flu (H1N1) Shots

The Monroe County Health Department held public swine flu clinics in November while waiting for enough vaccine to come in for other sites. Most of our patients at Grace Family Medicine and Joy Family Medicine did not find this to be a very accessible route for the vaccine, so our offices have been flooded with phone calls and questions about it. We received two shipments in mid and late November (with no promise of more) and have been inoculating those for whom it is recommended (pregnant women, children 6 months old and up, people who care for children or who are in health-related fields, and adults who have chronic health conditions or compromised immune systems). We’ve been busy!

Click here to read a Fact Sheet about the swine flu.

A thought experiment

Here's an excerpt from a thought-provoking article about health care disparities, written by Dr. Douglas Kamerow (graduate of Rochester's Family Medicine Program) and published in a recent issue of the British Medical Journal, that would be of interest to anyone who heard Dr. Morehouse's talk at the His Branches Open House earlier today:

Our perfectly designed US healthcare system

The interregnum between a presidential election and the inauguration is a time of feverish activity, in which the president elect and his staff decide who will help them govern and what they will try to do first. The press and pundits speculate breathlessly on who will be appointed and what they will do first. As I write this, for example, we have just learnt that the new administration’s secretary of health and human services is likely to be a respected former US senator, Tom Daschle. He has written a book about healthcare reform, which is likely to be his assignment when he starts in January.

I’ve been musing about the United States and how perfectly designed our current healthcare system is. Perfectly designed, of course, as every system is, to achieve exactly the results it gets, as quality improvement guru Don Berwick famously said. In its own way, it is really rather remarkable. Here’s a thought experiment to illustrate what I mean.

Click here to read the whole article.

Spring MD Breakfast

The MCCF Spring MD Breakfast will be held on Saturday morning, April 26, from 9-11 am at the Academy of Medicine, 1441 East Avenue.

Drs. Dave and Mary Kay Ness will be back from Oaxaca Mexico to share with us about their commitment and recent missions experiences serving in Roca Blanca. For more background information about the ministry they've become involved in, check out their website and then come to hear an up-to-date report!

Please mark your calendars and RSVP using our Response page. Be sure to note our new location (click here for Directions to the Academy of Medicine).

GMC Open House on 2/2

On Saturday, February 2nd from Noon to 4 pm we'll be holding an Open House at the Gerhardt Ministry Center (906-918 N. Goodman St. next door to Joy Community Church). Our satellite medical office (Joy Family Medicine) and crisis pregnancy care center (Embracing Options) will be open as well as a food pantry (the Hope Shop) next door. Staff will be there to show you the facilities and answer any questions you may have. Refreshments will be served. Come and bring your friends and neighbors!

Winter Missions Breakfast

Please set aside the date and sign up now for our Winter Missions Breakfast coming up on Saturday, January 19th, from 9-11 am at the Rochester Academy of Medicine, 1441 East Avenue. We're going to have a smorgasbord of local speakers (including 2 URMC residents and one faculty member) who'll be talking about missions experiences and opportunities from Honduras to Iraq, by way of Uganda and Tenwek Hospital in Kenya, so don't miss this one!

Please mark your calendars and RSVP using our Response page. Be sure to note change of location (click here for Directions to the Academy of Medicine).

Fall MD Breakfast

The next MCCF Breakfast will be held on Saturday morning, September 29th, from 9-11 am at the Academy of Medicine, 1441 East Avenue. Dr. David Holmes, President of the Western NY chapter of CMDA, will be coming with a team from Buffalo to address the topic "To the Least of These." David has been instrumental in advocating for improved medical care for the underserved in his community, most recently through the establishment of the Good Neighbors Health Care center.

Please mark your calendars and RSVP using our Response page. Be sure to note change of location (click here for Directions to the Academy of Medicine).

Spring MD Breakfast

Our Spring MCCF MD Breakfast will be held on Saturday morning, May 5th, from 9-11 am at the Meliora Faculty Club on the River Campus. Dr. Chet Fox, a faculty member at UB with years of experience as a family physician, will share with us about "Praying with Patients: Tips, Tricks, and Traps." Please mark your calendars and sign up now!

