After more than 20 years in a career path I love, yesterday felt like my first day as a Family Medicine resident. I was rehearsing in my head what I had been doing thousands of times, but this time was different. The encounter was like many others I’ve had in my years as physician: Me and the patient sitting in an exam room. I was asking the usual questions I had learned to ask in med school and had rehearsed throughout the years. I felt the comfort and ease to ask whatever a doctor is supposed to ask. Open- ended questions that as the patient’s story unfolds start turning into a more closed-ended inquiries. All of a sudden, I looked at the screen and there was a timer set by the EMR system we are now using in this new practice. I gasped inside as I realized I had spent already almost double the time I was allotted in the past to spend with a patient, and I was still getting a history.
My mind was flooded with the “reality” of modern medicine; someone must be waiting and I have to rush and finish with this visit, or else I will be running behind the rest of the day. However, in an instant, I realized my new situation; that is not my truth anymore. This is my practice and I can see my patients at my own pace. Sounds impossible, sounds even irresponsible in this date and age, moreover it seems to break the laws of healthy financial management. I now believe it is worth the riskI came from a place of burn out, dissatisfaction, and realization that there is a great need for the services we offer. Years ago I started learning about complex trauma in the general population, and developed an interest to be educated on this subject.What was a simple curiosity about the mysterious reality of human exploitationtook me to a new place that I did not know much about. I developed a huge thirst to learn more about what I had discovered, and deep inside I knew it was the reality of many patients I was seeing every day.
Traumatic stress can affect our general health and in ways many ignore. I discovered that it can increase the chances of developing common chronic diseases’ risk exponentially. I started observing my patients, asking question I never used to ask before, and then the epiphany of how common this problem is dawned on me. I developed a passion to manage this problem, but unfortunately, this type of knowledge is not very popular or well known in the medical field, even though research and evidence have been available for decades.
It was just a few years ago that trauma-informed practices became one way to do medicine in our country. I wanted that! I wanted to become a physician that applied a trauma-informed perspective to the way I treated my patients. I could apply all the principles we learned a doctor is supposed to live by in med school. I can take my time and be compassionate, caring, and effective in managing people’s conditions without rushing the visit. As I learned in my residency, in many instances I will be unable to cure someone but I can always partner with them in a healing journey. That is, as a Family Physician, what guides my career and makes every day with my patients worth everything I can offer.