BUCKHANNON – Two new doctors at WVU Medicine St. Joseph’s Hospital introduced themselves and explained how their specialties will benefit the Upshur County community.
Dr. Andrew Colebank and Dr. Avian Pham attended the Nov. 3 Rotary Club of Buckhannon-Upshur meeting to expand on their services and how they plan to spend their time at St. Joseph’s Hospital.
“While I’m here at St. Joseph’s, I’ll be a family physician, and what’s beautiful about family physicians here in West Virginia is that old-time rural doctor feel, where I get to do so much,” Colebank said. “I get to work with all ages, and I really am thankful for that.”
Colebank said his specialty is in osteopathic manipulative treatment and functional medicine.
“Osteopathic physicians can go into every specialty here in the United States; they can perform surgery, they can be family physicians, but one unique thing I can do as an osteopathic physician is use my hands to heal,” Colebank said. “Manipulation sometimes has a negative connotation, but it’s using my hands to restore function in the body. It’s like what you would understand a chiropractor can do, but it’s much more fine-tuned and precise to the patient’s ailment itself.”
Colebank said patients of all ages can benefit.
“Most often I’m using the patient’s own muscles against my force or using my hands to do a massage or a fine-tuned technique to help restore function,” Colebank said. “I just did some manipulation on babies upstairs; I did manipulation on a lady who was 88 this morning, so it’s something that I can do for anybody who would need it.”
Conditions commonly treated by osteopathic manipulation include sports injuries, musculoskeletal injuries, headaches, arthritis, low back pain and functional issues like constipation, respiratory disease, heart disease and lymphedema.
“Functional medicine is a new branch of medicine; the old way of applying medicine was very acute-based: you had a problem, and we tried to have a solution for you. We tried to use your symptoms to diagnose the disease and come up with symptom management care,” Colebank said. “We’re trying to rethink that; we’re rethinking the way we apply medicine in more of a population- and patient-centered model by seeing how we get to the root cause of chronic disease.”
Pham has joined the general surgery team at St. Joseph’s Hospital. The hospital said he served in the U.S. Navy, completed his general surgery residency and took part in a global surgery fellowship in Africa. He is certified in da Vinci robotic surgery.
“We are consistent with more minimally invasive surgery, which is what Dr. [Susan] Long has been practicing for about 40 years already,” Pham said.
The doctor said he was impressed by the advanced technology available for surgeries at the Buckhannon hospital.
“I have to say, throughout my interview, I was actually very surprised by what St. Joe’s had to offer for a small hospital,” Pham said. “I didn’t realize they had the most updated robotics available on site to serve the patient population here; that is very impressive.”
Contact information for Dr. Colebank’s office can be found here, and contact information for Dr. Pham can be found here.
WVU Medicine St. Joseph’s Hospital
WVU Medicine St. Joseph’s Hospital is a critical access community hospital in Buckhannon, West Virginia, operating as part of WVU Medicine. Originally established by the Pallotine Sisters, it offers 24-hour emergency care along with inpatient and outpatient services, including women’s health, for the central West Virginia region. For more information, call 304-473-2000 or visit wvumedicine.org.
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