The Sabbatical Doctor Part 1: Questioning Modern Medicine

Dr. Linda Alvarez joins Coach Britt for the first of four sessions covering a holistic perspective on health care. In this first series Dr. Linda tells her interesting story of sabbatical during the middle of her residancy and how she started questioning the health care model while still in training. 

Check out her story and her valuable insight into a medical doctor's education and how she sought to work outside of the box. 

You can find Dr. Linda at levellenutrition.com 

Thinking about getting certified as a Holistic Gut Practitioner, looking for a personal Gut Restoration Program, coach certification or maybe you want to try our FREE course "How to integrate gut and nervous system health into your wellness practice" HERE

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Speaker 1 0:03

What if every experience, every hardship, every obstacle was given to you not to break you, but to mold you and strengthen you. What if the center of your suffering was actually the key to ultimate health? And what if your own pain was meant to be the catalyst for your purpose ? Welcome to bud belly life. Empowering purpose, mind to microbiome.

Speaker 2 0:28

Welcome to the bud belly life podcast. I am coach Burt and we are so excited to finally be joined today by Dr. Linda Alvarez. She is a medical doctor and MBA holder with over 10 years of experience, including roles in national, regional advocacy and nonprofit work. Thank you, Dr . Linda, for being here through many tech issues, through all kinds of rescheduling, through different things on our end, I am so excited. This you're gonna be an epic series to have on here with all the fun things you have to share because of what it's taken for us to be here. You are also my most patient interviewee.

Speaker 3 1:06

Oh my goodness. I, it is my pleasure to be here. I am so excited to be on the podcast and that we're doing it and that it's happening. I feel the same way. This is going to be the best podcast because of everything that happened before.

Speaker 2 1:20

And we are really record . Now , we just did some great information for about nine minutes that was not being recorded. So we are re going to get into , um, Dr . Linda's incredible story of medical training , um, and the pivot she made as well as the, in interesting and totally unique sabbatical. She took in the middle of her medical training. So Dr . Linda , tell us, tell us about this story.

Speaker 3 1:52

Yeah. So , um, I think you really encapsulated it well, because when I start to tell people about my story and, you know, my medical, any my career path, it's definitely not linear.

Speaker 2 2:07

Nothing is right.

Speaker 3 2:08

Oh, never is all of the good stuff is isn't linear, you know? Um, but I feel so rewarded and so empowered because I made those pivots through my clinical training and just feel kind of any task that I go on to next I'm prepared for. Um, and so in my medical training, I think the first time that I actually went along that different path was in medical school. Um, as you mentioned, I took a sabbatical. Um, so I decided in between my second and third year to take , um , a year off to study yoga nutrition and Avedo , which is traditional Indian medicine. Um, and I wanted to do that because as I was going through the first two years of medical school, we call those , um , your basic sciences. You kind of get all of that book work really done. Um, so you go into detail and biochem and in pharmacology. And what I was noticing was that the cause of disease and pathology, and a lot of the treatment mechanism for these pathologies was nutrition and having an understanding of nutrition. And I was frustrated as a medical student that there wasn't an emphasis on nutrition the same way as it was with the other science courses. And, you know, nutrition was looked at much more of as like an elective or like kind of class that you could take a breather in when it really is such

Speaker 2 3:42

Like PE, right ?

Speaker 3 3:44

And I'm like , no , this is the , this is the stuff that I wanna learn about. This is like, oh , this is like the nuts and bolts of like how the human body like functions and what we do and how we convert energy. And it, it wasn't about that. Um, and so I just felt all dissatisfied. And I, you know, I couldn't, when I was interacting with patients as an early medical student, you know, I was able to explain their diseases. I was able to explain the medication and then when they would ask me, well, what does that mean with what I eat? I was like, oh, you're diabetic, low sugar. And I couldn't get past last , you know, I couldn't give more details or somebody had kidney disease and I couldn't, you know, say something outside of a fluid restrictions and a low sodium diet. And that didn't sit well with me , um, before I was going on to my clinical work. And so, yeah, I put my foot down and I was like, I am going to take a Y um , despite some of my lovely advisors who I still care about , um , saying that you shouldn't do that, but I did it. Um , and it was such an amazing rewarding year. It made me so much more ready to work with patients and have an understanding of how we could make lifestyle modifications and nutrition changes for healthier outcomes. And so, I mean, I loved it and it still influences me to this day, but yeah, it was , it was not conventional.

Speaker 2 5:16

Oh , well, and , and kudos to you for following your soul on that . And thank you , not following, you know, authority or, I mean, it can be so intimidating to have people that are leaders or mentors in our life who give us, you know, recommendation to say, Hey, I, I feel called in this direction. And I , this is what I need to do. I mean, the greatest successes that most people make, I feel like they have stories like where I had to , I had to walk it alone. It reminds me of childbirth. I had all my kids, I had all natural home births with all three of my kids. Oh

Speaker 3 5:49

My goodness. You're a super woman .

Speaker 2 5:53

Well , well, it was , it was intense, but it's like, you, you can have all the support in the world, but when it comes down to it, it is just you, your baby and God, or whatever, spiritual presence you've you feel. And , um, you gotta walk that alone and it's, but when you're done, you just, you emerged just this powerhouse because you realize like you needed to walk, you needed to, to go through that whole experience and like emerge, you know, as this person and all this strength. And you did that, you know, thank you.

