Total Care at the Ms. Mayo Clinics

By Anastasia Toufexis

On the ooh-and-aah scale, it rates a nicely curved 9. Painted faux arches on pastel-tinted walls. Plush mauve carpeting. Bathrooms papered with Marimekko designs. Dressing rooms with spacious lockers. Cheerful, friendly staff. And on the way out, visitors receive a single carnation. "It's nice to be treated like a woman," sighs Susan Arcidiacono with pleasure. A ritzy health club? An elegant hair salon? Not at all. The swanky suburban San Diego setup belongs to Women's Health Centers of America and is a model of a hot '80s health-care fashion: the women's clinic.

About 20 centers now dot the nation, and experts predict the number will soar into the hundreds by the end of the year. Many are established by hospitals, either in house or as satellites; others are freestanding clinics or parts of entrepreneurial chains. Frequently they are simply overdressed gynecology practices that differ little from the past segmented service. But, says Dr. Linda Lesky of Women's Health Group in Boston, "there is no anatomic reason why women should be divided at the waist."

Drawing on feminist insights, the best of the new clinics seek to provide total basic care. They are a kind of one-stop body shop where women can receive a gynecological exam or mammogram; treatment for premenstrual syndrome or osteoporosis; advice on nutrition, weight loss and cosmetic surgery; even counseling for psychological problems. "We have head-to-toe health care," exults Penny Wise Budoff, a family practitioner (and the best-selling author of No More Hot Flashes and Other Good News). Her clinic in Bethpage, N.Y., a former Howard Johnson's restaurant painted lilac with yellow columns, has a staff of 13 doctors with a full range of specialties. "We're like a mini-Mayo Clinic," she says. Or a Ms. Mayo Clinic.

The boom is fueled by financial practicalities as well as feminist principles. According to the American Hospital Association, women visit doctors 25% more often than men do and account for 63% of all surgery. Eleven of the 20 most frequent surgical procedures (notably tubal ligations and breast biopsies) are performed only on women. Moreover, women generally choose the family doctor and health-insurance package. Such medical realities have led to fierce and unapologetic wooing. Women's HealthCare and Wellness Center in Oak Park, Ill., signed up Dorothy Hamill, Ann Jillian and Rita Moreno to promote its opening last November. Intermountain Health Care has spent $800,000 in the past two years to advertise its ten centers in the Salt Lake City area. Says Women's Services Director Marta Clark: "We copy retailers, department stores and hotels in marketing our services."

The centers also use the lures of convenience and comfort. Clinics remain open in the evenings and on weekends; checkups are often booked for an hour instead of the usual 30 minutes. "Doctors shouldn't be able to pat themselves on the back for doing a Pap smear in seven minutes," says Dr. Janet Schwartz of Women's Health Centers. The three W.H.C. clinics in California take pains to ameliorate the two banes of the gynecological exam: icy stirrups on the examining table are covered by foot warmers and vaginal specula are warmed. The clinic at Georgia Baptist Medical Center in Atlanta even offers a small gym and Tupperware-like health parties at which women get to throw questions at a physician. Above all, the centers claim that their largely female staffs are able to treat women without the impersonality and condescension of traditional practices.

Critics wonder whether the new clinics are offering better care or merely fancy wrapping. Some question the automatic faith in female staffs. "I'm skeptical," says Feminist Judy Norsigian, co-author of The New Our Bodies, Ourselves, who notes that because male and female physicians receive identical educations, "the women often come out the same." Others point out that the new centers are geared to affluent women, neglecting the old and the poor. And there is concern about whether the clinics are overly accommodating. Leah Dills, 32, who has visited Woman's Care Center in San Francisco at least eight times in the past six months, says the clinic seems a "little test happy," adding "there's a little bit of a fast-food kind of feel about the place."

Still, many women have found more substantial benefits at women's centers. Long Island Interior Designer Gloria Levine credits Dr. Budoff with saving her from a mastectomy after Levine discovered a lump in one breast: "She told me how to ask my oncologist to find out if I was a candidate for a lumpectomy." Another clinic patient, Delores Burton, reports that after a painful procedure, she was offered tea. "No doctor ever gave me a cup of tea before. It's a different kind of care." That combination of service and solicitude, notes Dr. Budoff, has earned the ultimate accolade. "We don't encourage it," she says, "but a lot of our patients bring their husbands here because they want them to get the same kind of complete care."

With reporting by Cristina Garcia/San Francisco and Christine Gorman/New York