The team of OBGYNs at Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre are constantly working to improve access to high quality care for women and people requiring gynecologic care in our region. Research shows that hysteroscopic procedures under sedation are safe and well tolerated by patients. Dr. Buitenhuis, Dr. Bodkin, and Dr. Power conducted a pilot study to initiate a new hysteroscopy suite in our Hospital. The study showed that:

• 100% of all participants recruited to the pilot project had successful completion of their procedure,
• 93% of participants would recommend the procedure and rated the overall care as very good to excellent,
• 82% of participants reported experiencing minimal to no pain during or after the procedure, and of the patients who reported experiencing a significant amount of pain, and
• 81% of those would still rather have the procedure as an outpatient rather than going to the OR.

This is great news for our patients waiting for gynecologic surgery in our region. With the creation of our hysteroscopy suite, we can reduce wait times for patients waiting for all surgeries, but especially for those patients wanting minimally invasive treatment for heavy menstrual bleeding and for patients waiting for biopsies to rule out cancer.