WVU Medicine Reynolds in Glen Dale Prepares To Deliver Babies Again
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GLEN DALE -- Delivery of babies in Marshall County will resume soon, when WVU Medicine Reynolds Memorial Hospital re-establishes obstetrical services.
Dr. Nicole Lynn Carlson, a board-certified obstetrician and gynecologist from Pennsylvania, has been hired to join the hospital's staff, said Dr. David Hess, president and CEO of Reynolds.
"We're still looking to open up Oct. 1," he said. "We're buying equipment and hiring necessary staff to staff the obstetrics department. We will begin signing up patients for her (Carlson) probably in September."
Approximately 10 jobs will be created by the new addition to the service line at WVU Medicine Reynolds.
Hess said earlier, "We have to hire at least six nurses as well as other support for the inpatient unit, plus staff for her (Carlson's) office."
The new obstetrics department will be housed in the same location within the hospital as Reynolds' previous birthing center. The labor and delivery facilities were closed several years ago, before the hospital joined the West Virginia University Health System in October 2016.
Hospital officials are enthusiastic about the new physician's arrival and the resumption of obstetrical services in the Marshall County community.
"Our physician, Dr. Nicole Carlson, has bought a house locally," Hess said. "She decided she liked the area and liked the culture at WVU Medicine Reynolds. She decided it would be a great fit for her and her family."
Currently, Carlson is working for Magee Women's Specialty Services at UPMC Horizon in New Castle, Pennsylvania. She earned a doctor of medicine degree from Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and completed a residency at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.
The Reynolds CEO praised Carlson, saying, "She is a wonderful person. She will do a great job developing that (obstetrics) program."
Hess and other WVU officials view the development of obstetrical services as another facet of WVU Medicine's continuing efforts to bring new forms of medical care to the community.
For instance, after Reynolds' birthing center opens, patients "will not have to travel to Morgantown for high-risk obstetrical care," Hess said. "High-risk care will be part of it," he said. "We will partner with high-risk specialists at WVU to allow them to stay in their home community."
Albert Wright, president and CEO of West Virginia University Health System, said, "There's excitement to bring back that service. I think it will be really cool to deliver babies at Reynolds again."
Wright anticipates that after welcoming babies at WVU Medicine Reynolds, parents and their children will return to the hospital for other care as their lives progress.
"Health care is an exceptionally local and comfortable thing," Wright said. "They tend to go back there when they need more health care."
As arrival of the birthing center nears, WVU Medicine also is building up its pediatrics practice in Glen Dale, with four or five providers affiliated with Reynolds, said Dr. J. Philip Saul, executive vice president of WVU Children's Hospital in Morgantown.
"We want to make Reynolds our home base for children and women in the Northern Panhandle," Saul said.
Specialists are on duty at WVU's localized sites every day, while sub-specialists are available by telemedicine, he said. The health system has a goal to distribute its services throughout the state.
By using resources of WVU Children's Hospital and the Women's Health Center, patients can receive "the same quality and quantity of care at Reynolds as in Morgantown," Saul said.