Meet the Best Female Internal Medicine Doctors at San Mateo Primary Care

Have you ever found yourself searching online for something along the lines of “best female internal medicine doctors near me” because you’re not happy with receiving sub-par care from doctors that don’t understand your needs as a woman? If so, you’ve come to the right place! Meet Seema Sangwan MD, Pradeepa Selvakumar MD FACP, Lily Robles MA, Janelle Sistoso MA, Vani Chopa PhD MS RD, and Cindi Gill RN BSN CHCM CHPN – a group of highly educated primary care physicians. While other doctors might understand pregnancy, menopause, and other conditions of the female organs, at San Mateo Primary Care, we’re women serving women, so we intimately understand the specific medical needs and concerns of other women and can address them accordingly. With us, the descriptor “best female internal medicine doctors near me” is not an opinion but a fact.

How do we ensure we offer the best internal care for women you might ask? Well, in addition to intimately understanding women’s medical needs, we look at the person and the perceived problem holistically. While most other doctors take a traditional medical approach, analyzing only the perceived problem, at San Mateo Primary Care, we combine traditional medicine with evidence-based care, highlighting the perceived problem within the biological, psychological, and socioeconomic context surrounding the person. By analyzing the perceived problem under this lens, we’re able to view situations more comprehensively than others, allowing us to return a more accurate diagnosis and plan of action.

As part of this holistic approach, we like to address the specific concern(s) at hand while also taking proactive measures to ensure lifelong health. Specific preventative measures include offering cooking classes and workshops with our Registered Dietician to teach you how to shop and cook with healthy ingredients, helping you manage daily stress and anxiety, helping you to avoid medications you don’t need, coordinating with your specialists to make sure everyone is on the same page, and so much more! Imagine your family has a history of heart disease, and instead of simply shoving pills down your throat, your doctor worked with you to lower your stress and anxiety levels, create a better sleep schedule, introduce more healthy eating habits into your routine, and establish a workout routine. We truly believe you are not destined to your genetics or current circumstance. Refreshing, right? At San Mateo Primary Care, this is how we operate; we offer lifestyle medicine solutions for YOU.

Additionally, we understand life can get hectic, and while you may be searching for “best female internal medicine doctors near me,” sometimes you can’t always make the drive or simply don’t want to! As such, we offer tele-visits, so you can always get the care you need at your convenience. On the flip side, we also offer longer appointment times, so we can tackle everything we need in one appointment! Not only do these options offer elevated levels of convenience, they also ensure you can see the doctor on your terms, potentially saving you huge urgent care or emergency room bills in the future.

At the end of the day, there are few things more important than your health, so you want to make sure your doctor thoroughly understands you and your needs. This is especially important for women as we have specific medical concerns that need to be addressed accordingly. At San Mateo Primary Care, we’re women serving women, so we get it. This fact combined with our holistic approach and overall flexibility, makes us the only logical choice! Your medical choices today determine your health tomorrow. Choose wisely; choose San Mateo Primary Care.

The Need for Evidence Based Care for Women and Medically Complex Patients

Have you ever gone to the doctor and felt that you weren’t getting the level of care you needed? That you weren’t being heard? That you were seen as just another patient and your personal needs weren’t being addressed? We’ve heard it all too often – especially as it relates to women and medically complex patients. While it should be common sense to look at the person and the problem holistically, it often times is not, resulting in far too many people not receiving the attention to detail needed. At San Mateo Primary Care, we’ve recognized this flaw amongst health care practitioners and within the health care system overall, and have committed ourselves to working with women and medically complex patients to find holistic solutions to their unique problems. How exactly do we do this? We’re glad you asked.

San Mateo Primary Care’s Evidence-Based Approach

At San Mateo Primary Care, we are physicians that incorporate traditional medicine with modern, evidence-based care. Evidence-based care that takes into account the biological, psychological, and socioeconomic context surrounding the patient; it forces you to include factors like nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress among other things in your overall wellness assessment of the patient. This model puts the patient at the center rather than the perceived issue like with traditional medicine. By combining this approach with that of traditional medicine, patients receive a more accurate diagnosis and better overall experience.

