Integrative Rheumatology | Episode 31
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Sick of the fatigue and fog? Fed up with the unpredictable flares? Hangry from the super restrictive diets?
Hello and welcome to the Crunchy Allergist Podcast.
A podcast empowering those who, like me, appreciate both a naturally minded and scientifically grounded approach to health and healing.
Hi, I'm your host, Dr. Kara Wada. Quadruple Board Certified Pediatric and adult allergy immunology and lifestyle medicine physician, Sjogren's patient, and life coach.
My recipe for success combines anti-inflammatory lifestyle, trusting therapeutic relationships, modern medicine, and mindset to harness our body's ability to heal.
Now, although I might be a physician, I'm not your physician and this podcast is for educational purposes only.
Kara Wada, MD: Welcome everyone back to this episode of the Crunchy Allergist Podcast.
As we talk about all things allergy autoimmunity and anti-inflammatory living, and I think there's probably no better guest that fits that whole paradigm.
Dr. Isabelle Amigues. She is a physician-scientist with a specialty in rheumatology.
She trained both in France and at Columbia and New York City, and now she's based out of Denver, Colorado.
She is the author of multiple book chapters in scientific articles in rheumatology, but at age 40.
Really in the midst of a lot of upheaval in her personal life, she was diagnosed with stage four metastatic breast cancer.
It was really with that circumstance that a timely meeting with a nontraditional trained practitioner taught her a different approach to disease.
Since that time, she's experienced the power of meditation and visualization, energy, healing and love.
And it's her journey through cancer that inspired her to learn more about these alternative methods.
Now she's studied many of them and has integrated them into her own practice of medicine.
And she has a fabulous podcast of her own, which I encourage you all to check out.
We'll link to it in the show notes, but it's called UnAbridgedMD that you can find in all the places that you listen to us.
Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Isabelle.
I am so excited to finally connect and welcome.
Isabelle Amigues, MD: Thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure to talk with you and with your listeners.
I love your work and so it's a real honor to be here.
Kara Wada, MD: Can you share a little bit more?
You know, certainly shared a little bit of a snippet about your journey in your bio, but tell us a little more about your journey.
How did you end up where you are now?
Isabelle Amigues, MD: Yeah, that's a very good question.
Thank you for asking this question.
So you said it, but basically I was just few months before turning 40.
It just hit me, I had finished my two trainings in medical school and residency number one, residency number two, fellowship one, fellowship two.
And I had moved to Colorado and I loved Colorado. But suddenly I just felt sad and I think I was burnt out in the sense of, I didn't feel like I had autonomy.
I didn't feel that like being a doctor, I had always dreamed of being a doctor and I love what I do, but there was just no sense.
There was no sense in my research there. There was just no sense.
So I turned 40 in the middle of a big snow, we called it a snowmagedon.
So I didn't actually get to do anything for my 40th birthday.
And it was this epitomy of this is how bad I feel. I was really depressed. I would cry for no reason.
It went really fast.
Then I looked in the shower and I see this gigantic mask.
First spot in your mind, it's this is cancer then you're like, "No, this is too big, so it has to be something else."
I started thinking of all of those different diagnosis and I was like, "Oh, it's not, it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be something else."
The cool thing is that when I had turned 40, I'd offered myself this trip to France.
So when I got this tumor I actually went to get a biopsy and ultrasound and so on.
Literally the night of the day of the biopsy, I went to take my plane and I traveled to France where I was surrounded with friends and family.
And it's really funny how life turns out.
It's not really my family per se that supported me that much.
It's really my friends and when I got the call to tell me that, "yes, indeed it was, and it was stage at least three, because the lymph nodes were involved.
At that moment like just as I hang up the phone, telling me that I have this stage at least three cancer.
My friend calls me and she's not a doc, and she's like,
"Oh, Isabella, of course you're doing this stage.
You're doing breast cancer for your existential crisis because that's you, right?
