University of Virginia Health System

The Shared Experience

The University of Virginia Health System Women's Heart Program offers 90-minute shared medical appointments where women come together to support each other and gain knowledge to overcome risk factors for heart disease.

Here's how the experience unfolds for the patient, according to Anne C. Hedelt, a nurse practitioner with the program.

• Medical staff take your vital signs, record all your necessary information, you sign a confidentiality agreement, join the group, and the appointment begins.
• In full view of a dozen or more patients, a physician gives one fully clothed patient a cardiovascular exam. Meanwhile, a facilitator might open the discussion: "The doctor just pointed out that Mrs. Jones has edema, or swelling in the ankles. What do you think causes that? Who gets it, and why?"
• As the group discusses, the physician visits with the next patient, and then the next. The facilitator might use an exam as an opportunity to open a discussion of dietary sodium, for example, or to talk about the symptoms of heart attack.