Thelanders of Gabon

On April 29 and 30, Dr. Keir and Joanna Thelander will share about what God is doing at Bongolo Hospital in Gabon, Africa, with a report about their experiences with medicine in the jungle, heat and humidity, electrical storms, their missionary family, God’s many provisions for Luke and Sarah, the new AIDS clinic, the road to Libreville, and the Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons. Click here for more information about times, locations, and how you can RSVP.

Winter MD Breakfast

The annual MCCF Missions Breakfast will be held on Saturday morning, February 10th, from 9-11 am at the Meliora Faculty Club on the River Campus. Speakers will include:

• Dr. Jeff Harp - Haiti mission
• Drs. Nick Venci and Chuck Culbertson - Senegal mission
• Jared Tomlinson - Ghana mission
• Dave & Diann Conquest - Dr. Keir Thelander's work at Bongolo Evangelical Hospital in Gabon, Africa
• Dr. John Seaman - Disaster Preparedness

Information about the upcoming CMDA Global Health Outreach trip to Nicaragua in 4/07 will also be presented. Mark your calendars and sign up now!

CHC Conversion Status

Since receiving word from the Department of Health this June that our application to convert our medical services over to a full-fledged Community Health Center (CHC) has been granted "contingent approval" we've completed 9 of our 11 "contingencies" and have been working diligently on the remaining 2. The most difficult one seems to be securing a $20,000 start-up grant. Working together with our Board of Directors, Steve Hays has already submitted a number of grant applications. If you have any suggestions, please contact us ASAP! As soon as we're able to satisfy our contingencies we can move ahead with the conversion, hopefully this fall.

Rest assured that conversion of Grace Family Medicine into a clinic that is fully licensed by NY will only bring about positive changes in the way we are able to care for our community.

Whole Person Care

On September 25-27, 2006, Dr. Dan Fountain conducted a 3-day workshop on "Caring for the Whole Person" at Roberts Wesleyan College. Dr. Morehouse assisted him again this year. The course was open to pastors, counselors, students, and health professionals in our region and offered up to 21 hours of Category I CME credit for physicians who attended.

Dr. Fountain is the author of numerous books in English and French on community health, primary health care, and care for the whole person and served as a missionary physician in Kenya for 35 years before returning to the States where he currently serves as the Director of the Center for Global Health at King College.

Click here to view a PDF Brochure for the Workshop. PowerPoint presentations of many of the sessions are accessible through the schedule posted online here.

Neighborhood Survey

This summer we were gifted with the services of Jessica Speares (pictured painting a neighborhood face at our Block Party), a premedical student at Roberts Wesleyan College who gathered a team and conducted a health resources survey of leaders and residents in the neighborhood. She was delighted with the reception she received and the results she was able to gather.

In her report to the community on August 21st, Jessica reviewed the results of her study which revealed a need in our neighborhood for increased youth services, especially for teenagers, and easier access to counseling and referral services. We're going to be actively working with her and others to find some solutions this coming year.

Her full report is available as an online PowerPoint presentation as well as in a written outline. If you'd like to help, just give us a call!

MD Breakfast/Retreat

On Saturday morning, September 23, medical students and community physicians will be converging on Rochester from the Western NY region to kick off our first Upstate MCCF Retreat with a stimulating day of feasting, fellowship, and education. The day will start at 8:00 am with our Fall Christian Physicians Breakfast where Dr. Daniel Fountain, MD, MPH, will begin the first in a series of 5 informative and discussion-provoking sessions on the provocative topic:

"What's wrong with US health care and how can we fix it?"

