Your Wellness Newsletter

In This Issue

What About eVisits?

An Update From Dr. Brown

For Moms of 'Tweens

Feeding Your Newborn

Head Over Teal Against Ovarian Cancer

Think of Laura

Patient Portal

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Featured Article

What about eVisits?

Online Medical Evaluations

If you have registered to use the portal, you know that you can now request appointments, view a summary of your office visit, receive lab results, request prescription refills, and manage your billing account electronically. This has been quite a change.

You may have noticed, however, that we do not yet communicate with you via email (and wondered why). Read more.

Issue: #17

Summer 2015

The medical information provided in this email is for educational purposes only. These pages are not intended to provide medical advice or physician instruction, and it is not intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult your physician prior to starting any new treatment or with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

An Update from Dr. Brown

...as we welcome her return!

I am very pleased to report that I returned to my practice on Monday, July 6th as I planned. Having successfully completed treatment for an early malignancy, I have resumed my full schedule... Read more.

Thank you for your understanding during my absence.
Dr. Cindy Brown

For Moms of 'Tweens

From Dr. Gregory--Your Daughter and Healthy Puberty (FAQs)

As daughters enter the second decade of life, moms begin to alert themselves to subtle changes that signal the beginning of puberty. Your child is about to enter a phase of rapid development like no other time since infancy, and the question we hear most often concerns "what is normal?"

As a women's health physician, and also the mother of a young daughter, I'd like to offer a few facts to help you gauge the answer. Read more.

For Expectant Parents

Your Birthplan--Feeding Your Newborn (with info about Brookwood's donor human milk program)

As your pregnancy progresses, you and your partner will begin to imagine your birth experience and consider your personal choices for the special hours leading up to and immediately after your baby's birth.

One of the most important decisions is how you will feed your newborn. Breastfeeding is best! On this point, childbirth and pediatric experts are pretty much in total agreement. Breastfeeding provides health benefits for your baby and for you that infant formula cannot. Read more.

Join with Us in the Fight Against Ovarian Cancer

Sparks & Favor and Brookwood Again Sponsor Head Over Teal 5K Run

On September 12th the Laura Crandall Brown Foundation will host its annual HEAD OVER TEAL 5K RUN (at The Preserve in Hoover) to raise awareness and benefit this important cause. At Sparks & Favor we are very proud to participate again this year in sponsoring the Head over Teal event. Come out and run, walk, or support a team! Enjoy fellowship with other women and families to fight this serious women's cancer. You'll even see some of us on the 5K course!

Click here to learn more about the event and about ovarian cancer.

We Love the Laura Crandall Brown Foundation

Learn more about this local organization's work to support families battling gynecologic cancers

Dr. and Mrs. Sparks with Dr. and Mrs.Mack Barnes at Taste of Teal benefit dinner. Dr. Barnes specializes in treating women with gynecologic cancers.

In 2009 Laura Crandall Brown passed away at the age of 25 from ovarian cancer. Laura constantly expressed her desire to be able to help others who might face her same battle, and her loving and courageous spirit inspired her friends and family to create the Laura Crandall Brown Ovarian Cancer Foundation to honor her life, memory, and vision of helping others.

The foundation's mission was to provide funding for early detection research of ovarian cancer and to raise awareness about the disease. In 2015 the foundation's board of directors felt led to increase its mission impact by adding a patient support program and expanding the organization's focus on awareness to include all gynecologic cancers. Read more...Become Involved! www.thinkoflaura.org

Our Patient Portal

Online access to your care at Sparks & Favor

Our patient portal is now active. The portal will give you another way to contact us for appointments, prescription refills, lab results, summaries of your office visits, and billing via secure (HIPAA compliant) online access.

After your next office visit, you will receive an email invitation to use the portal. You can also find the portal sign-up form on our website. (Click here). If you choose to sign up, you can verify your identity and create a password. We offer this service for your convenience. It will not replace our face-to-face care for our patients. You can still reach us by phone for care questions, appointments, billing matters, and urgent after-hours care as you always have. But we hope you will find the portal a user-friendly, helpful way to keep your personal health information organized.

If Your Email Address Has Changed

Keep us Up-to-Date

To avoid receiving duplicate newsletters (for example, if you have changed your email address), just click on the "unsubscribe" link that appears at the top and bottom of the newsletter that was sent to the address you don't want us to use.

We hope you continue to find the articles in our Wellness Newsletter helpful! We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting it through our compliance with our Privacy Policy. You can change your email address for our Newsletter database at any time by clicking the "Update Profile/Email Address" link at the bottom of any Newsletter. However, to change the email address that you use for the Patient Portal, you will have to call our office.

Note: You do not have to continue to receive future newsletters to use the portal. But you will receive a newsletter when you first provide or change your email address. If you choose to "unsubscribe," (see above), you will be blocked from receiving future Newsletters at that email address, but will still have access to the portal.

We use Social Media to Keep you Informed

We review the health news each day to keep you up-to-date on health issues important to women and their families. Click the Facebook and/or Twitter links below to receive these posts.

From our blog: "Why We Reach out to our Patients through Social Media."

If you "like" us on Facebook, remember to check your News Feed page to find our posts.

Sparks & Favor PC has been providing high-quality care to Birmingham women since 1991. Each of us is a board certified obstetrician and gynecologist. As a group practice, we are able to offer our patients state-of-the-art technologies such as digital mammography, 4D ultrasound, bone density testing, and laboratory testing conveniently within our office. Yet, we are small enough to ensure good communication between you and your physician.

In addition to care in our office, we provide 24/7 care for our obstetric patients and those with urgent gynecologic problems. Only our physicians provide after-hours care, as we do not share call with any other group. We appreciate your confidence in us and hope to participate in your care for many years.

Sincerely,

Your physicians at Sparks & Favor
Sparks & Favor PC