Procedure Description: It is now possible to examine the inside of your uterus with minimal discomfort through a very small telescope.
What To Expect: Please see the article on hysteroscopy .
Procedures
colposcopy
Procedure Description: Examination
of your cervix with a microscope allows me to see any potentially
troublesome tissue changes. This examination is painless. It is
frequently performed when your Pap smear is abnormal.
What To Expect: Please see the article on colposcopy.
Procedures
Laparoscopy
Procedure Description: Using
a thin telescope and a camera, I can surgically examine and treat
abnormalities in your pelvis and abdomen without making a large
incision. Most people can go home the same day and resume normal lives
the next day. Adhesions, cysts and some benign tumors can be handled
this way.
What To Expect: Please see the article on laparoscopy.
Procedures
Thermachoice balloon therapy
Procedure Description: When
I can find no specific reason for your heavy bleeding, I can avoid a
hysterectomy by performing ballon therapy. A computer controls the
temperature and pressure of a balloon filled with sugar water placed
inside your uterus. It heats the water to 189 degrees fahrenheit for
exactly eight minutes. After that treatment there is only a shallow
lining in the uterus and bleeding is much less or absent entirely.
What To Expect: Please see the web links on Thermachoice and the article on endometrial ablation.
Staff Information
Barbara
O'Toole is an experienced Certified Medical Assistant. From 1981 to
1992 she worked at the Anna Jaques Hospital. You might have seen her at
the switchboard, moving patients and transporting equipment from one
part of the hospital to another.
She attended the Northern
Essex Community College Program for Medical Assistants and was
certified in 1993. She was recertified in 1999.
From 1992 until
2001 she worked at Women's Health Care providing valuable assistance to
me and all my associates. She assisted with office surgical procedures,
educated patients about family planning options, drew blood for lab
tests, microscopically examined bodily fluids, helped maintain quality
and dependability in our lab, and gave injections.
Here, in our
practice, she is my right-hand woman! She does it all!! She handles the
phones and questions, appointments, operating room bookings, in
addition to all the jobs she used to do at Women's Health Care. She and
I are a team dedicated to making sure you are satisfied with your
experience here.
Barbara is a warm caring person who combines
empathy with efficiency. Her hobbies include a voracious appetite for
reading, cullinary skills, golf and travel. I am so very fortunate to have her here. I know you will agree.
- Using Encrypted Email on This Website
You
can contact me by email on this website without sacrificing privacy.
When you log on to the site, you will have the opportunity to send me a
message. I access the site with a password known only to me. Messages
to and from me are encrypted so that they can be read on this site only.
Any
message having to do with a medical condition (as opposed to a chat or
a an appointment request) will probably be saved in your medical
record.
I try to examine this site at least daily. There may
be occasions when I have no access to the Internet, and cannot look at
my messages on a daily basis. PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE MESSAGES HERE THAT
ARE TIME-SENSITIVE. If you need immediate attention, please call my
office phone line and follow those instructions if we are not available
to answer. When we are in the office we will try to return messages
within an hour. Our emergency number is (978) 963-4487 for when we are
unable to answer the phone in the office.
If I have never
physically seen you as a patient, we do not have a legal relationship.
My advice and opinions online must be taken in that context. There is
more to helping patients than can be gathered through email. I must
reserve the right to refuse online communications with any patient who
ignores these policies or uses this communication in a way that I
believe is not conducive to good care or is irresponsible. I may not be
able to give a medical opinion when communication is electronic instead
of hands-on.
If I send you a message, you will receive
notification in your regular email mailbox. You then will have to come
to this site to read your message.
I believe this is an exciting
way to enhance our relationship, but please use caution to avoid
delaying needed care. When you need something urgently, always call.
Joe Heyman, MD, April 1, 2001
-ONLINE CONSULTATION-
My goal is to provide convenient service. I care about you and respect your time.
I
am offering "Secure Messaging" for routine office communications
(appointment requests, prescription refills, and general messaging to
discuss a bill or other clerical question). Also,I offer "Online
Consultations" for clinical questions. Both services are available
here. "Online Consultations" include a charge to you if they involve
significant physician time to address, or when they serve as a
substitute for an office visit. Both "Secure Messaging" and "Online Consultations" can be accessed here by clicking on the "Register with Your Physician" area.
I
use a secure network to communicate with you because standard email is
not sufficiently secure, does not live up to federal liability
standards and may inadvertently expose your clinical records and
information to your employer or other unintended people.
I
know that coming in for an office visit is not always convenient and
has a real cost to you as a patient. Co-payments, gas and parking, lost
wages, child care and other real costs of office visits add up. I am
sensitive to these costs and the value of your time. My "Online
Consultations" service and modest associated fee are designed to save
you money when your questions, that previously required an office
visit, can be adequately answered online.
"Online
Consultations" is not the ideal service for all patients, but it will
serve the needs of many. We are happy to offer this service and
convenience to you.
Let me remind you that it may take some
time for me to see your message, so please DO NOT use any email on my
web site for urgent problems. I may insist that some questions require
an office visit.
HRT and the New WHI Study
Hormone Replacement Therapy and the Recent WHI Study What do the results of the WHI study mean? What should an individual woman do? Joe Heyman, MD July 13, 2002
The
topic of the risks and benefits of taking estrogen after menopause has
been a difficult one for patients and physicians for my entire medical
career. I have seen the recommendations go back and forth several times
because of interpretations of many studies. This latest WHI study was
stopped because the number of cases of breast cancer in a large group
of post-menopausal women taking Prempro® was greater than a similar
group of women taking a placebo. The actual number of individual cases
of any harmful or beneficial effect in the study was very small. You
can see the actual study by going to http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v288n3/ffull/joc21036.html. You can read an editorial about the study by clicking on
http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v288n3/ffull/jed20042.html. You can see
a response to the study from the American College of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists at
http://www.acog.com/from_home/publications/press_releases/nr07-09-02.cfm.
It is very difficult to explain the complicated statistics used
in the study. The data indicate that if 10,000 women take Prempro® for
one year, as compared with 10,000 women not taking PremPro® or any
other hormone replacement,
· 8 more women (out of 10,000) would develop invasive breast cancer · 7 more women (out of 10,000) would have a heart attack or other heart problem · 8 more women (out of 10,000) would have a stroke · 8 more women (out of 10,000) would have blood clots in their lungs · 6 fewer women (out of 10,000) would have colorectal cancers · 5 fewer women (out of 10,000) would have hip fractures
In
a single year, the placebo group (no hormones) would have 30 cases of
breast cancer (out of 10,000 women) as opposed to 38 cases in the
Prempro® group.
