Center for Women with Disabilities
The Center for Women with Disabilities at Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC has been delivering state-of-the-art preventive health care to women with disabilities since 2001. One of the first such services in the country, the center was designed in consultation with women with disabilities to meet their needs for accessible, regular exams and screenings.
Women with disabilities need access to timely gynecologic and breast exams in addition to their special health care needs. The Center for Women with Disabilities is designed to overcome physical barriers to routine women’s health care. We offer a comprehensive, patient-centered model of care that encourages and facilitates equal access and accommodation of physical differences.
Accessible by design
Accessibility to care is key to good health. Some 27 million women with disabilities in the U.S. face difficulty and discomfort in accessing women’s health care. Therefore our equipment is specially designed to make women’s health care for those with disabilities fully accessible.
For example, women in wheelchairs are weighed on a scale in their chairs and the wheelchair is weighed separately later. Our mammogram equipment is wheelchair accessible. As some women with disabilities experience leg spasms, we can accommodate them with specially designed stirrups for safety, security, and comfort.
Our specialized equipment includes:
- scales for weighing women in wheelchairs
- universally accessible exam tables
- patient lifts
- padded hydraulic stirrups for comfort
Serving your needs
Women with disabilities have the same woman-specific health care needs as all women. Health care needs associated with a woman’s disability, however, often take precedence and woman-specific health care is neglected. To remedy this situation, the Center for Women with Disabilities at Magee offers full access to women’s health care services.
Our physician, Glenn Updike, MD, is a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology and is a faculty clinician at the University of Pittsburgh Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Science. Joining Dr. Updike, Peter Bulova, MD assistant professor of General Internal Medicine and director of the Down Syndrome Center at UPMC Montefiore, provides internal medicine consultation. Dr. Bulova sees patients at the Center for Women with Disabilities on Thursday afternoons.
Services we offer
- pelvic exam
- pap testing
- mammogram
- women’s wellness exam
- clinical breast exam
- birth control
Referrals
When it is necessary to refer women who visit our center to other physicians, we can refer our patients to physicians who also have accessible equipment for women with disabilities.
Resources
The Disability Resource Center at UPMC works to identify and expand the network of clinical services at UPMC for people with disabilities. The Center for Assistive Technology, a joint program of UPMC and University of Pittsburgh, works to improve choices in wheelchairs, adaptive keyboards, and personal mobility systems.