KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – Family Nurse Practitioner Christine Dalva is the newest member of Dr. Paula Dhanda’s health care team at Specialty Care & Surgery Center at 5685 Main St. in Kelseyville, bringing a passion for “empowering and educating women” to improve their health.

Dalva, who specializes in gynecology and dermatology, began seeing patients at Specialty Care & Surgery Center in September last year.

She provides a wide range of services, including breast, pelvic, and skin exams, family planning, acne treatments, and removal of moles and skin lesions.

She is accepting new patients. To make an appointment, call the center at 707-279-8733.

“I am excited to bring Christine into our practice to care for our existing and new patients,” said Dr. Dhanda. “I know the women we treat are going to love Christine’s compassionate approach to care. She is thorough, thoughtful, competent and knowledgeable. Her enthusiasm is contagious, and she is a great asset to our team.”

“The Specialty Care & Surgery Center allows me to treat women holistically, which I find to be the most satisfying way to practice medicine,” said Dalva. “I always envisioned working in women’s health. Treating women has more impact on community health than treating any other population,” she explains. “Women are largely responsible for the health of the family, so empowering and educating women means that I am also able to help the children, husbands and friends of my patients.”

No stranger to Lake County, Dalva recently joined the practice to help complement the services provided by Dr. Dhanda after Physician’s Assistant Quincy Andrus announced her retirement. Andrus had worked with the doctor since 1999.

While studying to be a nurse practitioner, Dalva trained with Dhanda and Andrus at the Specialty Care & Surgery Center. Dhanda’s reputation as a  health care provider, along with her philanthropic endeavors, appealed to Dalva.

“Training with the two of them made me feel that working with them would be an exceptional fit for my life and career goals,” Dalva said.

"I have trained many health care professionals in my local practice and around the world,” said Dhanda. “Christine was an outstanding student with a great fund of knowledge, a passion for learning and a very kindhearted manner in caring for women."

Dalva brings her dedication for helping people and connecting with them. “My family in Clearlake instilled in me a desire to help others,” she said, explaining that her grandmother ran the BirthRight Center in Clearlake for a number of years.

Her father, Bob Besgrove, worked as a school resource officer in Lake County. A former Clearlake Police Department officer, he started a program in which he delivered teddy bears to children at Redbud Hospital.

“I was brought up to find purpose and value in giving back and taking care of people. So medicine, with the challenges of biology and chemistry, linked with the opportunity to help people in their most vulnerable state, really appealed to me,” said Dalva. “Connecting with patients and helping them to be more well – in body and mind – has been the best part of my career.”

The practitioner’s path toward her new position in Kelseyville has spanned 17 years in the medical field.

A 2001 graduate of Redwood High School in the Bay Area, Dalva earned her bachelor of science degree in biochemistry at Holy Names University in 2005.

She worked as a medical assistant in ophthalmology and otolaryngology then dermatology while applying to medical schools.

She later pursued her registered nurse and nurse practitioner degrees at Samuel Merritt University, Oakland, obtaining her bachelor of science degree in nursing in 2012.

Two years later, after working as a circulating registered nurse in a head-and-neck and cosmetic surgery center as well as an outpatient dermatology clinic, she earned her Master's of Science degree to become a family nurse practitioner.

Dalva loves teaching health maintenance and disease prevention, and she encourages her patients to participate in their care. “I love working on preventive health and empowering people to live well and make well-informed choices,” she said.

While working as a student nurse in the intensive care unit of a hospital, she realized the importance of health maintenance and preventive care. Besides the trauma patients, there were many being treated for exacerbations of diseases that could have been avoided.

“They ended up acutely ill when, if they had made changes to their health, diet, and lifestyle practices earlier on, they could have lived better and avoided later complications,” she said. “I concluded that working in primary care and focusing on prevention seemed like the best place to be to effect change.”

Dalva’s training for her nursing degree included stints at several Bay Area hospitals (Children’s Hospital and Kaiser in Oakland, as well as Alta Bates in Berkeley). For completion of her nurse practitioner degree, she trained in a low income clinic in Richmond.

She also worked in a transgender clinic in the East Bay AIDS Center in Oakland. The individuals there are “some of the strongest and most perseverant souls I have had the privilege to meet,” said Dalva. “I loved taking care of them. I learned so much from them.”

Dalva shares Dr. Dhanda's passion for improving community health on a global scale and has helped lead medical missions to Ghana and Myanmar.

“I chose to move here specifically to work with Dr. Dhanda because I believe in her mission,” Dalva said. “She is changing the world with what she is doing. I love the medical missions I have done – so much planning and hard work, but so worth it because we can help so many people.”

She added, “With her Worldwide Healing Hands organization, Dr. Dhanda is changing entire regions in vulnerable, high-need areas around the world. She also has a vision for this community that I want to be a part of. I especially want to give women reproductive freedom, to allow them to choose when and how they get pregnant.”

Dalva recently relocated from the Bay Area along with her husband, a jewelry and metal arts instructor at the California College of Arts, and their 18-month-old daughter.

“My mom and siblings all live here in Lake County, and it is wonderful being closer to them,” said Dalva, who lived in the Clearlake and Lower Lake areas until she was 10 years old.

 During her years as a teen, she alternated residences in Clearlake and Bay Area cities, attending Lower Lake High School for awhile and taking classes at Yuba College while she was a high school junior.

“I always envisioned coming back to help the community because of my connection with family and because my heart is here. This area is full of opportunity,” she said.

For more information about Specialty Care & Surgery Center, www.drspecialtycare.com or call 707-279-8733.

For information about Worldwide Healing Hands, visit www.worldwidehealinghands.org and on Facebook.