Schedule

8:00 Registration and Breakfast (note early start)

9:00 Problems with the biomedical model and the US health care system

10:00 Restoring wholeness to medicine from both scientific and biblical perspectives

11:00 Wholistic approaches to common psychosocial problems

Noon: Lunch, Medical Student Gathering, and Discussion

1:30 How to do a personal and spiritual assessment

2:30 The logistics of forming a care giving team

3:30 Retreat ends

The Retreat will be hosted at The Meliora (Faculty Club) on the University of Rochester River Campus and includes lunch. We'll be wrapping up by mid-afternoon on Saturday to allow those participating to return to their full lives without undue interruption.

Physicians will be eligible to receive up to 5 hours of Category I CME credit for their participation in the Saturday sessions. This promises to be a wonderful time of spiritual nurture and growth and will be an ideal opportunity to welcome medical students to a regional fellowship of faith.

Cost? $50 for practicing providers and $25 for students for all sessions and meals. 5 CME credits are available for an additional $50 fee. You're warmly encouraged to participate in as many of the retreat events as your schedule will allow, so please mark your calendars and sign up now!

Expanding Spiritual Care

Those of you that are familiar with the medical care provided at Grace Family Medicine know how we integrate prayer into patient visits, believing that faith is an integral part of the recovery process. In some difficult cases a rekindling of faith may be the only real answer to the patient's symptoms. For the whole body to function properly there has to be a clear balance of all the systems that the Lord created, and if one of those systems is not functioning properly then illness is more likely to present itself. One of the most profound and least understood systems in the medical community is that of our spirit or spiritual nature. Very often there are things that influence our spirit that are undetectable with modern science and thus cannot be treated using the scientific method alone.

Dr. Fountain pioneered a similar vision to whole person medical care in Africa while Dr. Morehouse was pioneering the approach here in America. The two of them have connected, and their vision is to see "spiritual care-givers" planted in medical practices all over the country. His Branches is looking for a spiritually mature, Bible believing Christian person who is interested in working alongside our doctors to offer spiritual counsel and prayer to individuals with maladies that modern science alone can't treat.

Jesus was the Great Physician, and we believe that a team approach to medical care that includes this new position will enhance our ability to impact and influence the health of our community.

Whole Person Workshop

While in Rochester, Dr. Fountain will also be conducting a 3-day workshop on "Caring for the Whole Person" at Roberts Wesleyan College, September 25-27. Dr. Morehouse will be assisting him again this year. The course is open to pastors, counselors, students, and health professionals in our region and offers up to 21 hours of Category I CME credit for physicians who attend.

Dr. Fountain has authored numerous books in English and French on community health, primary health care, and care for the whole person and served as a missionary physician in Kenya for 35 years before returning to the States where he currently serves as the Director of the Center for Global Health at King College. Click here to view a PDF Brochure for the Workshop.

CCHF Annual Conference

Health Care for the Underserved

This year's conference, May 18-21 at Eastern College in Philadelphia, will address the theme of Spiritual Inheritance for the Next Generation. Convinced that investing in equipping the next generation is capacity building at its best, the theme will be reciprocally important for veteran, new, and emerging Christian health care professionals. Plenary Speakers will include:

• Christine Sines, M.D. Physician, professor and author who faithfully assists churches and Christian organizations to engage the challenges of the 21st century.
• David Hilfiker, M.D. Physician, activist and author who has committed his life to social justice in the practice of his professions and living among the poor.
• Kenneth Robinson, M.D. Pastor, physician, and Commissioner for the Tennessee Dept. of Health whose passion is holistic and comprehensive approaches to public health and individual well-being.
• Ruth Naomi Floyd, Christian jazz recording artist, will serenade the group in a special evening of coffee house jazz on Friday evening.

Click here to download a conference brochure. We're planning to have at least one carload from Rochester and another one from Buffalo attend this year. Contact us if you're interested in participating.

Spring MD Breakfast

The MCCF Spring MD Breakfast will be held on Saturday morning, April 29, from 9-11 am at the Meliora on the U of R River Campus and will feature Dr. Len Marotta and his wife Jayne sharing on the topic "God in Gynecology? Being a Bond-Servant Wherever You Are." Len has an active Ob/Gyn practice in Syracuse where he is a popular teacher at SUNY Upstate. We've posted one of Len's handouts on "Sexuality and the Scriptures" online here. Please mark your calendars and sign up now!

