 They call her “Dr. Mary”: Mary Infantino PhD, RN, ANP, BC, who received her doctorate in Nursing from Adelphi University, is currently an Associate Professor and the Director of the Graduate Nursing Program at Long Island University, C.W. Post campus in Brookville NY. She is state and nationally certified as both an adult and geriatric nurse practitioner and has practiced for the past 17 years in adult medicine with a specialty in women’s’ health. She is also certified in aesthetics (that is, skin care). At Dr.Vagnini’s Heart Diabetes and Weight Loss Center in Westbury LI, Dr. Mary heads up the Woman’s Health Initiative services. In the graduate nursing program at C.W. Post Campus of LIU, Dr. Mary works with her students as they go through their praticum rotations. About a third of her graduate program at LIU is directed at women’s health issues, including obstetrics and continuing through menopause and beyond. Dr. Mary says that she “prides herself on turning out highly competent beginning nurse practitioners”. Graduate nursing students are trained as family nurse practitioners, which incorporates pediatric, adult, and women’s health care. Graduates are prepared to specialize in any of these areas in their practice.
Dr. Mary explains that the advantages of her dual role as clinician and teacher are reciprocal. Practice strengthens teaching and teaching reinforces practice. The nursing profession in itself has an important teaching component; so teaching and clinical practice are a natural combination for a nurse. Advanced practice nurses are nearly always involved in teaching – hospital in-service training, for example – and in research as well in addition to their clinical duties. The doctoral level in nursing is committed to research. But says Dr. Mary, “I practice because I love to practice." I can not imagine not practicing, and I think it is a strength of mine that with my academic support I have much to offer patients.” She says that she “absolutely” can go back to her students with the experience she has gained in her practice on any given day, and that she also learns from her students, all of whom are nurses in practice. “Your walking the walk: if the students know your practicing, you’re not just preaching. You understand what they’re experiencing and you can share your experiences with them.” |
Women’s Health
The concept of “woman’s health” has expanded greatly over the past 25 or 30 years; some believe as a result of a critique of the famous Framingham Heart Study. Framingham gathered data on men exclusively, and critics noted that the data did not truly represent the population. There is evidence that women’s experience of heart disease differs from men’s. A woman’s symptoms of a heart problem, for example, may be a headache or an upset stomach. This realization has lead to looking at women’s health in a different way. The Nurses’ Health Study, begun in 1976 and ongoing today, is a response to and parallels Framingham. Dr. Mary participates in the study, and says that it has given the greatest impetus to addressing women’s health issues as such. Another factor is an aging general population and an expansion of the women’s segment in the late ages of life where ailments are more prevalent. Auto-immune diseases, such as lupus and thyroiditis are likely to be found in women. Diabetes, of which there is a national epidemic, is slightly more prevalent in women than in men. Women often present with an overweight problem and are seen to tend more toward obesity – at least, they are more sensitive to being overweight. The clinician must then make an assessment of all the risks that accompany overweight: hypertension, diabetes, heart disease. Many of these problems occur, and may be triggered by physical changes, at the time of menopause.
The Women’s Health Initiative
Years after Framingham and its reaction, there is a greater awareness of the special character of women’s health and what threatens it. There are more valuable and practical findings from the Nurses Health Study, more funding for research and many more specialist practitioners available for women – not only obstetricians and gynecologists. The Women’s Health Initiative at the Heart, Diabetes & Weight Loss Centers is a focused set of services. It is not so much new practices as it is a gathering together of procedures and approaches currently in use, together with the experience gained, into a formalized program that will deliver comprehensive health assessment and long term health maintenance for women patients. Dr. Mary is the Director and Coordinator of the Initiative. She says that consistent with the practice of the Centers, it will be largely preventive, with advanced diagnostic tools and techniques to identify health risks and head off disease before it starts. And it will have a strong element of nutrition care to help patients fortify their diet and their weight management resolve after they leave the office. It will include, for example, bio-identical hormone replacement to lead women through a healthy post-menopausal period. But the program is set up to attract younger women as well. Weight management, yes, even heart disease is best treated the earlier it is recognized. The team of practitioners in the Initiative includes along with Dr. Mary, two nutritionists, a certified diabetes counselor, a diagnostic lab and staff of technicians, plus expert cardiac assessment by Dr. Vagnini, a board certified cardiovascular specialist.
VelaShape at the Anti-Aging Spa
As the Heart, Diabetes & Weight Loss Center is an Anti-Aging practice, a charter member of the Anti-Aging Medicine movement, it has added to its repertoire aesthetic services, including Botox, dermal fillers (restylane, perlane, juvaderm, radiesse), and the latest non-invasive therapy for healthy bodies looking to lose inches and shrink fat: VelaShape therapy, an FDA approved procedure for cellulite and circumfrential fat reduction.
It is the newest approach to body contouring. VelaShape uses the combination of three technologies: bi-polar radiofrequency (RF), infrared light energy, plus vacuum and mechanical massage. The procedure treats both the upper layers of the skin and deeper tissues in order to reduce layers of fat as well as the circumference and appearance of cellulite. VelaShape was immediately successful when it was introduced at the Center, with measurements on patients reduced as much as 2.5 inches. Applicable to men and women, VelaShape rounds out (no pun intended) the Women’s Health Imitative at the center – designed as it is to not only resolve women’s health issues, but also to impart to them a very confident and positive feeling about themselves. |
Home
| Doctor
| Products | Center
| Education
| Contact
