New Mexico VA Health Care System

(From Left) Cynthia McCorvey, RN, discusses a patient’s health care with Janice Kando, M.D., in the Women’s Comprehensive Care Clinic.

  As soon as the electric door slides open to the Women’s Comprehensive Care Clinic (WCCC), Veterans instantly realize the new world they are about to enter is far from their father’s VA.  The WCCC is located on the second floor of Building 41 at the Raymond G. Murphy VA Medical Center. 

  Before a woman Veteran even reaches the reception desk, she will immediately notice a safe and private environment equipped with a MyhealtheVet computer station, a sign-in kiosk, and a television.  The Veteran also will see an abundance of reading materials and pamphlets that share information on multiple women’s health-related topics.  This warm and welcoming environment was designed for children to enjoy the safe, brightly-colored play space in the center of the waiting area. 
  
  Just beyond that area, the clinic features state-of-the-art medical equipment and technology, two highly skilled Women Veteran Patient Aligned Care Teams (PACT) of physicians, nurses and other clinical team members, a gender-specific health care professional, a urogynecologist, and a mental health provider ready to meet the unique needs of women Veterans with the dignity, sensitivity and highest quality they deserve.  The WCCC professionals provide primary, acute, preventive, specialty, and gender-specific services for chronic and acute illnesses.  Within the WCCC, women Veterans can also receive a host of behavioral health care to assist them with managing depression, anxiety, and stress; coping with deployment adjustment, living with chronic pain; counseling for intimate partner/domestic violence issues, and treating post-traumatic stress disorder and military sexual trauma, among other medical conditions. 

 Tanya McKinney, RN-C, is a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and also serves as the medical center’s Women Veterans Program Manager.  She firmly believes that preventive health care protects, promotes, and maintains health and well-being, and prevents diseases, disability, and death. What separates the WCCC from other VA clinics is that it provides gender-specific care, covering gynecological, maternity, birth control, menopause evaluation and treatment, osteoporosis screening and treatment, cancer screenings, ultrasounds and mammograms. 
 
  “If women Veterans enroll into our clinic, they won’t have to go to three or four separate clinics or all over the community,” she said.  “We can holistically take care of all of their clinical needs right here in the same clinic, to include social work issues like homelessness.”
 
  For more information about health care for women Veterans, visit:  http://www.albuquerque.va.gov/services/women/index.asp.