You have to do it. "
She starts laughing at me.
So instead of looking at me like with pity and I'm so sorry.
She actually gives me this energy and she's,
" Oh yeah, you're just gonna get you're doing you're doing fine.
This is just a way to get out of your midlife crisis.
Welcome! You're gonna show us how it's done!"
And I'm on the phone and I'm like, "I guess you're right. Maybe that was just like, Oh man, my midlife crisis is over. That was a short one."
Kara Wada, MD: she's, I went from breast cancer is Hype girl.
Isabelle Amigues, MD: I know, right?
Yeah. And we all need Jo in our life. But it was literally, I went from, I'm super sad and she was like, supporting me for this midlife crisis and I was like so sad, so depressed.
And here I have this horrible diagnosis and she's like,
"No, this is great. This is what allows you to get out of it."
And man, was she right?
Because it's like almost, I had this thing of
" Okay, now I really need to figure this out. Like, why am I here? What do I want?"
And the truth is that I have always looked at complimentary medicine a little bit on the, "Oh yeah. Whatever."
I had never been a patient until that time, right?
And suddenly I'm like,
"Wow. I'm sorry, but like I need the placebo on my side.
Because even if it's just placebo, it's 30% and I'm gonna get it on my side.
And I don't care how you call it, if you cut it placebo, or if you call it energy healing.
I want it all."
I just met this naturopath that you mentioned, and we didn't actually do a work of naturopaths.
But what I've learned is that we did a work of just her listening to me and oh my goodness, was it powerful!
Because she's listening to me and I'm telling her,
" Look, I'm literally here for one day."
I was in France for three days or four days, and I'm like, and I'm in Lyon only for one day and a half. Can you see me?"
And she saw me.
She actually opened her office for Saturday just to see me.
And I was like, "Wow, she's so professional and just so caring."
So there was that and then she listens to me and I'm like,
"Look, this is where I was and I was like, so sad.
And there's this issue with my marriage and this thing with my kids where I feel guilty and so on."
And she just listens and she starts like giving me a sense to the cancer.
And here's the thing, I try not to do that with patients because that's not my job to give a sense to the conditions we have.
But it was so powerful to me because it was like this idea that I can learn from the condition that I have.
And I'm going to learn and instead of being in a fighting mode, I was like, in a understanding mode.
Like, why is this here? What can I learn?
And if I had to have, and especially when I learned that I had stage four.
I had to be in this sense, like I became so vulnerable and so open to anything, and I was just like, "Okay, I need to learn."
It doesn't mean that I'm gonna have sharlatans taking care, like taking advantage of me.
Like you still have your boundaries.
But learning as much as I could from my condition was like where I went and it was super powerful because instead of seeing the cancer as an enemy, which is literally how I used to be as a physician, I would see the conditions.
You would see the conditions as like enemy, like exactly fighting mode, and we've gotta fight this.
You're like,
" Hey, is there a way that you can come up with just being at peace with your body and like understanding that you are working with your body and that your body's telling you something."
And in fact, at that moment I was like it's funny.
Stage three cancer. I don't think I would've listened to my body as much.
But like stage four, oh my God, it had my attention, like my full attention .
So yeah that's really where, yeah, where it came from and I like, you know those words from the naturopath,
"Don't see it as an enemy."
See it as a friend that's coming to tell you something and the moment you've understood, like any good friend is gonna go away.
You know in your mind sometimes I was like, "Hey friend, you really have to be a good friend, don't stay."
But it was super powerful and just this realization that all of this work.
The, I don't know, qigong, acupuncture, naturopathy, medicine.
I only saw her once. I never really worked with a naturopath after that, but just like listening and the power of love.
And that's something that's really important for my new practice is I don't wanna feel bad telling my patients that I actually really love them because I do.
I really fully care for my patients.
And the truth is I get to know them in a moment of pure vulnerability and to say, "
Look, I care for you. I do. And that's actually the reason I'm living."
