The Quillen College of Medicine will host “Women’s Health: A Comprehensive Approach” on March 19 to raise awareness about many topics in women’s health that are not typically discussed.
“We have an excellent OB/GYN department here, but we wanted to pick up some of the other aspects of women’s health that are not generally covered under reproductive health,” said Dr. Theresa Lura, vice president of health affairs.
Although this is the seventh annual women’s conference, Lura said that the initial idea behind this year’s program was in response to the stress related to the Sept. 11 attacks and how dealing with stress has changed from the doctors’ perspective.
“We’re not just going to be talking about stress related to national crises but in view of all the in-creased crises and mental trauma we’re asking, ‘Are there any new ways of dealing with stress?'” she said.
The keynote speaker for the conference will be Dr. Charles Nemeroff, professor and chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.
“He has done a lot of research on the role of early trauma in the development of depression,” Lura said.
“This is not unique to women, but it is something that’s important to women’s health. We’re really looking forward to having him come talk to us.”
Other topics that will be discussed during the conference include a medical perspective of domestic violence, hypoactive sexual desire disorder, Alzheimer’s disease, somatic consequences of sexual trauma and pain management.
“We have a new pain management specialist in our area who’s working at the VA,” she said. “He’s going to be giving a talk on pain management for lower back and pelvic pain which is a very important area that we have trouble managing in medicine.”
Lura said the target audience is usually primary-care physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, residents, medical students, nurse practitioners and other health-care professionals.
“We try to invite folks from a broad range of specialties,” she said.
The program will include several other speakers, and there will also be combined talks with Dr. William Finger and Dr. Renee Hollins.
Lura added that the purpose of this conference is to expand understanding about women’s health.
“We’re trying to look at it across the spectrum,” she said.
“Each year this conference has been very well received, and we’ve had increasing audience size from year to year,” she said. “I think we had 120 register last year. Coming from humble beginnings, we’re really pleased to have that many interested.”
The conference will be held from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. at the Adelphia Centre at Millennium Park. Call 439-8081 for more information or to register for the conference.

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