When she was just 10 years old, Megan App found out that her 2-month-old baby brother suffered from bilateral hernias. It was a fairly serious condition, one that required surgery to repair. For a young child who had just welcomed a new sibling, it was a scary prospect – even for one whose father was a doctor.
“It kind of freaked me out,” Dr. App said. “My mom sent me to discuss the surgery with Dr. Byrd, a female anesthesiologist who lived across the street. She was one of the first three women to graduate from Cornell Medical School. After talking with her, I marched back across the street and told my mom I wanted to be a doctor, and that never changed.”
Many years later, Dr. App, M.D. is now one of the newest additions to NorthShore Health Centers’ team of expert healthcare providers. Specializing in OB/GYN and women’s health, she brings with her over two decades of experience in patient care.
True to her word, Dr. App never deviated from her goal of practicing medicine. The conversation with Dr. Byrd was her key motivator, but growing up around healthcare thanks to her father also played a role.
“I started working in his office when I was about 12, pulling charts and stuffing envelopes,” she said. “I worked there all through high school and college as a pseudo-medical assistant and learned how to draw blood, take x-rays, and all sorts of other stuff.”
Once she finished high school, she earned a bachelor’s degree at Aquinas College and a Master’s of Science in public health at the University of Michigan before pursuing her Doctor of Medicine at the Wayne State School of Medicine. At the time, she had not settled on any particular specialization, but things changed when her rotations introduced her to OB/GYN and women’s health.
“I’d just assumed that, since my dad was family practice, I would be, too, but I really, truly loved my OB/GYN rotation,” she said. “I started thinking about pursuing it and my mom, who has her PhD, said, ‘Oh no, you love routine!’ It started stressing me out, and my boyfriend, who was also in school at the time, asked me why I wasn’t sleeping. I told him about everything, but I hadn’t actually told him that I loved OB/GYN. He said that he’d never seen me as happy as when I was doing OB/GYN.”
That bit of insight helped settle the matter for her, and looking back on it, Dr. App can easily point to the things that made women’s health so immediately fulfilling.
“I like surgery and counseling through procedures, and I also think that OB/GYN does the most preventative medicine compared to a lot of other specialties,” she said. “You also get continuity of care, where you’ll see a woman from teenage through to geriatrics. Now, I don’t actually know what I would do if I didn’t have OB/GYN. For my dad, medicine was always more of a calling than a job, and I feel the same way. This is what I’m meant to do.”
Driven by that calling, Dr. App was particularly excited to join NorthShore due to its status as a federally qualified health center and commitment to serving everyone regardless of their ability to pay.
“I do like working with and for the underserved,” she said. “I interviewed at several places, but I really liked the mission here at NorthShore. I don’t like having to worry about what I’m billing, and I’ve never treated patients differently based on their insurance. I’d rather just treat patients.”
Her approach to patient care is driven by honest, transparent communication and education.
“This isn’t my first rodeo, so I can ask patients questions around the problem they’re describing – ‘Have you ever experienced x, y, or z,’” she said. “Patient’s will say, ‘How did you know? It’s like you read my mind!’ I listen and make them feel that I understand. I also spend a lot of time educating, explaining why I’m doing what I’m doing.”
Dr. App will celebrate her one year anniversary with NorthShore this July and looks forward to welcoming more patients from around the Region. To learn more about NorthShore Health Centers, or to schedule an appointment, please visit northshorehealth.org.