Cuz I'm like, " I don't wanna be in an institution that like in a place where I have to see patient after patient because then I cannot care as much."
I think love is an infinite, but the truth is that, I care so much that I need to have a certain amount of patient that I can really care for.
That's how I see and I wanna be able to say how much I care for my patients because I do because I really do.
And I think that there is a huge amount of ah, how do you call that?
So like caring for your patient really allows the patient to get better because you're empowering them.
You're basically saying,
"Hey look, I really care for you.
Don't ever feel that you're bothering me cuz you never bother me."
Even if you're asking me,
"Hey, there's this side effect, is this side effect. Am I being anxious?"
Yeah, I'm here to reassure you.
That's my job to reassure you.
So yeah, it's really changed my practice of medicine cuz I've just realized.
I was like, "Wow. I was just a technician."
I wasn't, I was, I think I was starting to be that way anyway, but it just, tilted me over.
So yeah. That's in a nutshell the transformation of of me as a physician.
Kara Wada, MD: Yeah. I think your description and philosophy about the placebo effect resonated so much.
When I've heard you say that because with Sjogren's, like we don't have quite as many tools in our toolbox as my friends with rheumatoid arthritis or maybe even psoriatic arthritis or some of these other conditions.
And so I was like if I have hydroxychloroquine and nothing really else until things get really bad.
And then I need Rituxin, I was like, "Let's try all this other stuff."
Like what's it gonna hurt to try to eat some more vegetables or get some more some movement that's like loving movement to my body.
There have been some times when I've overdone it with the exercise.
And really worked to change some of that self-talk that I think so many of us that are in careers such as medicine, but other professional careers.
There's this tendency for us on the whole to have that negative internal talk.
Isabelle Amigues, MD: But that's super interesting because at first I experienced all of those as you, as a patient or, as many of our patients do.
I really, I just experienced them.
I had this battle in my head, which is like left brain.
One friend, actually made me realize because I was talking and I was like,
" There's this voice telling me that this is bs. This is not real."
But I'm like, "But it's working. "
And she's like, "You do realize that you're actually putting your hand next to your left brain and your right brain."
I was like, "Oh my gosh. "
And and so I had this fight.
Like I would be sitting, like lying down on a, I don't know, I did ricky once and I did a lot of Chico energy, Chico, right?
And I would be like in my head and I was like, This is not real. And my other brain would be like, Yeah, but it's making you feel so good. And so there was that. And then the other thing is that then, I experienced it and all this, and then once I was.
Doing less of it, but having more time to learn about it. I started looking at studies and there is a ton of studies on visualization on so visualization on diet, like on nutrition with whole food, plant based there's a ton of studies. There's a ton of studies on not like exercise and so on, and you're like, Okay.
I can stop talking about this because, I could say that this is not in my lane, but like my lane is to help my patient empower themself and help my patient get better and yeah, yeah, it's easy to say, Hey, take kin. It's gonna make you feel better. But there's a lot of other things you can do and the power of the word also, right?
I'm like, as a physician, I wanna tell you, hey, it doesn't have to get worse. It can actually, your sugar rank can actually stay where it's at or even get better, How about this maybe your chagrin is gonna get better and you don't have to worry about it and just, let the doctor worry about it, and do the better work.
Yeah. But there are studies like the power of the words. There's studies on how, if you tell a patient certain words that are gonna. Not do as well. And so on. And I think that it's super powerful. What we say to the patient is so important because it takes a lot to be against the doctor, right?
It takes a lot to be like, No, I'm not gonna listen to this. And so yeah, our words have to be affirmative and really positive and very supportive. And empowering, right? I'm telling you like affirmations, like that's the only one. I haven't looked, but I'm sure there's studies, but visualization, like visualization helps people who have rheumatoid arthritis, that's the one I've looked at have less need for me.
