Swedish Physicians, a network of 12 primary-care clinics throughout the Puget Sound region, has opened a new clinic at 15670 Redmond Way in downtown Redmond and will provide primary-care services for patients of all ages.
Douglas McDonald, M.D. is the clinic’s medical director. He founded Redmond Family Health, a private family medicine practice and later managed it as Evergreen Medical Group’s Redmond clinic. He has practiced in Redmond since 1985 and also lives here, having recently moved from English Hill to the downtown neighborhood.
A graduate of the University of Washington School of Medicine, McDonald completed his medical residency at San Bernardino County Medical Center in California.
He specializes in preventive medicine, cardiovascular risk management, cholesterol management and office surgeries. Other clinical interests include sports medicine, nutrition and diabetes.
We asked McDonald about some basic preventive health measures.
“It’s lifestyle modification, healthy eating and exercise,” he stated. “I’m a big fan of the South Beach Diet, especially if they are pre-diabetic. I find it very effective. We all know we need to exercise. And physicals — I recommend early testing for heart disease before it becomes symptomatic.”
How does someone know if they are pre-diabetic?
“If there’s a family history, or someone packs weight around the middle, a lot of belly fat, those can be risk factors. Or someone who has high blood pressure and high cholesterol. We do lots of blood screenings. We can now tell you 10 or 15 years ahead of time if you are pre-diabetic so you can manage, delay or prevent it.”
Poor nutrition and inactivity are the biggest problems, he added.
“Little kids — eight, nine or 10 years old, I have not seen so much because my practice is mostly older children and adults, but I have seen 18-to-20-year-olds who are pre-diabetic,” said McDonald.
“The kids at the skateboard park, those who are active at sports, you don’t worry so much about. It’s the PlayStation 3 group, the ones who are getting a little fluffy, who are at risk.”
And many of the office surgeries that McDonald performs can be prevented by using sunscreen. He removes “a lot of skin cancers, lumps, bumps, benign tumors, cysts,” he explained.
“I don’t call myself a plastic surgeon but I pay attention to those techniques for a good result. I’ve done some melanomas, a lot of surgeries for sun-damaged skin. And I do vasectomies.”
Since opening Redmond’s new Swedish Physicians clinic, McDonald said he has been “most occupied with new electronic medical records. Well, they’re new to me, anyway. Swedish has been doing them for several years and has the up-and-coming, premiere program in the country.”
The electronic medical records help to track patients’ progress and keep complications under control, especially for chronic illnesses such as diabetes. They also keep tabs on screenings such as mammograms and colonoscopies, make sure patients are up-to-date on immunizations and can be used to send prescriptions directly from the exam room to your pharmacy, he noted.
With fall approaching, flu is on everyone’s minds and especially the Swine Flu, said McDonald.
He anticipated that this season, there may be two shots administered, “one for the standard A and B flu and the second for Swine Flu. Swedish is working on the protocols and may know by next month. … We’re trying to get the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) guidelines.”
For now, McDonald said patients can plan to get their annual flu shots as early as September or October.
The new Swedish Physicians Redmond Clinic is open Monday-Friday from 7:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. In September, a part-time, female physician, Rashno Davoodi, M.D., will be added to the staff, also practicing family medicine.
For appointments or information, call (206) 320-5190. For more information, visit www.swedishphysicians.org.
