BY CYNTHIA LEE
UCLA Today Staff
Carol Archie’s easygoing demeanor belies
her true calling. Every day, she walks a high-wire tightrope
on two levels, fighting to keep her balance against forces that
are sometimes beyond her control.
An OB-GYN specializing in high-risk pregnancies
at the UCLA Medical Center, Archie helps pregnant women suffering
from complications — ranging from schizophrenia to substance
abuse — deliver healthy babies. Also under her care are
mothers with fetuses that are abnormal in some way or at risk.
“In a lot of ways,” explained the
associate clinical professor, “you need to be a risk-taker
because some of these women are patients no one else wants to
touch. You need to use your best instincts and medical skills.”
Archie has taken on another risky venture as
board chair of the largest free clinic in the country, the Venice
Family Clinic. She is fighting to keep the doors of the clinic
open to the uninsured.
The clinic, which relies on private donations
and county reimbursement to treat nearly 10,000 uninsured poor
people, is itself at risk as the county threatens to end a partnership
with the clinic that could cost it $3 million in reimbursement
for patient care.
That will cause great hardship, said Archie.
“But we have such a strong message and a well-run operation,
and we are blessed with such great volunteers. We will prevail.”
The clinic, with close ties to UCLA’s
schools of medicine, dentistry, public health and nursing, is
a cheery, sunlit, welcoming place where Bruins — undergraduates,
grad students, medical students, faculty and administrators
— train or volunteer.
Archie became involved shortly after she arrived
from Detroit, where she had obtained her M.D. (from Wayne State
University) and completed her residency. Shortly after she started
a fellowship in 1987 at King/Drew Medical Center, she was asked
by her supervising director to help set up a prenatal program
at the Venice clinic.
Archie has been a source of support ever since.
Today, the free clinic, where some of the best doctors in the
city volunteer, “runs like the nicest practice that you’d
ever want to work in,” she said. “I love the level
of care and the dedication I see there.”
After finishing her fellowship in 1989, she
was offered a faculty position at UCLA. Archie, who is married
to Edward Keenan, chair and professor of the Department of Linguistics,
continues to teach because of the many women she sees whose
doctors have erroneously advised against birth control. They
fear the pills might worsen the women’s medical conditions
or interact with medications they must take. “When they
get pregnant, they come to me, torn up by the dilemma of wanting
to keep their babies, but being unable to,” Archie said.
“It’s totally unnecessary. I could have given them
a birth-control plan.”
For all the medical students who don’t
become obstetricians, but will care for such women, Archie pushes
one message above all: If you don’t know, ask somebody
who might.
