'I believe healthcare is a right': Dr. Carrie Nelson works to improve patient care

CHICAGO (CBS)--  To honor Women's History Month CBS 2 is taking a look at women in medicine.

Dr. Carrie Nelson of Advocate Aurora Health is passionate about treating the whole patient. She's spent her career working to improve patient care.

"I believe health care is a right, not a privilege," Nelson said. 

She graduated from Rush University Medical School in family medicine in the 1980's, and says while her class was around 30% female.

"The male classmates would often be called on more regularly or recognized for making a good conclusion whereas the women might have been less in the spotlight," Nelson said. 

Nelson, a mother of three, had her first child while she was a resident.

"There wasn't such a thing as maternity leave," She said. "I had three weeks off paid, because that was my vacation time and then I took an extra week unpaid."

Fast forward to today. Situations have improved for physicians, but Nelson says that's not always true for patients and care has had to change.

"We ask questions of patients, do they have food insecurity, about their living situations, inability to pay the bills," She said. "When all those things are a burden, that's never going to allow someone to make sure their diabetes is under control. They're going to be most worried about survival."

She says one patient's story proves the need. When a sign went up in the office that said "talk to us if you're ever concerned you may not have healthy food available to you," a patient came to Nelson and said "I have a problem."

"It allowed me to address it, connect her to a food pantry. It opened up a conversation," She said. 

And hospital philosphy is changing.

"Success has been measured by full hospital beds and full emergency rooms, we're trying to keep people out of the hospital now, keep them out of the emergency rooms, in a way that connects them better to primary care, gets them involved in preventive aspects of care," Nelson said. 

Nelson says the pandemic has provided lessons for all of us.

"We have to really use this time in our history to leverage what we've learned, through being creative on getting access to care," She said. 

Nelson said she loves family medicine because it combines care for the patient's physical, mental and social wellbeing.