Dr. Sondra Altman Improves Healthcare for Women

Improving Women’s Healthcare with a Smile…Dr. Sondra Altman Delivers!

Dr. Sandi Altman

She’s known around Contra Costa County as the Menopause Maven. Now Dr. Sondra Altman, who for years has focused her gynecology practice on the health issues of older women, has a new title.

by Deborah Burstyn-Staff Writer, SF Bay Area Women’s Journal

She has been appointed to be the Medical Director of the newly opened John Muir Women’s Center for Continence and Pelvic Health in Walnut Creek!

Medical Center is Unique to the Bay Area

Presenting a mix of treatment options, including biofeedback and physical therapy, the Center is the first of its kind in the area.

Dr. Altman, 57, will oversee a dream team that includes urologists, colorectal surgeons, gynecologists and nurse practitioners to offer women individualized testing and analysis.

A Conversation with “Dr. Sandi”

“Dr. Sandi” as she is fondly known to her patients recently sat down with the SF Bay Area Women’s Journal to share her thoughts and unique brand of humor regarding her new role in uro-gynocolgy, her life and calling of the past 30 years.

On Women’s Incontinence – Childbirth is not kind to the pelvic floor. Incontinence typically starts in the childbearing years then accelerates through menopause and the Medicare years. Of the 13 million Americans with urinary incontinence, 85% are women.

Women think they’re stuck wearing Poise pads. They’re not. It’s fixable.

On Influences - I was studying to be a preschool teacher at Tufts. Sesame Street was new and exciting. My roommate was pre-med. Whoa. I didn’t know women could be doctors. It was Boston in the early 70s. The first “Our Bodies, Ourselves” had just been published.

A doctor was arrested at Boston University for presenting a lecture on birth control to co-eds. The idea that women could receive health information and take control of their bodies was radical. I had found my calling.

On Geography – At Boston University Medical School, I had to get up an hour earlier just to dig out my car after a snowstorm. I arranged to do my internship and residency at Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Oakland and never went back.

On Life/Work Choices – When I had two kids in diapers at home, I gave up obstetrics. My former husband also was a doctor and worked long hours. I was having to leave the house before the sitter got there because I had to go deliver babies.

Doing only gynecology was going to be short-term until my kids were older but as my patients aged, a funny thing happened.

I had to learn about menopausal issues and hormones on my own. Menopause as a field of interest did not exist. I had found a new calling.

On Hormone Replacement Therapy – All the data point to risk of cancer increasing after five years of hormone replacement therapy. Two to three years is usually what is helpful for women when they are going through menopause and there is no increased risk associated with that.

So you don’t have to choose between being crazy now or getting cancer later. The publicity around this has done a great disservice to women.

On a Typical Day – Last Thursday I removed 17 fibroids from a patient’s uterus. That’s like the equivalent of three babies’ heads. She was a lot thinner afterwards. I also do DNCs and hysterectomies. There’s paperwork and seeing patients in my office.

I also practice what I preach and exercise every day; a spinning class or pilates. I eat lunch at my desk with People magazine, my guilty pleasure.

On Patients - Most of my patients are over 40. But I also get some of the kids I delivered. They are all grown up now and in law school.

I love what I do. I have the nicest patients. I am so lucky.

On Being a Doctor – In spite of all the changes in medicine it always comes down to the doctor and the patient. That is where the passion and the joy come in.

At the end of the day that’s what you’ve got – that you made a difference in someone’s life.

On Taking on New Responsibilities – Periodically you need to reset and refresh. I am excited about the new field of uro-gynecology and learning more about it. This is my new calling.

For the many smiles that you have brought from delivering babies to making us laugh at the experience of menopause and now incontinence… (does it ever end)…we say thank-you Dr. Sandi!

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