And they get better. And you're like, Wow. If I tell my patients to start visualizing themselves healthy and doing well, they have less need for step up therapy. Versus controlled, and you're like, Wow, like this is so powerful. I'm gonna start telling all of my patients about visualization.
Yeah. So yeah. Yeah.
Kara Wada, MD: One thing that I you can't obviously see, but in front of me, I have a whiteboard with one of the big, like post-it notes and I have some of. Things that are my, like my aspirations. And at the bottom it says I will be flare free. And I shared a screenshot of that recently and there was some discussion amongst some of my colleagues and peers about that.
And, and I think. The question was, is that far fetched or is that setting myself up for failure? And I instead choose to say No, this is my goal and this is what I am working towards. But I also am coming at that with this idea that. and the thought that even if I do flare it's not my fault.
It's not. No. By some moral failing of my own. And so I think that, you, those things, you just need to approach them with this, with that sense of like love and compassion for yourself.
Isabelle Amigues, MD: Yeah. Your. It's so interesting, Kara, because I have the same thing eh again I had this realization that my life may be over, sooner than a lot of people.
And so I realized like, what is it that, what's really important for me? What is really important for me? And then, so I did like my first vision board during that time. And the first thing on top is, this Cancer free. Cured I actually don't use. And again, like this is a, this is just something to think about.
Like in psychology 1 0 1 for kids, you never, you try not to use negative words, so you don't say, don't fall. You say Watch where you put your feet. You don't say, don't do that. You say, Hey, do this. And so for me, I don't say I will not have a, I cannot even put the name, I use remission.
I am cured, so I use, I am cured. So you could put I'm in remission. I am in remission. And I put it and I put it like it's on in front of me. I'm looking at it every morning and sometime I forget that it's here and then I'll put it. And I was like, Yeah, that is the most important, like out of everything in my life.
Being cured right now is the most important, and I will make sure that's what my life is going for, right? So I'm gonna make sure that my diet is good. I make sure that I do visualization. I, and that's still, that's still the most important thing. Look, I again, I looked at this cuz I, I like to do things and I, I'm a nerd, so I look at things scientifically.
The truth is that people who are, highly successful people who are high athletes, all Ians and and very successful how do you call that? The people, I'm thinking of violinists, but performers, they all do visualization. They all do it all of the time.
And they visualize themself in that position of success. And if we use that, and like I was looking at a documentary about this, like how we're looking, you're doing a ton of visualization. Like Michael Ps uses a ton of visual, used a ton of visualization so that you are in that mind flow.
You're in this thing. I really believe that if they do this in sport, in, orchestra, like a music in in. That there's no reason why it doesn't work. Also in medicine, the thing though is that you probably have to be sure that you're not freaking out about the flare, That you're not freaking out about the relapse.
And so that's like something that I work on out of the time, , and I use help. I asked my partner to remind me that I'm cured and I'm healthy, and, , because I just wanna be in that mindset with the idea like you. Anything can happen and that's okay, but at least I've done my part and I'll, whatever happens, I'll be okay.
And that's the same thing, The truth with flare. And I wanna share this as a rheumatologist. If you have a flare, we have a ton of medication. And so for me if there were to be how do you call that? Relapse? That's the word. Yeah. If you have words, because I keep thinking remission.
Remission, but that's a good thing. Remission, right? Yeah. But if there were anything else than remission in my life, we have treatments and that's where, it's actually important to be like, Yeah, I'm gonna focus on the good because I know. No. Like climbing, if I fall there's a rope, I'm not gonna die.
There's a rope, right? Yeah. So I'm just gonna think of the end of that climb. . Yeah. So I just wanted to share
Kara Wada, MD: this. Yeah. So many times, even like something as trivial is I recall like so many times I would worry about a particular. Clinic maybe that I have coming up and I look at the schedule and I'm overbooked, or there are a couple patients that I know require more time and energy and I would get myself all worked up like about this situation and how it was gonna be a horrible day and spend a lot of energy and time and stress worrying about it.
