It’s a typical Tuesday at Seven Hills Family Medicine in Richmond, Va. The team — which consists of Dr. Stephanie Arnold, registered nurse Caci Young and several medical assistants — huddles to prepare for the day.
Arnold, a primary care physician, runs through the schedule. The 9 a.m. telemed appointment is for chronic condition management. At 10 a.m. there’s a diabetes follow-up. The 11 a.m. appointment is to go over lab results for potential sleep apnea, then there are appointments for knee pain and one for ADHD results review. The schedulers fit in a walk-in patient who has a suspected yeast infection.
And then, at 1 p.m., a patient who took the bus from Tennessee is scheduled for an abortion.
“It’s a little bit of everything, which is very typical of family medicine,” Arnold says. The patient from Tennessee is one of three abortion procedures Arnold will do today at this clinic, where abortion is “just in the mix,” Arnold says.
In lieu of standalone clinics offering abortions, or telehealth appointments where patients get abortion medication by mail, family doctors are offering an abortion option in a familiar setting.
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