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Dr. Bose opens practice

While national studies suggest that women have little preference when it comes to the gender of their physicians, that might not be true in Sonoma Valley, at least when speaking anecdotally.

“There seems to be a high demand for female OB/GYNs in the Valley, and many people leave the community because they are seeking a female (practitioner). The hospital has been looking for a female OB/GYN for over five years,” said Kelly Mather, chief executive officer at Sonoma Valley Hospital.

This community desire for a female OB/GYN led the hospital to work with its close ally, Prima Medical Group, to recruit Dr. Diwata Hope Bose, who is settling into her office on First Street West. She will begin seeing patients the week of March 18, as soon as her exam rooms are equipped for her patients’ needs.

“We still need to do some things to make the rooms more feminine,” Bose said of her new digs.

Not only will she work as general OB/GYN for Prima, she will also serve as the women’s health medical director for Sonoma Valley Hospital. The hospital has extensively discussed its plans to focus on women’s health services in its latest strategic plan, and Mather said Bose will play a key role in developing that line of business.

“In her role as women’s health medical director, Dr. Bose will expand women’s health educational offerings and help us extend access to preventive care,” Mather said. “She brings real depth to our ability to address important women’s health issues, filling a bit of a void when it comes to specialists in women’s health in this community.”

Born and raised in Manila, Philippines, Bose said she knew she wanted to be a doctor after she experienced her own major health scare. After being diagnosed with a patent ductus arteriosus, which affects blood-flow around the heart, Bose had emergency surgery at the age of 9.

After that, my mom just started saying, ‘That’s what you’re going to do, be a doctor,’” she said.

She earned her medical degree at the University of the Philippines before launching into her residency program at Philippine National Hospital. She developed a special focus on minimally invasive surgeries such as laparoscopy and hysteroscopy, and is approved to perform surgery both here in Sonoma and at its sister facility, Marin General Hospital. In addition to specializing in gynecological surgeries, Bose is an expert in women’s health at every stage of life.

When her husband, a physical therapist, found work in America, Bose stayed behind to finish her residency program. After several years they grew tired of the long distance, and Bose agreed to leave her home country when she found a faculty position at Aurora University in Wisconsin. There, she taught and oversaw OB/GYN residents, medical students and physician assistants and earned the National Faculty Award from the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

“I knew we weren’t going to settle in Wisconsin,” she said. “Not only was my family in California, but my husband wasn’t a huge fan of the winters.”

She considered several options but knew she had found home when she visited Sonoma, and moved her husband, along with their sons Zach, 8, and Rumi, 2, to the Valley less than a month ago. “When I came here, I just fell in love with the people,” she said. “That’s one thing we really missed in Wisconsin, a sense of community.”

Dr. Diwata Hope Bose will be practicing out of the Prima Medical Group offices at 651 First St. W., and is accepting new patients at 938-3870 or through primamedgroup.com.