Dr. Miljan Stankovic – Making Northwest Indiana and NorthShore Health Centers Home

miljan-stankovicOriginally from the former Yugoslavia, Dr. Miljan Stankovic is now a physician with NorthShore Health Centers practicing at the local health care provider’s Portage-Scottsdale and Chesterton locations.

Before moving to the United States in 1994 during the Yugoslav Wars, Dr. Miljan Stankovic began his medical career at the University of Belgrade School of Medicine where he studied obstetrics and gynecology.

“For a number of years I was in research and I had my research labs at Boston University,” Dr. Stankovic said. “Then I went and finished my residency at Cornell University in New York City.”

After finishing his residency at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in Brooklyn, Dr. Stankovic decided to strike out and practice medicine in Western and then Upstate New York.

“In 2004, I went to Western New York and stayed there for a little less than two years and then I moved to Upstate New York on the Canadian border,” he said. “I spent time there in private practice for, maybe, seven or eight years and then moved to Indiana.”

“I decided to move after the economy and industry in Upstate New York declined so, a little less than two years ago, I came here.”

In practicing general obstetrics and gynecology, Dr. Stankovic has broad experience working in both a surgical and in-office setting. His work covers the basics, like family planning, contraception, and pregnancy, as well as more advanced areas like managing abnormal bleeding, endocrine problems related to female reproduction, diabetes, infertility and uterine cancer, which is a subject that he deals with quite often.

“We manage just about everything that comes through the door regardless of where they come from,” he said. “We deliver at Porter Regional Hospital and we do all kinds of surgical procedures. We do minimally invasive surgeries and robotics surgery. We are trying to make 99.9% of our patients able to go home the same day or the next day, and to shorten the recovery time, the pain after surgery and get them back to work in a short period of time.”

Dr. Stankovic spoke about how far medical practice has come since he began studying medicine in Europe in saying, “It’s technology and training but it also has to do with setting up expectations of the patients. I’ve been in the business almost 30 years now and, both in Europe and the United States, historically patients would stay in the hospital 6-7 days after delivery. Now we’re sending some patients home after day two.”

“We’ve become more sophisticated and infection is not as much of an issue as it once was,” added Dr. Stankovic. “It’s been great. We’re trying to do things as minimally invasive as possible and to stay ahead of the curve.”

In speaking about moving to Indiana, Dr. Stankovic said, “It’s nice here and I like it. It’s a little bit too rural but I didn’t want to move to Chicago and commute back and forth. It’s really nice to be close to the hospital when they call you.”

“I’m happy,” Dr. Stankovic concluded. “I have a 12 year old daughter in 7th grade and I enjoy the fact that it’s a good school, and I don’t have any hassle worrying about the drive or crime and gangs so that’s a great feature. We go to Chicago quite often and utilize the proximity of the big metropolitan area while living in the country.”

For more information on Dr. Stankovic at Northshore Health Centers, click here.