The COEGPD Team

Dr. Hartzell is a licensed marriage and family therapist at San Diego Sexual Medicine.  She is integral to your care.  Dr. Hartzell will provide a sexual health assessment at your initial appointment.   She is also a resource to work with you to deal with external factors that may be negatively influencing your genito-pelvic dysesthesia.  You may be required to work with her or a therapist closer to home before you are given clearance for surgery, or if you are not a surgical candidate, to help maximize your treatment outcome.

Catherine Gagnon is a Board Certified Nurse Practitioner working at San Diego Sexual Medicine where she helps manage men and women with sexual health concerns. She performs many of the diagnostic tests required as part of your assessment to determine the etiology of your genito-pelvic dysesthesia.

Julea Minton is a Nurse Practitioner at San Diego Sexual Medicine. She earned her Master’s Degree in Nursing from the University of San Diego and Bachelors of Science in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Julea is board certified from the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (AANP).Julea has worked in a variety of health care related settings including assisting medical/oncology patients at a major local hospital as well as providing individualized care in a private OB/GYN practice. Most recently, Julea has helped patients achieve optimum sexual health at several family planning clinics, seeing both men and women for cancer screening, sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, pregnancy prevention and other sexual health concerns. She is also involved with clinical trials at San Diego Sexual Medicine, helping to further advance the sexual medicine field through research and evidence-based practice.

Sue Goldstein is program coordinator for San Diego Sexual Medicine, and works as part of the Center of Excellence for Genito-Pelvic Dysesthesias to coordinate flow between San DIego Sexual Medicine and Spine Institute of San Diego.  As a sexuality educator she provides a different perspective to Spine-Sex Med meetings and projects.

Jennifer Blevins is a Board-Certified Physician Assistant at Spine Institute of San Diego. She completed her training at University of California, Davis and earned her Physician Assistant Certificate in 2009.  Jennifer has worked in a variety of health care settings including 7 years in an internal medicine practice in Sacramento and originally moved to San Diego to work as a Physician Assistant in a plastic surgery practice.  She has been working with Dr. Choll Kim in his minimally invasive spine surgery practice since 2017.  She has extensive knowledge of spine surgery and manages all aspects of patient care with the spine-sex medicine program at the Spine Institute of San Diego.

Jennifer has been practicing full time as a board-certified Physician Assistant since 2008.  She worked initially in internal medicine and joined Dr. Choll Kim's minimally invasive spine practice in 2011 where she serves as his first assistant in surgery.  She has extensive knowledge of spine surgery and manages all aspects of inpatient and outpatient care.  She has participated in numerous publications and has also been an active member of the Physician Assistant Committee at Alvarado Hospital, the North American Spine Society, and the Society for Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery since that time.  In her free time, Jennifer enjoys running for exercise and spending time with her husband, Michael, and son, Jack.  Jennifer was drawn to the field of spine surgery due to the holistic approach needed to maintain optimal spine health and believes that modeling health promotes wellness for patients.

Adrienne Bixby is Dr. Kim’s Office Manager at Spine Institute of San Diego.  She will work with you for your prior authorization so that your insurance might cover your injection.

Caroline Espino is Dr. Kim’s Clinical Supervisor.  Once you have scheduled an appointment at San Diego Sexual Medicine, your contact information will be provided to Caroline so she can schedule your consultation with Dr. Kim coordinated with your visit to Dr. Goldstein.

April Patterson is a physical therapist who serves as a consultant to patients at the Center of Excellence for Genito-Pelvic Dysesthesia.  She specializes in physical therapy after spine surgery for genito -pelvic dysesthesia, in particular persistent genital arousal disorder. You can see her in person or consult on the telephone for guidance in working with your local pelvic floor physical therapist post-operatively.

CTS has a satellite office in San Diego Sexual Medicine to assess Center of Excellence in Genito-Pelvic Dsyesthesia before their surgery in order to optimize post-operative recovery and minimize recurrence of the dysesthesia.  Specialists are Elizabeth Leeds PT, DPT and Rose Schlaff DPT.  As part of your pre-operative assessment you will meet with a pelvic floor physical therapist.  If you are having surgery with Dr. Kim, you will meet with Elizabeth or Rose just before or after surgery to optimize recovery when working with your local pelvic floor physical therapist.