By Matt Wiley
Looking for a new family physician, but looking for more than the traditional care services offered at most doctors’ offices? Consider Land O’Lakes Primary Care Wellness Center, just a few miles west of Wesley Chapel.
Combining the convenience of being able to see a family physician with the option to take part in additional services not offered by most typical internal medicine offices, including hormone replacement therapy and anti-aging treatments, Land O’ Lakes Primary Care Wellness Center (LOLPC) is one-of-a-kind.
Together, Dr. Peggy Watson, M.D., and Dr. Larnel Sultan, D.O., along with nurse practitioners Joy Drexler, ARNP-C; Jennifer Godshall, ARNP-BC; and Valerie Buethe, ARNP-C, LOLPC treat patients older than 13 for a wide variety of medical ailments. The office also offers non-traditional, aesthetic services.
LOLPC has been keeping local residents healthy for more than a decade. Originally located in a 1,500-sq.-ft. office suite in the Big Lots shopping plaza on S.R. 54 at U.S. 41, the practice quickly outgrew its office and a new, 5,000-sq.-ft. practice was built less than a mile from the old office on S.R. 54 on Amberfield Dr. in 2007. Today, LOLPC has a staff of 20+.
Traditional Training, Alternative Approach
“We have a different way of thinking here,” says Dr. Watson. “If you come in with a headache or a symptom, we try to think about why you’re suffering from that symptom, rather than just about what prescription drugs we can give you to get rid of it.”
A practicing primary care physician for more than 20 years, Dr. Watson has extensive medical training, all of which stemmed from her first year at Purdue University in Lafayette, IN, where she had decided to attend business school.
“I went to college thinking I wanted to get into business, but biology was the only class I liked the first year,” Dr. Watson explains.
So, she changed majors and went on to graduate as a Doctor of Medicine from the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis in 1989, before completing residencies at both St. Mary’s Medical Center in Evansville, IN, and Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, OH. Most recently, Dr. Watson earned her Master’s degree in Metabolic and Nutritional Medicine in 2010. She actually started out working for Tampa Palms-based GMS Florida West Coast, Inc., with which LOLPC still is associated.
She is now an American Board of Family Practice-certified physician and belongs to the American Academy of Family Physicians, Florida Academy of Family Physicians, American Society of Bariatric Physicians and the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine.
The latter, she says, is part of what sets LOLPC apart from other practices in the area.
“About seven or eight years ago, really completely by accident, I went to an anti-aging/regenerative medicine conference because I wanted to learn about bio-identical hormones, since many of my patients had been asking about it and I didn’t know anything about the subject,” Dr. Watson explains. “It really opened my eyes to the fact there is an entire world of medical care available for patients, validated in published medical literature, but not practiced by most traditional physicians because it’s not taught to us in medical school.”
So, in addition to traditional treatment for typical medical problems, such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, high blood pressure and routine check-ups, LOLPC also can offer aesthetic services, such as Botox, Juvederm, weight-loss programs and hormone-replacement therapy, which replaces low levels of hormones that the body has been losing during a patient’s life span with structurally identical hormones synthetically developed in a lab.
“Our patients like (that we offer these additional services) because they know us and they trust us,” Dr. Watson explains. “We’re very low-pressure sales. We don’t make our living doing Botox and Juvederm treatments. I frequently tell patients what services wouldn’t work for them and what would be a waste of their time and money.”
Dr. Watson will be hosting a FREE hormone-replacement seminar at Ciao! Italian Bistro (located in the Shops at Wiregrass mall) on Wednesday, November 6, 6:30 p.m.
Anyone interested in attending the seminar is urged to RSVP before Thursday, October 31, by calling the office at 949-2950.
Dr. Sultan, who graduated from West Virginia University in Morgantown in 1993 and the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine in Lewisburg in 1998, also helps with aesthetic, cosmetic procedures, including Botox, for which he has completed advanced training in a variety of facial fillers that reduce the signs of aging.
“We manage a lot here,” Dr. Sultan says. “We don’t refer our patients out (to other offices) that much because the providers we have here can handle multiple, complicated medical problems without sending them elsewhere.”
The alternative medical options at LOLPC also give patients options besides the traditional prescription medications that other doctors may have prescribed them in the past.
“We spend a lot of our day trying to get people off of prescription medications, get them healthy, get them sleeping, de-stressed and eating properly,” Dr. Watson says. “We also do nutrition checks so that people aren’t taking things (vitamins or supplements) that they don’t really need.”
LOLPC patient Monica M. knows well the benefits of the care she receives from Dr. Watson.
“Dr. Watson weaned me off the acid reflux and digestion medications I had been on for years, replacing them with a vitamin/mineral regimen that not only cured my illness, but actually improved my general health,” Monica explains. “(Dr. Watson) explained at length how these medications create a domino effect in the body by creating new symptoms and deficiencies. Everything she said was correct and the follow-up blood work (I had done) was proof. I eventually was able to remove a few vitamins from my regimen because the medication was found to be the reason for those deficiencies. Dr. Watson is the rare physician who doesn’t rush you out of her office with a handful of prescriptions, but welcomes the opportunity to restore your health in the most natural way possible.”
Land O’Lakes Primary Care accepts most medical insurance plans and is contracted with most major insurance providers, including Medicare. The office always offers aesthetic specials and is open six days a week: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, 8 a.m.–5 p.m., 8 a.m.–7 p.m. on Tuesday and 8 a.m.-noon on Saturday. The office is located at 20615 Amberfield Dr., Suite 102, Land O’Lakes, and can be reached by calling 949-2950 or by visiting WatsonWellnessClinic.com.
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