Learn more at https://uvahealth.com/findadoctor/profile/jennifer-m-dillman
I’m Megan Dillman. I’m a women’s health nurse practitioner at pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery here at the University of Virginia.
I typically see female patients in the perimenopausal and postmenopausal phase of life, though we do see some younger women too. Typically, we are dealing with issues of urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse and fecal incontinence.
I specialize in more conservative management, which is done in an outpatient setting in the office. This could be pessary fittings, a new procedure we started offering a year ago called Urostym®, or more conservative management like behavioral modification or medication.
Nursing is a second career for me. Initially, I went to the University of Virginia, I was an English and women’s studies graduate. Then I went to the March for Women’s Lives in 2004, which was in Washington, D.C. It opened my eyes to access to health care for women and women’s health issues, and how important they are. It made me refocus my career path on the ways I could contribute to making women’s lives better.
One thing that I’ve noticed in urogynecology is that lots of times, these issues are very embarrassing and likely have been going on for long periods of time. Women feel like they’ve just been blown off. Even to get women to be able to put words to those problems can be really empowering for them. That’s been really important to me: to feel like I can offer them a safe space to talk about these problems. And that there are things they can do to help.