Adventist Health Castle | Windward Health | Summer 2019

Lucy Ching finds a great health care partner Diagnosed with lupus at age 19, Lucy Ching has long known the importance of having good doctors—and she has had many over the years. When she moved to Kailua from Los Angeles 10 years ago, she set out to find new doctors, including a new primary care provider. She asked a lot of people for recommendations, hoping to find a female doctor close to home, but many weren’t taking new patients. After further research, Ching found Marie Wilson, MD, an internist at Castle Primary Care clinic in Kailua. “My first visit was a very good experience,” Ching recalls. “She took time to hear about my health issues and took notes about everything.” Three years later, Ching can’t say enough good things about her care under Dr. Wilson, whom she sees every six months. “I feel so good when I get back home; she’s so amazing that I started recommending her to my husband and friends.” Dr. Wilson also helped Ching find an excellent rheumatologist, and the three work together as a team to manage Ching’s health issues. ‘We’re going to get through it together’ A serious health scare last February reinforced Ching’s appreciation for her primary care provider. It was her day off of work, and she was feeling poorly. The day before had been stressful and she was feeling very tired, so she went to bed early. The next morning, she woke up with numbness in her arms and a burning sensation in her chest that was spreading to her neck. Thinking she was having an asthma attack, she called her husband, who came home right away and took her to Castle’s Emergency Department. Blood work found the real cause of Ching’s symptoms: a heart attack. She spent the next two days in the hospital. A stress test and other diagnostic procedures showed a 95% blockage in one of her arteries, and she had a stent put in to open the artery. Ching, age 47, maintains a healthy diet and exercises daily. She never expected to have a heart attack at such a young age, so she had ignored the symptoms. The frightening experience left her depressed. “When I went to see Dr. Wilson after my surgery, I was in tears,” she says. “Dr. Wilson took my hand and said, ‘Lucy, this is normal. We’re going to get through it together.’ “Dr. Wilson is not only a good doctor, she is a good human being. Castle should be very proud to have a doctor like her. It’s such an honor to have her as my primary care doctor.” A family doctor, family friend for Junior Ah You For more than two decades, Laie resident Junior Ah You has relied on Marc Shlachter, MD, for his medical care. Other members of the large Ah You ‘ohana, including Junior’s wife and many of their seven children and 36 grandchildren, also count themselves among the patients of the longtime “Country Doctor” who started his family medicine practice in a Hauula beach house 48 years ago before moving to offices in Laie Shopping Center in 1989. In 2015, Dr. Shlachter partnered with AH Castle to open Castle Health Clinic of Laie in an expanded space at the shopping center. Since then, the clinic has added more health care professionals and services to better serve the North Shore community. For Ah You, Dr. Shlachter is more than a family doctor; he also is a family friend. “He’s that kind of doctor—one who provides your health care and then some,” says Ah You. “He’s a wonderful, caring person. That’s hard to beat.” Earlier this year, after a lingering cough and other symptoms left him feeling poorly for more than three weeks, Ah You made an appointment with Dr. Shlachter. When an examination of his chest and stomach failed to find an obvious cause for Ah You’s symptoms, Dr. Shlachter referred him to Castle for an MRI. The scan detected an aneurysm that, if left untreated, could have been life-threatening. Ah You was sent right into surgery to have the blood vessel repaired. Reflecting on the fact that his symptoms were unrelated to the aneurysm, Ah You is sure that his ongoing cough and malaise were the Lord’s work, creating a reason to visit his doctor. “The Lord was watching over me,” he says. Fortunately, so was Dr. Shlachter.