Meet Ilka Nazario, Md

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ilka Nazario, Md. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ilka below.

Hi Ilka, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

I would say I got my work ethic from my upbringing, I was born and raised in Puerto Rico where things do not come easy. My parents are both hard working people. I never experienced them taking anything for granted or slacking in their jobs. They both showed me responsibility and integrity. I have developed my morals through the years with the help of my Catholic faith.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Since I can remember, I always enjoyed volunteering, helping those who needed more. I always wanted to be a doctor. Before I was able to work, I volunteered at Church helping to organize and distributing Christmas gifts for poor children in the area. In college, I volunteered at summer camps for children and adults with disabilities and in a hospital looking for a clinical experience that would reinforce my interest in medicine. Thank God, I was able to go to medical school to make my dream of being a doctor come true. The first year of Medical School, I went to Guatemala as a volunteer in Obras Sociales del Hermano Pedro. I worked there for the summer as a medical assistant. I have been to Haiti approximately 10 times with a medical mission.
I started to get burned out early after residency. The reality of the health system broke my utopia of medicine and healthcare. I have worked in community health centers, in a hospital and for a hospital, in urgent care and as a traveling doctor. All those different experiences have helped me to be where I am today. I just opened my own Direct Primary care practice just over 1 year ago. My vision is to provide the best medical care to my patients without the bureaucracy and hurdles of medical insurances. With this practice, I can spend sufficient time with my patients to personalize a comprehensive plan that helps them stay as healthy as possible. I am also easily accessible by phone, text, or email, so my patients don’t have to wait weeks or months to see me.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Adaptability, bilingual, faith.

Being bilingual has been a great advantage. Knowing how to communicate and understand my patients who speak English or Spanish makes it easier for the patients and for me. I wish I could have learned Creole to be able to communicate with the patients in Haiti and not require using a translator. A lot can be missed with a translator. Learn another language, mostly one that is necessary in your area of study/work.

My faith has helped me adapt to different environments while traveling as a doctor.
Trust that there is a higher power (God) that is in control of everything and that wants the best for everyone. When things do not go your way, know that there has to be a reason and at the end all will be well. Learn from your mistakes and learn to surrender. Life is not a straight line; it is a zigzag.

If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?

The challenge is for people to understand the value of a Direct Primary Care Practice. Nowadays most traditional insurance-based practices need to see a high volume of patients for financial reasons. The fixed membership model of direct Primary Care allows for longer visits, fewer patients per doctor and better patient-doctor relationship. The doctor gets to know you, making it easier and safer to treat any medical problems. With a DPC micro practice, like mine, there is direct access to me by email, text, or phone. Also, the value of seeing a medical doctor over a nurse practitioner or physician assistant is considerable because of the different training that they have. There are a lot of practices that hire mid-levels to care for the patients because they have to pay them less than a doctor but make them see the same number of patients as a doctor.

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