Lee County family planning medical director steps down due to employer OSF HealthCare reproductive care policy

DIXON — The Lee County Health Department has selected a new family planning medical director after its former director was told by their new employer, OSF HealthCare, to step down due to the Catholic health system’s restrictive policies for reproductive care, LCHD’s administrator says.

The health department’s new family planning medical director, Dr. Christine Doyle, an OB/GYN at UW Health Swedish American Hospital in Rockford and a former KSB OB/GYN, has replaced Dr. John Plescia, former KSB - now OSF - family medicine physician in Oregon.

OSF took over operations at KSB, an independent hospital based in Dixon, on Jan. 1 and all KSB employees that decided to stay, including Plescia, became OSF employees.

Shortly after the takeover, OSF “informed Dr. Plescia that because of their policy on women’s health care, he would no longer be able to serve in the position of our family planning medical director,” LCHD Administrator Cathy Ferguson said in an interview with Shaw Local.

Like other Catholic health systems, OSF follows the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, which guides provider practices based on the teachings of the Catholic church. The directives outline several limitations to reproductive care specifically for medical birth control and contraceptive practices, terminating a pregnancy, infertility treatments and alternatives.

[ Dixon’s KSB Hospital merger with Catholic organization sparks reproductive healthcare concerns ]

“I’m trying to play nice. I’m trying to be collaborative, but I was a little upset about the whole thing,” Ferguson said.

Plescia served as the department’s family planning medical director for about nine years while employed by KSB, Ferguson said.

The director is a volunteer position acting as an oversight role and does not directly treat patients. The director signs standing orders from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control that allow the department to operate on a day-to-day basis and is the collaborating physician to LCHD physician assistant Courtney Teller, Doyle said in an interview with Shaw Local.

By law, in Illinois, physician assistants are required to have a written agreement with a collaborating physician.

To assume the role, Doyle notified her employer - UW Health - which had “no problem” partly because it’s a volunteer position and “I’m kind of behind the scenes, but they didn’t really question it,” she said.

“In our profession, family planning is sometimes equated to abortion, and part of the policies of the department is with counseling patients, not providing abortion care or anything like that, but rather telling people their options,” Doyle said. “It may just be that it’s easier just to say no because there’s certainly things that the health department provides information on, evidence-based practice, that they (OSF) disagree with.”

OSF HealthCare and Plescia declined Shaw Local’s request for interview.

“We worked really well with Dr. Plescia and were sorry to see him go, but we’re very fortunate to have found somebody else to take his place,” Ferguson said.

Doyle said that Plescia leaving “happened a little suddenly” and Ferguson “was frantically looking for someone to fill the role.”

Ferguson asked Doyle, who joined the Lee County Board of Health in fall 2024, to fill the role and she was excited to step up for the position, but, Doyle said, “I had to backtrack a little bit” thinking “I better talk with my lawyer.”

Although it’s a volunteer position, certain no-compete clauses prohibited her from assuming the role and the department had to wait to “get the OK from OSF that I (Doyle) could proceed without getting sued,” Doyle said.

During that waiting period, the health department had to pause any operations that fell under the family planning medical director for about a day and a half. That pause included canceling some patients' appointments.

“I was grateful they (OSF) were willing to work with me,” Doyle said.

Without a family planning medical director, the health department would not be able to offer family planning services which “has been the answer” to OSF Saint Katharine Medical Center’s - formerly KSB’s - new restrictive policies.

[ Administrator: Lee County Health Department offers reproductive services not provided by new Catholic hospital ]

Doyle, a former KSB employee, said “in my last months at KSB, we were referring a lot of patients here (the health department) knowing that we wouldn’t be able to continue prescriptions or whatever it was through OSF.”

The health department has also been planning for a change in health care services in the county.

When Doyle filled the open spot on the Lee County Board of Health, Ferguson “was specifically looking for someone with a commitment to women’s health to be a voice on the board as we knew that the landscape in the community was changing in terms of access or contraception,” Doyle said.

Doyle had been an OB/GYN at KSB for about four years when the hospital announced in May 2024 that it would be merging with OSF.

“My initial reaction was like, ‘OK, well, I need to leave,’” Doyle said.

She spent some time debating the decision and tried to find out what OSF’s policies would be for women’s and reproductive care, specifically for contraception.

OSF does “not promote or condone contraceptive practices,” according to ERD directive No. 52.

That includes birth control methods such as taking prescribed medication or getting an implantation, and procedures including a tubal ligation or a vasectomy, according to directives 52 and 53.

OSF physicians can purchase what’s called a “limited private practice,” which allows them to act independently of OSF, but even with that license physicians still have some restrictions. One example is they can’t implant copper intrauterine devices, Doyle said.

In the end, Doyle - one of only two OB/GYNs at KSB - turned in her resignation on Nov. 1, she said.