Doctor, doctor

Lately I’ve heard stories of smaller communities that suddenly, for various reasons, find themselves without doctors. Our local medical systems have their share of challenges, of course — for instance, the cost of living is driving some practitioners out of the area, making it harder for some to find a new doctor or get an appointment with an existing one — but even so we seem to be doing as well as, if not better than, most. Well enough that I would count our ability to access good medical care as yet another advantage to living in the Bay Area.

My wife and I are generally in good health, although we do have our share of things to keep an eye on. We get annual physicals, see our dentist twice a year, and undergo annual eye exams. Likely due to my upbringing in sunny Southern California, I also have the “pleasure” of regular skin exams. Those are mostly routine, although some 10 years or so ago I was diagnosed with a rather alarming melanoma. Thankfully, I was referred to Stanford Medical’s Melanoma Clinic, who were, to put it mildly, outstanding. Removal required outpatient surgery, and the operation apparently was successful: I’ve had no recurrence since. As a consequence, though, I have full-body skin exams every six months, done by a terrific doctor with Palo Alto Medical Foundation.

For many years my wife and I relied on Menlo Medical for most of our medical care. However, after Stanford Medical acquired it we learned that our insurer — Blue Shield — was unwilling to pay Stanford’s rates (which, admittedly, do seem high). So around a decade ago we set out to find a new provider, and new doctors. We experimented with One Medical for a brief period, but ultimately settled on PAMF, which has, frankly, been terrific. All of the doctors, nurses and technicians we’ve interacted with have been great, and we find going to PAMF’s lab for blood draws to be, well, painless. I particularly appreciate the fact that I can obtain care from either its San Carlos facility or its one in Palo Alto; both are fairly close, and together they provide a wide range of services.

At one time I was a Kaiser Permanente member, but that was a very long time ago, in Dallas, Texas. Thus, I cannot speak from personal experience about its level of care here. However, I have friends who seem quite happy with the service they receive from Kaiser in Redwood City. And from personal observations, beginning with the construction of an all-new hospital building to replace the old one (which had been declared as seismically unsound), I’ve been impressed with Kaiser’s projects to replace not only that old hospital tower but pretty much the entirety of its campus. Sequoia Hospital had to do much the same for the same reason, and there I can attest to the quality of its facility inside and out, having had occasion to visit it a handful of times over the last decade or so.

Stanford Medical, Palo Alto Medical, Dignity Health (of which Sequoia Hospital is a part), Kaiser Permanente — those of us who live in the mid-Peninsula region are spoiled for choice. There are many reasons that I love living in the Bay Area: our proximity to the Bay and to the ocean; the relatively easy access to skiing, hiking and other such activities; our professional and collegiate sports teams; and the many cultural opportunities available to us, thanks to Stanford University, UC Berkeley and the city of San Francisco.

To those I would add the quality and quantity of our medical care. It isn’t always be cheap, but when a serious issue arises, like life-threatening melanoma, or even a more routine one, like my wife’s broken wrist, to my mind quality is everything.

Greg Wilson is the creator of Walking Redwood City, a blog inspired by his walks throughout Redwood City and adjacent communities. He can be reached at greg@walkingRedwoodCity.com. Follow Greg on Twitter @walkingRWC.