Colorado Springs – Dr. Michelle Ridnour started the new year with a new job added to her list of daily chores.
In addition to cooking for her husband and three children, doing the laundry and seeing 30 patients at her busy obstetrics practice, she became Memorial Hospital’s new chief of staff.
Ridnour was the first woman elected to the voluntary top-doctor position in almost 50 years.
That’s largely because nominating committees have a hard time talking female doctors into throwing one more ball into the air.
“It’s hard to juggle career and family,” said Ridnour, the 38-year-old former chief of Memorial’s obstetrics and gynecology section. “A lot of women say, ‘Why on earth go down that path when I don’t even have time to shave my legs?”‘
Ridnour accepted the challenge and was elected to a two-year term by the 825 physicians with privileges at Memorial. The last woman to officially represent physician interests to hospital administrators was Norma Bowles Utley in 1957.
Utley, a retired anesthesiologist, was a widowed mother of two when she moved to Colorado in 1950. She still resides in Colorado Springs and will turn 101 in March.
Ridnour’s term comes at a time of great growth for Memorial Hospital. Emergency-room traffic is on the rise, as are hospital profits and building projects.
But regular hospitalization rates are flat – or declining in some medical specialties – as doctors treat more patients outside the hospital. This is making it harder to entice trauma specialists, such as neurosurgeons, to volunteer to be on call for the emergency room, Ridnour said.
“Doctors who are carrying the burden in ER want to see some compensation or help easing the schedule,” she said.
Another issue Ridnour sees in the coming year is the impact of Memorial’s north-city expansion on physicians. Memorial plans to open an 87-bed hospital and medical campus in Briargate next year.
Doctors are mulling what kind of presence they should have in the burgeoning northeast quadrant.
“A lot of doctors wonder if they should move up north or maybe open a satellite office there,” Ridnour said. “There’s a lot of uncertainty.”
Ridnour also wants to encourage more doctors – women included – to join the leadership ranks at Memorial. She said hospital administrators are very open to physician voices.
“If you do what’s best for patients, you will have a good practice, and the administration will collaborate,” she said.
Dr. John Slack, Memorial’s full-time chief medical officer, said he welcomes Ridnour’s help in staffing the new labor and delivery units that will open in 2007.
“She will be a lot of help with staffing challenges,” he said. “We’re fortunate to have an obstetrician in her position.”
