Staff Spotlight: Martha Griffith, Physician Assistant

The noticeable difference Martha Griffith, physician assistant, found working at Volunteers In Medicine Clinic compared with her previous work in a private practice was the medical complexity of patient medical problems that result from the many years without basic care.

“I thought because it was adult primary care medicine that I would more or less see a cross section, like in the insured world,” Griffith says of her arrival at VIM in July 2003. “But that isn’t true. It’s different. People without insurance don’t seek care for the small stuff, and by the time they do seek care, there is a lot of backtracking in terms of determining their health problems.”

Griffith practiced in a private primary care setting for two years after her graduation from Pacific University (Forest Grove) before coming to VIM. Here, Griffith says, she approaches patient care from a more global view because of the lack of preventive care. “I have a choice: I can stay focused on one [ailment,] and then miss 90 percent of patient health problems, or I can look at their health globally every time they visit,” she says. “That’s challenging, because, done correctly, it makes the visits more in-depth.”

At VIM, Griffith has been able to practice that brand of in-depth primary care. “What a gratifying field of medicine,” she says.

Embracing that mission, helping people who wouldn’t otherwise have access to health care, is the reason Griffith says she came to VIM. Two areas that Griffith has focused on as a physician assistant is Spanish-speaking patients, because of her fluency, and diabetic care.

Diabetes is the top diagnosis at VIM and the fastest growing disease in the United States. With the support of a grant from the American Medical Association Foundation, Griffith has been reviewing the charting of patients, which resulted in better tracking of patient stability for those already diagnosed with diabetes and increased identification of patients with diabetes. “I’m proud we got a grant, and I feel like we are tracking patients’ stability and their disease better,” Griffith says.

In the process, she says she is more aware of the difficulty patients have in managing this chronic disease.
“It never stops. They have to be constantly vigilant,” she says.

That awareness, combined with an understanding of the financial constraints of low-income patients, has prompted her to become more creative over the years in helping patients find ways to keep them healthy and to provide the personalized, compassionate care they deserve.