A Manitoba doctor is being recognized for her passionate promotion of health.

Winkler-based physician Dr. Heather Lehmann, says she was shocked to learn she'd earned the 2020 Health or Safety Promotion Award by Doctors Manitoba.

Nominated by her colleague, Dr. Thompson, Lehmann says that in itself was a huge honour.

"The appreciation that I felt with that was impressive," she noted.

"It's a bit funny to me because I think that as a family physician, health promotion is basically our bread and butter, it's a huge part of what we do," says Lehmann.

With a practice based out of the C.W. Wiebe Medical Centre, Lehmann's special areas of interest lay in women's and adolescent health, with a strong passion for reproductive health and improving access to care for under-served groups.

As a result, she has taken on many projects in these areas, most notably using her expertise and passion to develop a much-needed weekly teen clinic in 2016.

"(It) was something I've been interested in since I started practice here in 2008, and then it took us a number of years to research and get a sense of what the community might need, and work with a bunch of different shareholders to try to figure out what might work in our community," explains Lehmann.

That initial bid to get the clinic up-and-running was delayed in 2011, but organizers revisited the idea in 2016, and have been going strong ever since.

"We always have attendees. We've never been shutout, even in storms and off-school days. Even in the time when there was no school for months, every week we still saw a few people,"  she says. In fact, Lehmann says the virtual care model implemented as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has actually worked quite well in providing care to teens in the community.

"We've been really happy to deliver healthcare services to a group that maybe wouldn't seek it otherwise," she adds.

Lehmann says she was inspired to open the clinic after having grown up in a small community herself.

"When I think back to my time as a pre-teen or teenager, and if I had something really sensitive, I would have struggled to go and get healthcare in my own community simply because I would feel that I was being watched or somebody would talk about the fact that I was there and it would get around the community," she explains.

"I'm really sensitive to that, and I know that Winkler is a large community but we're still a small town in so many ways, so I think the attention to confidentiality and accessibility is so very important."

She credits the excellent support of community stakeholders in contributing to the success of the teen clinic, and says they wouldn't be able to run it the way that they do without the support of the local public health team which provides access to contraceptive supplies, helps address concerns regarding unplanned pregnancies, and offers information on sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment.

The weekly clinic typically runs Thursdays at the C.W. Wiebe Medical Centre from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Additionally, teens are able to access some mental health supports, however, Lehmann says that's a big piece of the care menu that could use more development, particularly when it comes to improving quick access in crisis situations.

Included in her work in obstetrics and maternity care, Lehmann is also part of a local group of doctors, nurses and midwives to join a program in 2014 that helps manage obstetrical risk safely through group education. The team works to improve local systems and processes in order to bring the safest care to obstetrical patients in the hope that they'll have a healthy and satisfying experience when they come to the local health centre to have their babies.