photograph by jon w. sparks
Editor's Note: Every year, the national medical group Castle Connolly produces a list of the best doctors in America. In the Memphis area, the 2021 Top Doctors list comprises more than 270 physicians representing 55 different specialties. Here, we introduce you to one of the care-givers who have been named a Top Doc time and again.
An associate professor and interim chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the College of Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Dr. Claudette Shephard is a gynecologist at Regional One Health. Her medical degree is from Loma Linda University School of Medicine in California, and her internship and residency were at SUNY-Health Science Center at Brooklyn/Kings County Hospital Center in New York. Her pediatric and adolescent gynecology fellowship was at UTHSC.
Shephard has been in Memphis for 30 years and is continuing her groundbreaking work in pediatric and adolescent gynecology, but is taking on further duties in a new role as associate dean for diversity and inclusion for the college. “This is an area more and more institutions are looking at so we can truly address the needs of our patients and make sure that our trainees, students, residents, and active faculty are respected and appreciated for who they are and what they bring to the table,” she says.
“Now I can do a telehealth visit, check up on my patients, and not have to disrupt what’s going on in their household.” — Dr. Shephard
Shephard has seen how the pandemic has brought changes to her field. “It has tested our resources, which has tested our creativity,” she says. “We never thought that we could get so much accomplished without physically being in the same space, but we’ve adapted to technology. Telemedicine and telehealth have taken off and allowed us to reach patients who otherwise may not have been able to make it to their appointments. It expanded the scope and it has connected the medical community because we can now benefit from the expertise of individuals in another state. We had the technology to do that, but it wasn’t done on a regular basis.”
It is also now possible to reach patients in more useful ways. “If we have a pregnant woman at home with children or concerned about leaving because of the pandemic, she can still make her OB visits,” Shephard says. “We can still check on the moms to make sure they’re doing well. We can provide prenatal education classes virtually.”
And patients don’t have to take time off for follow-ups. “Now I can do a telehealth visit, check up on my patients, and not have to disrupt what’s going on in their household,” she says. “And patient compliance, I think, is increased when we make provisions for that. You’re really getting better results from all of this.” Better outcomes are boosted by the new ways of doing things. Blood pressure monitors, for example, are now in more homes so the patient can take a reading.
“No matter what we do in terms of trying to provide education, to provide resources, we still have patients who have great needs,” Shephard says, pointing out that sexual abuse has been exacerbated by the pandemic. “Children were at home in the early phases of the pandemic, often in a setting that continued to expose them to their abusers, and without the outlets of school to share with a counselor.”
With the pandemic showing where these pockets of crimes are happening, she says there is a continuing need to make sure that reproductive healthcare needs of adolescents “are addressed in terms of education, contraception, empowering them to be more responsible, and take a role in understanding how it affects them long-term.”
