Throughout our twenty-five year history, First Choice Women's Medical Center has been blessed to have a sizeable nucleus of physicians who appreciated our ministry, were willing to see our referrals, and send their patients our way. One of our concerns as we considered conversion to the medical model was the issue of our relationship with the local medical community.

As a non-medical entity it was easy to carve out a special niche in ministering to women who needed the help we could offer. We were careful to make known to local physicians the fact that we offered no medical advice or services. Rather we could encourage early pre-natal care with our referrals to existing health care facilities.

Our incentive program for young pregnant women met a need that busy physicians had no time to pursue. We had the volunteers in place to provide this help to their patients, and physicians came to appreciate our work with these women. Likewise, our post-abortion ministry gave these physicians a safe, caring place to send any woman suffering the emotional aftermath of an abortion.

Our concern for the medical transition was that our niche may no longer be perceived to be the distinctive it had been through the years. Would we now be viewed as competition?  Would doctors trust that our medical care would be done with excellence? Would our staff be adequately trained?

We knew that our working relationship with local physicians would change. How could we ensure that these men and women would understand our intent and the impetus would drive it? We decided to be pro-active in working through this transition and decided to take the initiative to reach out to the medical community. Our desire was to have them hear of our changes directly from us, rather than to hear misinformation on the street.

Thus, immediately upon the Board's decision to pursue a medical model, we began to seek opportunities to speak briefly to regularly scheduled ob-gyn staff meetings at local hospitals. In addition to a personal phone call to the chairmen of the sections requesting five minutes at their meeting, we followed up with written proposals of the information we wanted to present. Two of the three hospitals graciously invited us to their meetings.

We didn't wait until we had all our ducks in a row! At that early stage in the process, our Nurse Manager had not been hired, and our Medical Director had previous commitments which prevented her presence at these meetings. However, the groups graciously listened to the plans this non-medical Executive Director shared with them.  And when our Nurse Manager was hired several months before the clinic opening, she made appointments to meet individually with some of the local doctors.

One further step we took to build relationships with local doctors was to send personal letters to every local ob-gyn, family practice doctor, and physician who has supported our ministry in any way. We felt it was important that these letters precede any announcement in our newsletter of our plans to convert to a medical clinic.

We are delighted that God has honored our efforts to build these relationships and that He has graciously given our First Choice Women's Medical Center favor in the eyes of many local physicians.  This was recently confirmed in a wonderful way when The Medical Society of Montgomery County presented to our ministry their 2007 Service Award at their annual awards banquet. This validation of our clinic by the medical community is an extraordinary encouragement to us, for which we are most grateful, for it helps us to establish credibility and trust as we reach out to the women of our community with valuable, life-affirming services that protect the health of women and their children.

All Pregnancy Medical Clinics in the Option Ultrasound Program provide limited obstetrical ultrasound as medically indicated. Clinics are licensed to operate under the supervision of a physician, using only trained sonographers. Focus on the Family does not endorse the use of ultrasound outside of a medical clinic setting and does not endorse the use of ultrasound for non-medical reasons. Patient referrals are made to physicians for follow-up diagnosis and care as needed.