2006 MD Directory

The Greater Rochester Directory of Christian Physicians has been updated, and the new 2006 edition is now available. If you are in the health professions and would be interested in attending one of our breakfast meetings or in having your name listed in our next Directory, please visit our website or contact us.

Winter MD Breakfast

Our annual MCCF Missions Breakfast will be held on Saturday morning, January 28th from 9-11 am at the Meliora faculty club on the U of R River Campus. Speakers will include:

• The Cannon Family (trip to Honduras this summer)
• Alexi Matousek and Sarah Bliss (trip to Haiti)
• Drs. John Seaman and David Ragonesi (trip to Tibet)
• Dr. David Holmes (Buffalo outreach)

Mark your calendars and sign up now!

Fall MD Breakfast

Our MCCF Fall MD Breakfast will be held on Saturday morning, September 4th, from 9-11 am at the Meliora Faculty Club on the River Campus. Dr. Jerry Svoboda will be sharing on the topic "Striving for Servanthood in the Real World." Please mark your calendars and sign up now!

Dr. Morehouse Honored

The Rochester Business Journal has recognized Dr. Morehouse as one of 3 physician recipients of its 2005 Health Care Achievement Award! This award, now its third year, was created to recognize excellence, promote innovation, and honor organizations and individuals who are making a significant impact on the quality of health care in our area. Three tables of well-wishers joined nearly 350 members of the community in honoring Dr. Morehouse at a special Awards Luncheon on April 12. Dr. Ralph Pennino was the keynote speaker and spoke about his experience as a medical volunteer with InterVol, a missions support group he was instrumental in founding.

Click here to read the Rochester Business Journal article.

Spring MD Breakfast

On Saturday, April 30th, GRMCCF will be hosting Bruce Jackson, Executive Director of the Christian Community Health Fellowship, as our guest speaker. He will be speaking on the topic "Working Among the Poor: A Cross-Cultural Adventure for Health Professionals."

Bruce has this to say about his subject material: "It has often been said that as you walk in another person’s shoes you gain an understanding of that person. Jesus was able to at one moment relate to a person in a position of power and authority and at the next moment relate to a person that had no options and was in poverty. We will be looking at the silent barriers that prevent poor people from accessing health care, and in looking at these barriers we will gain an understanding of their world. The obvious barriers are access, provider shortage, and inability to pay (no insurance). The silent barriers include lack of options, asset limits, powerlessness, issues of trust, survivor mentality, and the unseen barriers of attitudes and atmosphere created by providers."

Please mark your calendars for this event and sign up now!

2005 MD Directory

The Greater Rochester Directory of Christian Physicians has been updated, and the new 2005 edition is now available. If you are in the health professions and would be interested in attending one of our breakfast meetings or in having your name listed in our next Directory, please visit our website or contact us.

Dr. Daniel Fountain Coming

Dr. Daniel Fountain, MD, MPH, will be presenting a three-day workshop in the Greater Rochester area on "Caring for the Whole Person" and will be the speaker at our Breakfast on January 22 on the last day of the workshop. The course will be open to pastors, counselors, and health professionals in our region with 21 hours of CME credit offered to physicians who complete the entire course. Dr. Fountain is the author of numerous books in English and French on community health, primary health care, and care for the whole person and served as a missionary physician in Kenya for 35 years before returning to the States where he is currently the Director of the Center for Global Health at King College.

Click here to view the Workshop Schedule.

Winter MD Breakfast

Dr. Fountain’s workshop will be overlapping with our regularly scheduled Winter Breakfast on Saturday, January 22, when he will be sharing with our whole group on the topic of “Anger and the Healing Power of Forgiveness.” This will be a wonderful opportunity to fellowship with colleagues and students from the entire region.

Please mark your calendars for these events and sign up now!

NOTE: To accommodate the schedule of the Workshop, the Breakfast will be starting at 8:00 am instead of the usual time.