Women and Medically Complex Patients Have Unique Needs

Not only is this the best way to treat all medical issues, it is especially so for women and medically complex patients. Medically complex patients by definition are “individuals who need extra care due to complex medical issues that are often times compounded by social, economic, environmental, and behavioral factors.”(1) If you do not include evidence-based care in your practice, you are essentially ignoring this group.

The same is true when it comes to women. Women have unique health issues including pregnancy, menopause and other conditions of the female organs. Not only this, but “some of the health issues that affect both men and women can affect women differently”(2) making it evidently clear women require unique care that only a holistic view of the patient can truly provide.

At San Mateo Primary Care, we understand every patient has specific needs – especially women and medically complex patients – that require specific solutions. Our goal is to work with patients to approach medical issues from all sides to solve current problems quickly and efficiently and to prevent future problems from occurring. Learn more about our primary care clinic that utilizes evidence-based medicine to help our patients here https://www.sanmateoprimarycare.com/about.

http://healthreform.ct.gov/ohri/lib/ohri/work_groups/practice_transformation/ccip_standards/complex_patients_20150907_distributed.pdf 1

https://medlineplus.gov/womenshealth.html 2

Fiber: The Complex Carbohydrate — Made Simple!

Fiber is a complex undigested carbohydrate and through this article, I will answer some basic questions on fiber and how it is beneficial to you !

What does complex undigested mean ? How is it a carbohydrate and yet does not break down to sugars in the body?

It adds bulk to the food. Unlike other carbohydrates, fiber cannot be broken down and passes out of the body undigested.

How is fiber beneficial and essential to our diet ?

It takes care of hunger- by giving a feeling of fullness It takes care of constipation — by regulating bowels It regulates blood cholesterol and blood sugar levels

How does one incorporate fiber in the diet?

First lets get a deeper insight about dietary fiber. There are two kinds — soluble and insoluble.

Soluble fiber as the name suggests dissolves in water and forms a gel.

This kind is present in oats,beans, lentils, nuts, blueberries, apples, barley, carrots, citrus fruits.

Soluble fiber is known to regulate blood cholesterol and blood sugar levels.

Insoluble fiber does not dissolve in water and facilitates the movement of food through the body and helps regulate the bowel system.

This kind is present in foods like whole wheat products — whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, whole wheat flour, whole grain products & brown rice.

---

Both categories of fiber have their own benefits and it is important to get a little bit of either variety to maximize the health benefits.

Making high fiber choices

Some ways to do that:

Eat the whole fruit rather than squeezing out its nourishment and drinking its juiceLook for “Whole grain”/ “Whole wheat” and NOT just ‘Wheat’ on products like bread, pasta, couscous.Incorporate brown rice instead of white rice into your meal.Stick to fresh produce of fruits and vegetables — example — snacking on raw vegetable sticks like celery, carrots, radish, broccoli and fruits.Incorporate vegetable protein like legumes in your diet as they are rich in fiber.

---

Dietary fiber compared to fiber supplements? Can I have my daily requirement of dietary fiber through fiber supplements?

We all hear and know that fiber is good for health. But in recent times, it seems that people are trying to get their daily fiber fix using fiber supplements sold in the market such as Metamucil.

Fiber supplements are isolated sources of fiber which means they are concentrated with fiber and are devoid of the wholesomeness of dietary fiber present in foods like fruits and vegetables, whole grains etc.

Do not assume that fiber supplements will have the same healthy benefits like dietary fiber.

There is a small proportion of fiber supplements in the market which have clinically proven to have health benefits. Research suggests that soluble non-fermenting, gel-forming fiber in the form of supplement may provide health benefits — example psyllium (Isabgol — product name in India)

---

FINAL VERDICT:

Overall, I would recommend consuming adequate amount of dietary fiber — 25–30g/day by incorporating foods like whole fruits and vegetables, whole-grain and whole wheat products & brown rice into your meals.

Stick to whole food and stay away from supplements as much as you can !!! Research suggests that fiber supplements may not provide the health benefits that dietary fiber provide.