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Dr. Joy Baker is an advocate, educator and community leader. But, first and foremost she is a doctor. The Obstetrician-gynecologist was named Wellstar West Georgia Physician of the Year for all of these titles. 

The LaGrange native came back to work for West Georgia Medical Center, where she was born a little over five years ago. She did her undergrad at LaGrange College and went on to get her medical degree from Morehouse School of Medicine. 

“I love Troup County,” Baker said. “I’m the third generation of my family to serve this community. My grandparents were teachers here their entire careers, My dad is Dr. George Baker, he’s a dentist.”

While some may picture an OBGYN working in a clinic all day, Baker’s day can look a little different. 

“A day could be just routine appointments in the office, but a lot of days are really exciting because I can go from being in the office to being in the operating room in less than five minutes. Birth is very unpredictable a lot of times…So OBGYN is never boring,” she said.

Baker takes her role as a women’s health provider seriously. Her involvement with patients is both proactive and reflective. It all starts with education. 

“I think that’s such an important part of being an OBGYN, or any sort of position or or advanced practice professional people, when people know better, they do better,” Baker said. “I always am very passionate about educating people, whether it’s in the office or even on social media.”

Baker has a YouTube channel called Delivering Joy, where she covers women’s health topics, like understanding a Pap smear or staying safe while pregnant during cold and flu season. 

“It’s so important that women understand their bodies and how they work, and then, you know, try to understand what’s happening when something goes wrong.”

Most of her time is spent doing what she loves most, being with patients. 

“I get a chance to walk through life, essentially, with patients, and I’ve been practicing for 15 years now,” Baker said. “I have patients that I’ve been there for most of their birth. I have one patient who’s about to birth in a couple of weeks, and this will be our sixth birth together.”

Baker has a patient that lives on the West Coast who has been coming to her since 2013 for annuals. She laughs recalling how they take a selfie every year to celebrate their reunion. 

Another highlight of her week is getting to be in the operating room. WGMC is a robotic and minimally invasive surgery center for excellence, said Baker. 

“We do a lot of robotic surgery, which is really state-of-the-art and cutting-edge procedures,” she explained. “We provide all sorts of women’s health surgeries there, so from hysterectomies to ovarian surgeries to various procedures, pelvic floor repair procedures, that kind of thing, we’re able to provide that minimally invasively. And so a lot of times patients get to go home the same day.”

On the backend, she makes sure that current and future patients are receiving the best care possible. Baker is the Quality Director for Women’s Health at the hospital. In this role, she reviews all cases with unexpected outcomes to see how to improve. 

Baker relishes any opportunity to promote women’s health, whether it is as a clinician or advocate. 

In general, Women’s Health is not, has not necessarily been a priority in terms of our [healthcare] policy,” said Baker, who served as the chair of the legislative advocacy committee for the Medical Institute of Georgia. 

“I’m really glad to see a focus start to come back to women’s health, from maternal health, maternal mortality and morbidity to menopause. These are issues that are coming up that we’re now spending a lot more time and funding on to research and to come up with ideas about how to make it better.” 

As chairman she helps develop policy for Georgia healthcare and advocate for these policies in front of the Georgia Legislature. A large part of her advocacy revolves around access and affordability for care.

“Recently, I got a chance to go to the Center for Medicaid services and actually talk about the postpartum depression medication that was released last year. It’s the first FDA-approved oral treatment for postpartum depression,” Baker explained. “As a small town physician, [it is] important that these medications be covered by Medicaid because greater than 60% of the births in Georgia are Medicaid. So that means that a ton of our moms who might need this medication have public insurance.” 

Bakers adds. “When we are able to advocate for good health policy, we’re able to take care of patients, by the 10s or 1000s at one time. So I really enjoy political advocacy,” she said. 

In her 15 years as a practitioner, the job has changed.

“One of the really interesting things about OB GYN that has happened in the past 10 years or so, is now we have OBGYN hospitalists. So these are OBGYNs who are skilled and or certified, but they are only in the hospital, so they’re actually doing 24 hour shifts in the hospital,” Baker said.

So while trying to reach a patient’s primary doctor, or if someone does not have a primary OBGYN, the hospitalist can manage them. 

“Not only does it make it safer for patients because someone’s always there, ready to help them, but it also improves the quality of life for OBGYN in the country.” 

According to Baker, the country is short around 8,000 OBGYNs, due to poor reimbursement for  women’s health care and the difficulty of the profession.  

“You often see that OBGYN will stop doing OB after a certain age because of the years of not sleeping well and it just wasn’t a very sustainable type of lifestyle,” explained Baker. “I think that the laborist for this OBGYN hospitalist model is really revamping. A lot of the OBs here locally, we joke about, [how] we’re finally sleeping like six to eight hours a night without having to run to the hospital or be called in.”

The doctor’s passion for women’s health is an extension of her passion for LaGrange.

“I always say Lagrange is just the size community that you can wrap your arms around,” Baker laughs. “That’s kind of been my goal. This award, I think, reflects my enthusiasm and my love for this area, for the women of West Georgia. I think they deserve the absolute best, and I want them to have access to every possible thing.”