Leslie Scott, M.D. is leading women’s health as chair of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department at SSM Health DePaul Hospital. Scott treats and cares for patients as an OBGYN at SSM Health Group at DePaul. She was a part of Serenity Women’s Healthcare when it merged with SSM. Dr. Scott said developing a relationship of trust, in partnership with women and in their care and in health education, is important to her practice.
“I think a lot of my patients feel more comfortable talking to me,” she said, “because I make myself open to that.”
Although they can’t solve every issue in one day, Dr. Scott gives her patients “homework” to follow-up on, like taking care of “self.”
“Medicine is not always giving medications or doing a pap smear; sometimes it’s just talking to people, and really building that trust with them and being their crutch – that person they can come and talk to away from the job and their family and kids, parents and all the other responsibilities that they have.”
These are things that overall, if not addressed, can lead to bigger problems and can eventually lead to health problems, Dr. Scott said. Obesity is a huge problem in women’s health, she said.
“A lot of women don’t realize how much their weight management affects so many aspects of their general overall health as far as blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, kidney disease. It definitely makes you more at risk for breast cancer, uterine cancer, infertility,” Dr. Scott explained. “And all of these things go hand-in-hand.”
That is why patient education and healthier lifestyles are crucial.
“I feel like they know it, but they need help and they need guidance, they need education, they need to understand why things like this can affect their overall health, not even now, but in the future,” she said.
“It all surrounds your fitness and overall weight and your health and how you’re taking care of your body and what you’re feeding your body,” she said. “The fuel you are putting in your body is very important.”
Scott practiced at Serenity Women’s Healthcare when it merged with SSM. Many of her patients followed her throughout her career, some as far back as her residency.
“And now they are young women in their late 20s, early 30s and they are still my patients,” she said. “And some of them had children when I was in residency and now, I am seeing them, their daughters. It’s really an awesome feeling to be able to say you delivered somebody and now you are taking care of them, while still taking care of the mom, their sister. It just becomes a community of service that you really are providing to this group of women.”
The University City native graduated from Washington University with a double undergraduate major, in biology and African-American studies, and completed medical school and her residency with awards, scholarship and honors at Saint Louis University.
“I originally initially wanted to do academic medicine, but I wanted to stay in St. Louis, because of my young daughter that I had while I was in school,” she said. A teen pregnancy as a single person in school enriched her life while presenting challenges as a new mother. However, it did not derail Scott’s determination to become a doctor. Every educational opportunity had a deeper significance. After all, the person she truly wanted to impress was her daughter.
With the love and support of family and friends, government aid and a scholarship, Scott said it took five and a half years to finish medical school. She had her second daughter after she married and was working in private practice. They now have three daughters. Scott’s journey is one she openly shares, as inspiration to her patients and to other young women.
“I am proud to tell any of them what I went through. I am not ashamed that I was on food stamps, I was on government aid – I used all that stuff to get where I am,” Scott said. “It got me here. That’s what it’s for – use it for getting yourself in a better place in life for your family and then, get off of it and have your career. And then, give somebody else the opportunity to do the same.”
She uses where she came from as motivation to do better and be better every day.
“I think it really helps me a better doctor,” Scott said. “It makes you proud to get up to go to work every day, because you are making a difference.
“God has shown me that you have a need and a calling to be at a certain place at a certain time, and I think that I have listened to Him and I have really gone to where God has called me to be.”
