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New doctor changed specialty for patients
Posted: Thursday, Aug 21, 2008 - 07:50:29 am CDT
by Margaret Palermo - Staff writer
 | | Dr. Maryann Gamble |
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When you meet Dr. Maryann Gamble for the first time, the first words out of her mouth are likely to be When was your last mammogram?
It quickly becomes clear that the newest doctor at Our Health-Nuestro Centro de Salud is dedicated to her calling.
Gamble is what every child of a military parent, probably back to the days of the Roman Empire, has called him or herself, a military brat, or in Gamble's case, an Air Force brat.
In Gamble's case, both parents were career Air Force. My mom, Martha Giannotti, just retired in San Antonio at Randolph, said Gamble. Her mom was a chief master sergeant. My dad, Larry Dickson, is also retired, she said. He was a tech sergeant.
She was born in Germany, thanks to her parents' careers, and traveled extensively before landing in Uvalde. I've been all over Europe and been to Morocco and all over the United States, she said.
I was in the military, too, the Air Force, for almost four years. She said she was a Korean linguist, translating Korean.
She attended Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Ill.
Originally, I wanted to do forensic pathology, she said. I found out you had to be a doctor to do that, so I decided to go to medical school. Then I found out I liked working with live people rather than dead people because they were more interesting.
She said she found out she needed to attend medical school through the library. I went to the library one day and there was a book called 'So You Want to be a Forensic Pathologist' and it said you have to go to medical school.
So she went to the University of Texas at San Antonio Health Science Center for medical school.
While she was in medical school, she did do autopsies and even worked with Dr. Jan Garavaglia of Dr. G Medical Examiner fame on the Discovery Health channel.
When I first started medical school my first year, she was my assigned mentor, said Gamble. I got to do autopsies with her. She was really nice.
When Garavaglia left the San Antonio medical examiner's office and moved to Florida, Gamble got a call from her mom one day asking if she had seen the program on television. Isn't that the woman who was your mentor? she said.
Despite her soon-to-become famous mentor, however, Gamble eventually decided to go into family practice rather than forensic pathology.
I graduated from medical school in 2005 and did my residency in the Corpus Christi Family Practice Residency Program at Cristus Spohn Memorial Hospital in Corpus Christi, she said. I graduated from there in June 2008. She said she worked with the hospital and clinic there for three years until my license was finalized in April.
As for coming to Our Health, They called and told me about the job and it sounded really good, she said. My mom's side of the family is mostly migrant farm workers out of Yakima, Wash. She said that gave her insight into the medical problems faced by the Hispanic community.
So she came to Uvalde with her husband, Jason, to check out Our Health. Everybody was really nice everywhere and we really liked it, she said.
She said her family like going camping at Garner and Lost Maples state parks and did that quite often when they lived in San Antonio. Being in Uvalde puts the family closer to the parks.
The couple has two children, Vanessa and Zachary.
We love our house and love it here. I love going home for lunch every day, said Gamble.
She is also enthusiastic about what is going on at Our Health. We are adding a lot of women's services here, colposcopy or testing for cervical cancer, taking biopsies of the cervix, endometrial biopsies, criotherapy. If we find early cervical cancer, we can treat it by freezing it off, said Gamble. I want to let people know we have that again.
I'm trying to get everybody to get a mammogram, Pap smear, check for diabetes and check blood pressure, she said.
She said she is also taking care of pediatric patients, testing blood pressure, and looking for lead poisoning, anemia, childhood obesity, doing sports physicals and immunizations. I like to talk to parents about drowning prevention, car seats SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) and nutrition.
She said Our Health also has grant money for family planning. If you don't have money, birth control is pretty much free, said Gamble.
For those whose religious beliefs prohibit artificial birth control, she said Our Health also provides training in the rhythm method.
There is also an STD (sexually transmitted disease) clinic for males and females, she said. We have a grant for that. In the state of Texas, teens can be seen for pregnancies and STDs. The parents don't have to come and don't need to know about it.
She said the clinic also offers information for parents whose children are entering puberty. We have information that will help them talk with their kids, she said. We also have a domestic violence counselor-advocate.
The clinic also has assistance programs to help anyone without insurance to get one mammogram a year free of charge.
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