Helping Patients with Multiple Challenges

Dr. Suzanne E. Page, president of the medical staff of TIRR LifeBridge, sees her specialty in physical medicine and rehabilitation as the natural direction for her to have gone in. Her father was an above-the-knee amputee, the result of a World War II injury. As a small child, she recalls the fun of `riding horsy' on her father's stump. Her father "was an active man who did everything but run. He would have done that too, but back then the prostheses were too heavy."

When a first grade teacher asked, "Do any of you know someone who is handicapped?" Suzanne did not respond because she never thought of her father as handicapped. He didn't either. Her father said there were people who viewed him as not too bright because he was disabled. "Some people think my brains are in my right big toe." In other words, some people felt he could not think because he lost a leg in the military service. This and Suzanne's observations of fellow students who derided patients because of their disabilities made her sensitive to this population.

"Until I was in medical school I did not know there was a specialty to treat people with physical impairments," she says. Her realization there in fact was this type of medicine made her even more enthused about the medical profession. "In physical medicine and rehabilitation, we deal with the patient's ability to come back from something that knocks him/her down," says Dr. Page. "Other specialties care for a certain body part or system of the body."

"We (physiatrists) ask, `How well can you do things? What is your function like?'" The patients Dr. Page follows at TIRR LifeBridge will be in the hospital longer because they may have had a severe medical setback. TIRR LifeBridge, provides medical services to patients who often have more than one illness or injury affecting their recovery and functional independence. "Recently I treated a woman who had a sudden stroke while standing. She fell when her right side became weak, and then broke her hip," Dr. Page recalls. "She had to be watched carefully to control her blood pressure and her blood sugar, to prevent a blood clot, to avoid too much weight through the injured leg, and to treat her depression when it occurred."

In addition to the patients Dr. Page sees at TIRR LifeBridge and TIRR, she enjoys the medical challenges and outcomes her outpatient work provides. With outpatients she works in the area of physical medicine and sees individuals who were previously involved with a certain activity or job, and they are anxious to get back to that part of their life. They may have a pulled back muscle, or a repetitive injury such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. The question becomes, "How do you work around this problem? How can we strengthen those muscles and provide education so the patient does not re-injure himself?"

"The inpatient and outpatient mix gives a balance to my practice," Dr. Page says. "Some patients we will discharge to nursing homes, but many achieve independence. It is good to see these long-term positive outcomes, and be part of something that results in a brighter outcome."

Dr. Page graduated from Oberlin College in Ohio with a B.A. in biology, the only one in her class of 500 to finish with Honors in her major. She then went to Cornell University for a masters in Nutritional Biochemistry. At The University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio she finished first in her medical school class for which she received the Janet M. Glascow Memorial Award. Dr. Page is American board certified in physical medicine and rehabilitation and is also a board certified independent medical examiner. She has an adjunct assistant professor appointment with the department of PM&R at The University of Texas-Houston Medical School.

- NANCY HUDGINS

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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