Before I became a psychiatric provider, I spent more than a decade in the trauma bay, on the helicopter, in the back of the ambulance, and on disaster response missions both nationally and internationally.
The patients I treat now are the people I used to work alongside.
I founded Responder First Wellness because the first responders, military service members, healthcare workers, and dispatchers I have known throughout my career deserve psychiatric care that actually understands their world. Fifteen-minute medication checks with a provider who has never set foot in their environment do not work. They know it. Most of them stop showing up after the second visit.
What does work is integrative care: thoughtful psychopharmacology, ketamine and Spravato when indicated, cultural fluency in their world, and a clinician who has been on their side of the curtain.
If you are in this work, or you love someone who is, I would be glad to connect.
