Healing Body Mind and Heart.
IT would seem in this day and age that where one’s health is concerned, it is like a death sentence to fall ill as health practitioners, namely doctors, are making a killing saving lives.
Gone are the days where our childhood memories of seeing friendly doctors with lollipops, hugs and genuine smiles in the story books led us to yearn to become doctors when we grew older.
Today, whatever is said to keep the doctor away is what we are investing in, as more and more, the sad realisation hits harder with each trip to the hospital or your private doctor, that medicine is money.
Dr. Tanya Destang-Beaubrun however is not your run-of-the-mill doctor. In fact, some might even find her “hippyish”…but this is a label that she wears with pride as she believes that if this is what makes her stand out, then she is honoured.
The Integrated Family Physician/Author/Transformational Coach wants the nation to know that not all is lost and that patients can actually have a relationship with doctors who truly aim to make them feel better wholly. Dr. Destang-Beaubrun is the driving force behind the Rodney Bay Medical Centre which is seeking to change the way patients are treated by health care providers.
Dr. Destang-Beaubrun has been in practice for about 25 years. She first opened a solo practice in 1994 but she always wanted to be a physician and so it was a culmination of her childhood dream to do that, and for many years, that’s what she did. Eventually the solo practice expanded to include a group practice at the Rodney Bay Medical Centre and she wanted to offer more.
She said: “My dream was to always have something in the north so people could be served without having to go through the traffic in town. So when we first opened the solo practice, there was nothing, there were no pharmacies, no diagnostic centres, nothing. Eventually we expanded and we got the lab in, a full diagnostic centre with X-rays, ultrasounds and mammograms, and then we got some specialists in. We then expanded into a group practice so that between 8:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. there is always a doctor here for people to see. .It was a long process and I have seen Rodney Bay develop from the windows of this solo practice when I was in this little office. JQ and Baywalk malls were not built as yet, as well as Rodney Heights, the Bay Gardens Hotels…nothing was there. I was this solo practice in the middle of all this great land with cows roaming around. But there were people who lived around the place and I saw this area and knew I wanted it. I drove past and saw the empty lot and I just visualised it and thought, it would be an excellent spot.
“When you’re sick you need the ease of service. What we do here, we hold your hands through the process and you are doing it in a facility we’ve invested in with the technology and trained staff. If you look around you don’t find this place looking or even smelling like a medical centre and that’s what I think I’m most proud of. I had a vision board years ago for my ideal medical centre, and it came to pass. That’s how Rodney Bay Medical Centre operates. We call it a home for patients as we nurture and take care of them, when they need to be hugged, we wipe their tears, when they cry, we celebrate their joys with them. We cry when we have to give diagnoses that we wished we didn’t have to give, and they know they can call this place their home”.
About four years ago, Dr. Destang-Beaubrun had a series of patient deaths and sad diagnoses and she felt that she wasn’t doing enough, “like I was just becoming a pill pusher”. That’s when she started getting that calling to do more.
She explained: “ I felt like I was just practicing the science of medicine, but when I was a child, I used to read this encyclopaedia called ‘Modern Ways To Health’, and it always showed the doctor sitting at the patient’s bed with his bag, and there seemed to be an art to the practice of medicine. I felt the need to bring that art into what I was doing. I needed to see people as three dimensional…not just to treat the physical aspect but to treat the emotional and spiritual as well”.
The crux of it all came when she had to rewrite a prescription (“I hadn’t written the original one”). Dr. Destang-Beaubrun continued: “It was for nine different drugs for one patient. I looked at the patient and asked: ‘Are you ok taking all of these? Do you want me to see if we could bring that number down from nine to one?’ She said: ‘No no no, I’m fine. I just put them in a box and I take this one at that time…’ I just thought, wow, this is no way to live, because what happens if the drugs no longer become available? She had become totally reliant on the drugs to keep her going and I thought that really and truly, this was not what I had gone to medical school for.
“I said the Hippocratic Oath. I was saying “First Do No Harm” but was I really doing that by giving one drug, and then another to counteract the side effects from the other drug and so on? Or by seeing a patient for 15 years and giving them the same type of medication all along? Essentially, I was treating the disease but not the patient. But I found out about ‘Functional Medicine’ which is focused on patient care vs. disease management and I fell in love with it. I did the courses, and then did Integrative Health Coaching and said it’s time that I start dealing with the minds of patients, because a lot of diseases are linked to certain disorders.
“So we treat the physical but we also work on the emotional. After working with bestselling author Gabrielle Burstein, I soon learnt how to teach one of her courses and that brought me immense satisfaction because then, I was saving emotional lives. That’s when I realised that I was not going to be just a regular doctor. I became a Medical Cook, gathering ingredients of knowledge and experience as I progressed, so when a patient comes to me, I prepare a delicious and unique recipe for him or her….but it’s a healing recipe. That’s what actually keeps me in check and gives me the strength and motivation to push on and not give up”.
Of her goals and patient expectation, Dr. Destang-Beaubrun says she wants her patients to have a nurturing experience with quality care from amazing physicians and staff.
“Patients can expect everything in one. So for instance, if I examine you and find a breast lump, we can go directly to the diagnostic centre for a mammogram, and because it’s digital, withing 10 minutes, you can be referred to the radiologist if needs be and if there is indeed something, you can be sent upstairs for your labs test whilst I ring the surgeon. So that by the time you actually get to the surgeon, he will have your results. Also, the prices just might surprise you as it is nowhere what one would expect from a medical centre in the north of the island”.
