In July 2022, Healthcare options for women expanded with the addition of Dr. Caroline May at the DePaul Community Health Clinic in Gould.
Dr. May, a Desha County native, sees clients on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and accepts clients based on their symptoms from young girls to menopausal women. She screens her patients based on their symptoms and what can be handled in the clinic. She advises patients to see if their insurance will cover for the required medical tests and to make sure they haven't had a pap test in less than a year.
She currently services are wellness exams, pap testing, STD/STI testing, women have abnormal conditions, menopause, pelvic pain, doesn't provide birth control, Urinary tract infections, menstrual abnormalities, and evaluation and treatment of abnormal pap smears at the DePaul Clinic.
Patients will need Identification and their insurance card, any list of medications, over the counter or prescribed, and have pelvic rest for at least 5 days. She will ask patients questions to determine what treatment they need, when to get screened, and what information they need to know to stay healthy. She takes the time to educate her patients by providing reading materials or using visual aids to help her patients understand what they need to know.
The DePaul Community Health Center of Gould offers Ambulatory Gynecology (Clinic Based services), Office based Gynecology, as things grow, could do some minor procedures at the hospital in Dumas. She does not have hospital privileges at this time.
May transitioned from private practice to working when she started working at the clinic. She began exploring different options when her brother suggested she come to Southeast Arkansas.
“I began to look around at some different options and my brother, who is Jared May, said you need to come down her, come down home. They could use the help down here. He reached out and knew Lisa Goodgame. She said yes, we can find something for you to do.” May said.When She transitioned from private practice to rural medicine, she knew it would be different. She described it as being slower paced, but you have a greater need for your patient population and you have to do more things. When she worked in private practice in Little Rock, She provided some health screenings, but in this atmosphere it is not just mental health screenings you may have to start initiating treatment.
“You have to broaden your treatment base when you are working in a rural setting because in places like LR you have different specialties right within the community where you can refer a client to another specialist. Here people have to travel for miles to get that kind of treatment. You may have to start initiating it. It is different,but fulfilling,” She said.
She believes in educating her patients to give them information they need to stay healthy. An educated patient is one who is going to take care of themselves because they understand what is going on. She gave the example of when she was in private practice on educating teens on how to prevent future pregnancies; educating clients on their conditions and the importance of diet and exercise.“Education is key and I am hoping to be able to do something like that down here to educate women. Communities and countries that take care of women are wealthier. I use this “healthy women, healthy world.” If you educate girls and give them goals. It will only help the community,” she said.
She has a growing client base, but also teaches seminars on Women's health. She said Southeast is home and that to still stay in the area of women's services is what she always wanted to do.She held a seminar on National Woman's Health and Fitness Day in 2022 talking about how to stay healthy.
She will be hosting her monthly “Lunch and Learn” seminar on “Living with Diabetes” on August 28, 2024 at the Depaul Community Health Clinic Conference Room in Gould from 12-1 pm.
Watching her mother's work as a young girl with the county extension office inspired her to go into women's medicine. Her mother, Gertrude May, worked for the county extension office teaching home nutrition aid to women. May would travel with her mother after school when she would go to individual women's homes and teach them about nutrition and how to prepare frugal meals. She described her role models as the very strong women in her family. She also acted as a nurse when a family member needed medical care.
.“It got me interested in women's health and the family, it just progressed to her wanting to be a doctor and then a doctor for women,” May said. “Just over the years noticing when you take care of women it has the implication to change a community. When you take care of women, when you educate women, when women are able to control their reproductive aspects of their body it lifts them out of poverty. It helps the children. It helps the community.”
May is originally from the Wolfe Project community outside of McGehee, AR. She is the daughter of Augusta and Gertrude May. She attended Delta Special High School in Rohwer and Junior High in Watson. She attended University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff where she earned her biology degree. She worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife as a wildlife inspector for three years. She then attended a preparatory program at the University of Illinois at Carbondale. She was then accepted into medical school at the University of Illinois in Chicago College of Medicine.Residency in Brooklyn, New York at Brookdale Community Medical Center. She operated her own practice for the last 18 years until the Covid-19 Pandemic.
