With the addition of three OB-GYN physicians to its staff, the St. Charles Center for Women’s Health is improving access to reproductive health care for all women.

The three physicians – Michal Montana, MD, Nicole Berrigan, MD and Amy Yuan, DO – join the center’s robust group of providers, including nurse midwives, behavioral health experts, nurse practitioners and doctors. With many providers accepting new patients, it’s easier than ever to get in to see someone.

“Our patients love our providers, and they tell their friends who tell their friends. The word is out, and that has kept our schedules very full in recent months,” said Tricia Clay, administrative director of Women’s and Pediatric Services for St. Charles. “With these arrivals, we’re expecting wait times for appointments to see our providers to significantly decrease.”

The center offers an array of services, including routine and preventive women’s care; obstetrics from preconception through postpartum; gynecology and gynecologic surgery; and pelvic floor therapy and procedures for overactive bladder/urinary retention. Providers see patients in Bend, Prineville, Redmond and Sisters and they perform surgeries in Bend and Redmond.

The new physicians will also bring new options for care to the practice, Clay said.

“One in three women experience bladder leakage during their lifetime. This is known as urinary incontinence, and it often worsens with age,” Clay said. “We are excited to bring new, minimally invasive procedures to our practice that will offer women more treatment options for their bladder symptoms.”

Dr. Michal Montana completed residency training at Loma Linda University Medical Center and prior to that she attended medical school at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine in Michigan. She lives in Bend with her husband, two daughters and dog. Together, they love exploring the region’s natural beauty.

“My interest in women’s health came from a desire to incorporate a passion for hands-on care with lifelong patient relationships,” she said. “I look forward to serving the women of Central Oregon throughout some of the most special, vulnerable and difficult times of their lives.”

Prior to joining St. Charles, Dr. Nicole Berrigan worked in private practice for three years in the Willamette Valley. She completed her OB-GYN residency through the University of North Carolina and medical school at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in her hometown of Omaha, Neb. She and her husband love trail running, mountain biking, skiing and paddle boarding, and they’re excited to do those things in Central Oregon.

Berrigan practices the full spectrum of obstetrics and gynecology with special interest in surgery including robotic hysterectomies and pelvic floor repair. She also received a degree in studio art and has a special interest in integrating art into her practice.

“Having a piece of art to focus on during an exam or playing music during a procedure has been shown to decrease patient anxiety and pain,” Berrigan said. “I am looking forward to integrating art into our practice.”

Board-certified obstetrician/gynecologist Dr. Amy Yuan completed her OB-GYN residency in Cincinnati, Ohio and then was in private practice in Colorado before moving to Oregon to join St. Charles. She loves spending time with her family, traveling, camping, mountain biking, snowboarding and skiing, and she is thrilled to move to the area.

Yuan enjoys all aspects of women’s health, including helping people through high-risk pregnancies, infertility, urinary incontinence, pelvic pain, sexual dysfunction, menopause, and minimally invasive surgery, especially robotic assisted procedures.

“As an OB-GYN,” she said, “it is my goal to provide a comfortable and safe space to address sensitive and important issues for people in Central Oregon.”

Learn more about the St. Charles Center for Women’s Health, or call 541-526-6635 to schedule an appointment with a provider.

"It's so rewarding to see parents meet their infant feeding goals. And I love the challenge of it. It really checks all the boxes for using your brain and using your heart and your compassion and working with patients as they begin their parenting journey. It does everything I need to feel fulfilled in my job. Not to mention ... new moms and dads are just so fun to work with!"

- Greta, registered nurse and lactation consultant, on why she decided to transition from her position as a labor and delivery nurse to lactation consulting about five years ago. Greta works with both inpatients at the Bend Family Birthing Center and NICU and outpatients at the Center for Women's Health in Redmond.

A tiny seed is having a big impact on breast cancer care.

In partnership with Central Oregon Radiology Associates (CORA), St. Charles Cancer Center has begun using Magseed—a tiny, iron oxide “seed” that is implanted in a cancerous breast tumor to mark its location for surgery. Equipment needed to use Magseed was purchased with money from Sara's Project, a St. Charles Foundation fund dedicated to easing the challenges of breast cancer for people in Central and Eastern Oregon.

The Magseed is a substantial improvement over the metal wires that were formerly used to guide surgeons to tumors that are otherwise too small to find, said Dr. Kelly Hewitt, a University of California San Francisco fellowship-trained breast surgeon who joined the Cancer Center in October.

“As you can probably imagine, that can be fraught with issues,” said Hewitt, who prior to her fellowship worked as a general surgeon in Newport, Ore.

The thin wires, which usually had to be placed the day of surgery, could sometimes become dislodged when the patient traveled from the radiologist’s office to the hospital, or in the operating room, she said. And because the wires could be unwieldly, they had to be taped to the patient’s breast until she was in the operating room.

“From a system standpoint, it’s also a scheduling nightmare because they have to put the wire in at a certain time and coordinate it with surgery, etc.,” she said.

Placed by a radiologist in the breast tissue, the radiation-free Magseed marker won’t move or break, and can be placed days, weeks and even months ahead of surgery, Hewitt said. During surgery, she waves a wand-like localization device over the breast that guides her to the seed, targeting where the incision needs to be made.

“It really lets me pick my incision based on aesthetics and safety,” Hewitt said. “Sometimes the wire can kind of dictate where you have to go, but with the seed, it gives you more flexibility.”

Hewitt said she has even implanted the Magseed—which is so small it can’t be felt by the patient—in lymph nodes that need to be removed as well.

The only fellowship-trained breast surgeon in Central Oregon, Hewitt said she is excited to be able to use this new technology to improve care for patients.

“It’s all about perfection and doing something that is both oncologically safe—so, getting all of the cancer out—but then also making it look as nice as possible,” she said. “So, having the best aesthetic outcome in combination with the best oncological outcome.”

Heads up: Dr. Kelly Hewitt will present "Breast cancer in 2021: Diagnosis to survivorship" at our next installment of Doc Talks on March 29.