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UAE’s first multispecialty clinic for adolescents opens in Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi - Clinic at Sheikh Shakhbout Medical City will deal with an array of health concerns faced by teens.

Abu Dhabi-based Sheikh Shakhbout Medical City (SSMC) has launched the UAE’s first-of-its-kind multispecialty adolescent clinic to address unique health care concerns faced by teenagers.

The clinic will treat adolescents as a specialised group and not just as paediatric patients.

“Adolescent patients tend to have different and unique needs that require a specialised model of care. Many paediatricians are also trained to take care of patients who are 12 years old and under, so there is often a lack of connection which leaves teenagers stuck between childhood and adulthood from a health care perspective, creating an unmet need in a lot of teenagers that we can remedy with a focused clinic like this,” said Dr Philip Fischer, paediatrics and adolescent medicine consultant and chair of the adolescent medicine division at SSMC.

SSMC is a joint-venture partnership between Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (SEHA) and Mayo Clinic. And Dr Fischer, the clinic’s coordinator, has decades of experience handling complex adolescent medicine cases at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, the US.

The clinic will deal with an array of health concerns faced by teens like puberty or life changes, dietary and eating issues such as weight gain or obesity and anorexia, hormonal changes resulting in acne, bodily growth, and issues like depression and anxiety.

“We will focus on customising the care that each patient needs, which will require pre-planning before the patient visits to ensure that the right specialists are available on the scheduled day.”

The clinic with multiple specialists offers a dedicated structure of care for adolescents to resolve their problems. So, a patient will first consult a general physician with adolescent experience, who will then design a unique treatment plan in collaboration with a multidisciplinary team of doctors and healthcare professionals, including an endocrinologist for hormonal issues and growth concerns, a dietician, psychologist or psychiatrist, a dermatologist, neurologist, and gynaecologist, among others.

“The plan is to provide each specialist with a brief around the patient’s health concerns so that when consultations occur, it will help us to efficiently target the issue and align on the course of treatment.”

The clinic will also tackle lesser-known ailments in teenagers, like chronic pain and chronic fatigue.

“On the face of it, these health care needs do not appear to be overly complex; however, they are unmet, which, if left untreated, may become more complex and require an approach to care that takes a lot more multidisciplinary coordination and action,” Dr Fischer added.

ashwini@khaleejtimes.com