And more often than not, everything would work out. Yeah, it would be fine. and I'm like, I just got myself in all sorts of like catay, yeah. All the things. Stress hormones. For no reason. And I think, that's what kind of finally resonated and clicked of like why just, it will work out.
Just keep chugging along, and working on recognizing those thoughts and. Oh, that's the silly brain being silly again.
Isabelle Amigues, MD: Yeah. But it's interesting.
I think a lot of our work with patient is to do exactly that, which is " Hey, we're here to make sure that you live your best life."
And a lot of the time I realize that a lot of my patients, the first time and they are so worried of what could be.
You're like, "No, don't worry about that.
Worry about I want you to get to 100%.
That's really where we're going, 100% improvement. "
And suddenly they have eyes and like, "What you're like telling me your vision for me is to get to 100%."
I'm like, "Yeah, that's my vision. We're gonna aim for this."
" So that you are in that mindset of I'm gonna do my best. "
It's like the schrodinger cat, right?
It's look where the cat is alive, not where the cat is dead.
Like I would rather focus on where the cat is alive.
So I'm going there knowing that it's okay, whatever happens, right?
And then you can deal with it. Yeah.
But worrying in advance, most of the time, especially in health, doesn't actually help.
The doc is here to make sure that we prevent things, Sjogren, we do a ton of blood work just like once a year.
Why? Because we can pick up things way earlier than if they are like a problem, right?
But that should not be my patient worrying about that.
It should be as a physician.
So that's what I tell, right?
Give me your stress because I know how to deal with it.
That should not be your stress.
And I don't deal it as it's stress. I deal it as " Hey, this is data."
All right, you have a low C four, fine. That's it.
Like we're just gonna follow it and that's it.
You don't have to start like worrying as a physician if you're a patient.
And that's really like an important thing for me, where it's I need to be a patient not a physician when I'm dealing with my own thing.
Kara Wada, MD: Which is so hard.
Isabelle Amigues, MD: It is. It is. It is.
Kara Wada, MD: Yeah. Yeah. I love that though, of being able to give that worry over.
And really that is that something that I'm just totally so fascinated by is this idea of really the trusting relationship we have with our patients and that exchange of vulnerable information that we share with one another.
I get frustrated at times.
I think I'm very fortunate in the setting I'm in, that I've still been able to keep appointment slots long enough.
But I see how often that's not the case and all of the other barriers that come into play that really with our kind of our modern existence.
We know more about the human body than we have known ever right now and we have technology at our fingertips.
But so much of that also comes between the human to human connection that we have between the person who's suffering and the person who has called to heal.
And it sounds like from what you're doing is you're really trying to break through a lot of that with your practice.
Isabelle Amigues, MD: Yeah. I think that it sounds so cliche and it's the word corny in English. Yeah.
That's the love, right?
It came from this realization I may Die.
This is what I realized.
I was like, "Wow. Man, what's the most important thing in my life?"
And I was like, love.
And I got it from everywhere I could get it because I was like, "This is literally the most important thing."
It's me loving and me being loved.
And I really believe that the relationship we have with our patient is exactly that.
And that's actually one, one of the reason. I could not stay in this situation I am at, is that not that I don't like PAs and NPs.
But I love seeing my patients so much that I don't want to share them with other people.
When it comes to my rheumatology practice, I just want to see them.
I wanna know what's going on, and I'm just not at a level where I wanna share.
Like if I could see them often enough, yes, maybe.
But like I just felt like I was seeing them once every seven months or once every year.
And I'm missing that part of the care that I can provide.
Because it's a two way thing.
I get something in return.
Like I'm doing this as a passion.
I continue to be a doctor throughout, chemo and radiation therapy and surgery.
I never stopped.
And because it feeds me and the moment you realize,
"Yeah, there is love."
