Biography of Candace Cooley, MD

Contents

1. Training
2. Years in practice
3. Surgery, procedures and imaging
4. Research
5. Colorado
6. Certification and interests

Candace Cooley, MD, is a board certified obstetrician and gynecologist, and her working life in medicine now spans more than 25 years, measured from the close of her residency in 1998. Her medical career has run through three states, New York, Florida and Colorado, and through both halves of her specialty: the care of women in pregnancy and birth, and the medical and surgical care of women across the other stages of life. This entry follows that career in order, from college and medical school through the years in practice, and keeps to the documented record.

Training

She earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1990. The campus had opened in 1946 as Triple Cities College to serve veterans returning from World War II, joined the state university system in 1950 as Harpur College, and was formally designated the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1965; the university’s own history notes that the name Binghamton University was adopted in 1992.¹

She went on to Albany Medical College in Albany, New York, and received her Doctor of Medicine in 1994. The college dates its founding to 1839, when it enrolled 57 students, and it still limits each class to a small, selected group.²

Next came residency training for obstetrics and gynecology. She trained for two years at Albany Medical Center Hospital, from 1994 to 1996, then continued at Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando, Florida, and finished that training there in 1998. Residency is the stage at which a medical graduate becomes a specialist, and as the Times Union explained on Match Day, physicians spend an additional three to seven years in it after medical school, placed in their programs through a national matching process.³ The education page describes each of these institutions at greater length.

Figure

Dated facts, 1990 to 2014

1. 01
   1990Bachelor of Science in Biology, State University of New York at Binghamton.
2. 02
   1994Doctor of Medicine, Albany Medical College, Albany, New York.
3. 03
   1994 to 1996Two years of residency at Albany Medical Center Hospital.
4. 04
   1998OB/GYN residency finished at Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando, Florida.
5. 05
   2011 to 2014Practice in Breckenridge, Colorado.

Years in practice

After residency she joined a three physician practice in upstate New York. From the end of her training onward she has given women medical and surgical care at different points in their lives, in hospitals as well as in offices. Her experience takes in routine gynecological examinations, pregnancy management, menopause related concerns, urinary disorders and minimally invasive surgical procedures. She has managed high risk pregnancies as well as routine ones and delivered babies, and she has treated urinary incontinence, menstrual disorders, menopausal symptoms and concerns about pelvic health.

In Florida she founded her own OB/GYN practice, owning and managing it over 12 years. The practice offered obstetrics, gynecology, diagnostic imaging and surgical services. Its office had an on site laboratory, ultrasound in 3D and 4D, and treatment rooms set aside for office based procedures.

Surgery, procedures and imaging

Hysterectomy by both the vaginal and the abdominal route is part of her surgical experience, along with pelvic reconstruction, procedures to suspend the bladder, laparoscopic surgery, endometrial ablation, hysteroscopy and cystoscopy; that surgery has been done on an inpatient and an outpatient basis. In the office she has treated women with colposcopy, endometrial ablation and the loop electrosurgical excision procedure (LEEP). Diagnostic sonograms, ultrasound in 3D and 4D among them, are studies she has both performed and interpreted, and the same holds for bone density evaluations with DEXA technology. Over the later part of her career, minor surgical procedures, preventive care for women and office based gynecology took up a growing share of her work. The specialty entry places this scope within obstetrics and gynecology as a whole.

Research

Candace Cooley was a contributor to a published study of external cephalic version, the procedure for turning a fetus into a better position before delivery, which examined its success rates and its risks. The procedure answers a common late pregnancy problem. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists explains that a breech presentation, with the buttocks, feet or both positioned to come out first, occurs in 3 to 4 percent of full term births, and describes external cephalic version as an attempt to turn the fetus head down by firm pressure on the abdomen, sometimes guided by ultrasound, with the fetal heart rate checked before and after.⁴ The same guidance reports that more than half of attempts succeed, though some fetuses turn back. The subject has its own entry, Breech Presentation and External Cephalic Version.

Colorado

From 2011 to 2014 she practiced in Breckenridge, Colorado. Today she practices in Colorado. The years in Breckenridge connect to the interests described on the interests page and to the entries on altitude and the active life.

Figure

The path to specialty certification

1. 01
   Medical degreeAn MD or DO from an accredited school.
2. 02
   ResidencyAn accredited OB/GYN residency.
3. 03
   Qualifying examinationA computer based test of foundational knowledge across obstetrics, gynecology and office practice.
4. 04
   Certifying examinationAn oral examination of clinical judgment built on structured cases and the candidate's own case list.

Certification and interests

Candace Cooley is certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. The board describes certification as voluntary and as a credential that follows a medical degree and an accredited residency, earned through two examinations: a computer based qualifying examination on foundational knowledge, and an oral certifying examination that tests clinical judgment through structured cases and a review of the candidate’s own practice.⁵ Away from work, she spends time skiing, cycling and running.