Family medicine - el vaquero

I earned my first strike with Dr. Garza when I spoke my flawed, novice Spanish. He said to us, me and a medical student who also spoke mostly English, that everyone in El Paso should know Spanish!

My week shadowing healthcare professionals has been the most engrossing and valuable part of my internship so far. With Dr. Garza, I learned how he balances aspects of his job like charting and patient care, he explained his use of medications, specialists, and how he troubleshoots.

It was the week of Valentines day, wherein some of the appointments, senoras slipped him Ferraro Roche and 49ers merchandise. He’s a sports guy, and overall, a bit hard to read. Dr. Garzas speciality is Family Medicine and is the medical director of Project Vida. He has been with the Naftzger Clinic for nine years.

I asked him as many questions as I could think of, or I’d ever had about medical school or being a doctor. 

“What was medical school like?”

“I went to school in Juarez.”

“If you could go back, would you change anything about your education?”

“Not really.” 

“How has your work changed with the growth of Project Vida?”

“It hasn’t, really.” 

 He’d say, “Let’s go look at some more people.”

I’d say, “Cool” and follow. 

A doctor, as a concept, is sometimes unsettling. Their ability to feel for a liver through a stomach, knowing the spot. I witnessed cases of plantar fasciitis, hypertension, hernias, diabetes, hepatitis C, arthritis, herpes, and a muscular injury. I observed minor surgery with the removal of a birth control arm implant and then watched again as another one was inserted, which threw me for a loop. Afterwards, I found myself asking around, offhandedly, if others had a hard time with blood. Some did, most didn’t. 

In time between appointments, Dr. Garza would chart.

“Why did you go into medicine?”

“It’s a good office job, nine to five.” 

I got to meet a lot of interesting patients, or at least, watch in a corner as someone else met them. They were quite diverse and all presented with varying levels of worry surrounding their bodily soundness. There was a tumultuous reality to medical professionals: they repeatedly delivered hard news to people without any resources, sometimes just out of prison, recovering addicts, or homeless. They continued care for patients who had returned to the clinic non-compliant and sicker. 

The 15-minute appointments they had, per insurance mandates, seemed to leave no time for satisfying education or instruction. Dr. Garza endured the repetitive, emotional, non-stop nature of technical, medical decision making in a busy, high-need clinic.

...

At the end of my shadowing experience, I shook his hand. I got a good look at his face, which made me realize how much time we spent not looking at each other; him charting, me staring at the wall.

“Make sure medicine is something you want, or you’ll be miserable.” He said.

“Yeah.” chimed in Dr. Payne, an internist.

…

I take it all back to when I met him on my first tour of the Naftzger clinic, when the papers approving my visit were still going through, and I didn’t know if I was going to be able to shadow him as an undergrad. My guide and I passed by the provider’s room, where he sat at his station.

He’s been shadowed by lots of medical students, asked every question, it shows. But in that moment, I scrambled, not sure how things would work out, or if I would see him again.

I gestured generally to the clinic.

“So, how do you like it?”

Medicine, I meant. He understood. 

He raised his eyebrows, showed me his palms, and replied:

“I love it.”

February 16th, 2020