And the truth that sometimes we have patients that don't like us and we feel it, right?
And you're like, Why not?
But at the same time you're like, "It's okay. Maybe they like someone else and that's totally fine."
Because I know that the care that I can provide is better if they love me and if I love them.
But I use that word and I really think it's so important to realize that, cuz you know our books, our science, it's like, "How often do you hear Doc saying that I love you?
Like I don't know, very little actually.
It's almost we are asked not to have feelings when we see our patients.
But come on, we are human being and we all have feelings.
When you look at the Medicare student, they are so much more loving than a huge amount of attendings.
I think the burnout comes from there.
Your burnout because you are basically being asked to stop loving.
I don't know, maybe it's corny. It's just that's what I think.
Kara Wada, MD: Oh my gosh.
I don't remember if it was maybe in my fourth year or intern year, but I got not really reprimanded, but people telling me like,
" You're spending too much time with the patients."
"You're caring too much. "
I hadn't thought that a long time, and you do wonder, I play around with this idea sometimes of the masculine and feminine energy and kind of how there has been a really pretty seismic shift in medical practice over the last 30 years or so.
And I guess my hope is that maybe with female presence, then maybe we will be able to embrace some of those traits that are thought of is more feminine.
Isabelle Amigues, MD: I don't know.
I've never seen it like that.
That's actually very interesting because, the way I see the best practice, I keep thinking of the old dogs that I used to see when I was a kid, and they were really old and the truth is that, one of my mentor right now is 80.
Now he's probably 86.
Super, super smart. Former pediatrician.
And and he's the one who actually taught me about this loving relationship within the patient and the physician.
And I was like, "Wow" and at first I was like, "No, it cannot be just love."
And then I realized, He's right. He's so right.
And the truth is that, He's a man.
He's a man. And when you think of all those old doctors that used to take care of a whole village and all this, they were men a lot.
So I don't know that it's a masculine feminine.
What I wonder is if women are not embracing this love that they have towards their patients because of whatever reason, right?
And so you're not being true to yourself.
And because you're not true to yourself, you don't provide the best care you could both for your patient and for yourself.
Cuz every time you heal someone, you're healing yourself too.
Kara Wada, MD: Yeah. And that's a big alignment with your values.
Isabelle Amigues, MD: Yeah. Yeah. That's word. That's word alignment. I like that word. Yeah. But yeah.
If you are true to yourself, yes. You do wanna hug your patients.
Kara Wada, MD: Oh, that's missed so much this last couple years.
Isabelle Amigues, MD: Oh yeah. Oh, I've done it again, cause I'm like it's mostly, I'm like, Are you ok? Yeah. Of course I ask, but yeah. I'm like,
Oh, I have a mask on. They have a mask on. I can hug .
It's okay. At least I hope.
But yeah, no It's a really fascinating, I think we are at a crossroad and I dunno if it's just me, seeing it more.
And that's again, comes from the visualization.
The more you're visualizing, the more you're seeing.
But I think that's what we're gonna see.
We're gonna see there's more and more doctors that are burnouts.
And one of the reason for burnout is that you lose the sense of why you were doing things or there's no sense, or you have no autonomy.
And I'm seeing this where we're just gonna start doing what we feel is right.
And I think in a way, Covid was this ignition.
Just, "Yeah, I'm gonna do what's right for me. "
Because ultimately that's the most important.
Like it's, on vision board, number one is you, number one is me, and that's absolutely fine.
You need to be caring for yourself and then you can care for others.
I think I'm actually super optimistic same thing then with the cancer.
The cancer was the bottom, but it allowed to get out and get in a better place than where I was before.
And oh, boy is it such a better place?
And I think it's the same, like we're seeing a lot of burnout, but it's gonna lead to better care.
It's gonna lead to I think physician realizing why they are here for getting back in alignment to what their goals are and just, yeah, I think loving what they do, what we do.
Kara Wada, MD: Yeah. I think so too.
