Cover Feature
Dr. Heather Mewes Hillsdale Hospital Primary Care by Elyse Apel
D
r. Heather Mewes always knew that she wanted to be a doctor.
“It allows me to both help people and problem solve,” Dr. Mewes explains. “We learn in medical school that if somebody comes in with X, Y and Z, then they must have this problem. Medicine is so much more than that, though.” She says that, as a doctor, she had to learn how to listen to patients and learn about their day-to-day life. “Then, I can fuse what I learned in textbooks with what they are experiencing in their own lives,” Dr. Mewes says. Recently joining the staff at Hillsdale Hospital as the Primary Care Medical Director, Dr. Mewes now combines patient care with administrative work, bettering the local medical community. While she continues to see patients at Hillsdale Health & Wellness and at Reading Health Clinic, Dr. Mewes also provides leadership for the team of providers serving in primary care roles throughout the hospital. “I see patients from about eight to four most days, sometimes longer, depending on the day,” Dr. Mewes explains. “And then there’s the administrative work behind the scenes that we are trying to do to improve access to patient care and improve the patient experience.” She says that she enjoys both the variety in her days, but also in her patient care. “Because I’m in family medicine, I see newborns all the way up to the oldest of the old. I love getting to work with families,” Dr. Mewes says. “It allows me to see the little kids and their parents, maybe they even bring their grandparents to see me. That just helps me to practice medicine even better, because you start to notice certain patterns in families and are able to relate to them on a different level.” Dr. Mewes first joined the team at Hillsdale Hospital in August 2024, which allowed her to move back to the Hillsdale area. A graduate of Reading High School, she then studied pre-med at Hillsdale College. “Between shadowing and working with local doctors in the community, I ended up deciding to go on to medical school,” she says.
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