Marshall Health and Cabell Huntington Hospital established a new clinic for adolescent bleeding disorders in August. Since then, the clinic continues to grow and expand more for the community, specifically for females that have issues with their menstrual cycles.

Patients need to be referred by a pediatrician or their primary care specialist in order to visit the clinic.

“We see young women who have mensural bleeding that is considered to be excessive, and we make sure they don’t have any other underline bleeding disorders before starting for their heavy menstrual bleeding,” Paul Finch, pediatric hematologist and oncologist, said. “Often times, we also find that women with heavy bleeding will have problems like anemia, which can lead to chronic fatigue problems with attention and problems with school and work.”

Jennie Yoost, pediatric and adolescent gynecologist, manages the clinic for young girls who have abnormal menstrual cycles for bleeding disorders.

Jennie said her and Finch noticed that they have seen joint patients that travel long distances to see them for their menstrual cycles and decided to create a merging clinic since their two specialties work well together. Patients are able to be seen by both specialists at the same time.

“I think some of the benefits by having the clinic are that Dr. Finch and I can consult about these patients on the same day,” Yoost said. “A lot of times, medications that gynecologists will use like birth control pills can affect laboratory work that he wants to do, so it makes the whole process more efficient that we can work together and medically manage medically complex patients.”

Patients have access to the lab and radiology so both tests can be done on the same day.

“It’s important for patients to know that even if a lot of these adolescents are seeing a gynecologist at a young age, that doesn’t necessarily mean they need any kind of exam,” Yoost said. “We can get a lot of information just from taking a very detailed bleeding history and menstrual history, so a pelvic exam doesn’t really add much to the medical decision making. Girls are fearful to see a physician because they are concerned they’re going to need a pelvic exam and that is not always the case.”

Alison Baldridge can be contacted at [email protected].