And I think patients are realizing that as well.
And, seeing there's a lot of discussion in the chronic illness autoimmune community about this role and the discussion of medical gas lighting.
And one of my interests in the clinic and with trainees is, where do we see like it go awry?
The medical students that we've worked with, like they are so bright-eyed and pushy tailed and like they are like wanting to heal the world.
And it's not too far along after where you see, rates of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, all these things skyrocket.
Especially as they get further into their training, one of the first things we know is you lose your empathy for others.
And so where can we turn that around?
And it's really, it's that human to human connection.
Isabelle Amigues, MD: Yeah. That's so true. Yeah.
Kara Wada, MD: I feel like we could talk for hours.
Isabelle Amigues, MD: Yeah. Oh, for sure.
Kara Wada, MD: If someone were looking to establish care with you where can they find you?
Where do you see patients?
Isabelle Amigues, MD: Oh, thank you so much.
Yeah, so I'm on a bridge, MD in rheumatology so far cuz I have this big vision and it's gonna happen.
It's on my vision board.
I'm a holistic practice with energy healing and movement and nutrition and community.
Cause it's a huge deal for me to have a community.
So I actually created a community here where we're starting to create a community.
But yeah, for the medical care.
So unabridgemd.com, there is a contact form in there where I put, I would love for anyone that needs a rheumatologist to put their information so I can get them on the wait list and then I can see them from January to March. It'll be telehealth.
And then after that it's gonna telehealth or video, and then after that it's gonna be brick and mortar or telehealth.
Gonna be like starting in March.
And I have this podcast Unabridgedmd where I talk just about health, a little bit about rheumatology, a lot about mindset because I think that health is about a lot about mindset.
And just, having guests like you.
Super, super cool guest.
And yeah, I think that's it.
So far, I'm licensed in Colorado, Wisconsin, Michigan, and I'm going to see if I can do a little bit more around Colorado just because there's very few rheumatologist.
I feel as a rheumatologist personally, like my job is to listen a lot and I can I'm a very good diagnostician.
That's probably because of the dual training in France and in the us.
But I usually have a pretty good sense of what's going on.
And I can make a diagnosis I wanna say 90% of my diagnosis is made just on listening to the patient and then, 5% exam and then 5% over test.
The goal is to allow a lot of people to come to my clinic.
And my goal, and I'm gonna put it out there so it's there, my good is to, I'm not gonna take insurance, but my goal is at one point to have enough the practice to take scholarships patients.
So that even those who cannot necessarily afford the fees, they can still be seen because in a way the community is allowing that.
So yeah, I talked a lot about it, but it's just because it's such a beautiful vision, so yeah.
Kara Wada, MD: Oh, and please, if there's anything I can do to help support that.
I think that's the paradigm of care that It just makes me like really excited about where medicine's going.
And a lot of folks in the community, that you and I connected through, that there really is a movement for taking back medicine and really making it taking those elements of what it used to be, but make any even better than.
Isabelle Amigues, MD: Yes I'm with you on that.
And I think you are right.
And I think those kind of discussion and hearing that I'm very excited.
I'm very excited for my own center, but it's not mine.
It's for the people, right? It's for patients.
So I'm excited about that center.
But I'm so excited about seeing and I agree with you.
I think we're all like-minded.
This group of people who is like, "Nope, I'm gonna do medicine on my terms because that's the best medicine. "
So I'm with you. I'm very optimistic for the future, really. .
Kara Wada, MD: Oh, thank you so much Dr. Isabelle.
I really appreciate your time. Thank you.
Your energy, your expertise, your vulnerability. All of it.
And we will make sure to put all the links to UnabridgeMD, the YouTube channel, Twitter, Instagram, all of those things on the show notes.
And we'll have to do this again soon.
Isabelle Amigues, MD: Yes. Thank you. You come on my podcast next .
Kara Wada, MD: That sounds good.
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