Speaker 3 6:24

Yeah. I mean, and to that point too, you know, you start out kind of going at it alone. Actually, when I decided to do that pivot, I was recorded as like one of the first medical students in the country to ever do it during medical school. People are like, you don't wait until after. And I was like, no, this is the time I'm learning. Um, but you actually end up finding those people who believe in what you are doing and believe in you and really kind of help mold, you know, you should be approaching things, how to do things, you know, with , uh , a mindset that allows you to incorporate what you're going to find to be useful. How do you apply it , um, and grow within that capacity. And so I found my mentors that I still am very, very close with to this day, through that year and through that process, because, you know, they, weren't afraid to say that they support me or that they weren't sure of this journey I was going on, but they had my back and that was the best.

Speaker 2 7:35

Hmm that's and they supported, they supported you and your individualism, you know, it's like, it's like telling someone they're self-employed and then, you know, reprimanding them for what they do with that business. You know, it's a doctor is going through this intense. I mean, you guys have to be so smart. And so academically able to get to where you are , um, you deserve the, the recognition and the freedom a little bit , um , thought, especially since they , they call, you know, medicine, a practice that there is no, you know, it's not like every doctor thinks the exact same. It's good. They don't, you know, my grandma, this is a crazy story.

Speaker 3 8:17

I'm ready for it.

Speaker 2 8:18

Oh yes . So my grandma she's passed away now, but she had cancer. She had a type of leukemia, weird type of leukemia and she beat it. And she was a smoker for years, too. Right. And that didn't take her out necessarily, you know, directly. And then she had this, this rougher type of leukemia went through some chemo and things like that ended up that didn't take her out initially either. And, and so it was really cool, but she then after, you know, all the treatments and things, and she wasn't like a, you know, a holistic person, the restorative piece wasn't, you know, all that. She went traditional the whole way. Um, but then she ended up dealing with weird, like, you know, vasculitis, autoimmune kind of neuropathy kind of stuff. And she had this strange gang green type infection thing in her leg so badly that they were, they scheduled her for amputation. And they said, you know, we gotta amputate. Um, now this is just a story. This is not medical recommendation. I'm just saying that. But I'm telling a story because it's an important story to tell. And so after all this stuff, you know, they tried all these things to get rid of it, antibiotics and et cetera . And it kept kind of , it didn't work and it was getting into the bone or they were afraid or something like that. It was pretty severe. So they scheduled her for amputation. And it was, I think my aunt or somebody that said the day or so, right before she was scheduled for amputation, they said, no, we're gonna , we're gonna take her to another, get a second opinion. So they go to a second doctor and , um, they, they said don't amputate right now. And they actually told to put Manny's on it, on her wound. And I , I still don't exactly know what that's about and sure enough, it did it. And she never had her leg cut off. She didn't pass away until a couple years ago. Um, cuz you know, then by then cancer came back, went to her lungs and all over. But uh, she was just inches away from having your leg out . And the point being was that it's a practice, you know, second opinions. It's like, we still need to empower our own research, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 3 10:26

No, I mean, it's, it's, it's so different too. I mean that's, that's why I loved my, my residency for example, because I, I had, I had two different types of physicians that I was learning from, particularly for that reason, for that practice that I wanted that scope of understanding. So I had one, you know, attending who was very, I mean we called him , um , PubMed, which is a , a journal , um , search engine that we use because he could literally just tell you, you know, if you were to make a point about something, he'd be like, oh, well that was just published in the new England journal of medicine, this, this, and this. And they found this and he could cite back articles from decades ago. And then we had another physician who I called kind of, you know, would practice more. So I , I felt like cowboy medicine, he had to , um, he was actually trained in , um, different third world countries. That's where he did his residency and his training. And he had to have a understanding of the fundamentals of medicine because there was such limited resources where he was treating and he had to figure out, okay, if we don't have access to this, how do we do this, this and this. It was, it was incredible. And so to be able to work with the , both of them, I was like, oh, I can take, you know, this knowledge from both parties and , and really develop a full kind of understanding of care. Um, and , and so to your point, like it's, it's so much so a practice and you know, even though I'm not , um , practicing clinical medicine right now, I'm still always reading and constantly looking at journal art , reviewing the current guidelines that are released because it's, I mean, it's, it's kind of who we are as doctors. We're very inquisitive and that's what makes great scientists too, is that you're always seeking out more knowledge.

Speaker 1 12:27

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Speaker 2 12:50

So your journey took you through, I mean, just a brief cuz we're gonna touch more on your, your now stuff in a little later, but , um, your journey took you from me through medical school with a , a hiatus for a sabbatical, which I would argue was hardly a sabbatical. I mean , it was a sabbatical from, I mean, I would say it's a sabbatical for sure. Um, but I'd say it was hardly a hiatus for medical training. I'd say that you were, you were definitely strengthening your knowledge, your viewpoints, your, your , the clarity and perspective you were able to have and prevention and all of that , um, immensely by, by doing that. And I wish more doctors would do what you did. I think it would be just a blessing to all of us. Um, but you did that and then obviously you came back and you finished medical school and like, how did , what did that process look like of you finishing, practicing and then advancing and deciding to again, pivot?

Speaker 3 13:45

Yeah, so I, I went back, I finished my third and fourth year of medical school. Um, it was funny. I had people who, it was like three camps. There was one camp that was super excited for what I did and was like, oh, can you implement this with the patients that were going to see there was another camp that was like, that's ridiculous. Um , I've had people who I've told I've done that. And they've like, spit their coffee out on me, like as they were laughing. Um , um, and then there is this, this third camp too that thinks of it , you know, almost as like, oh , this is cool, but I , not my thing. Um, and so I used my third and fourth year really as an opportunity to implement what I learned. Um, during that time to , I knew that I wanted to go into family medicine. And so I went and did my , uh , family medicine residency. Um, I did family medicine too, because I thought I, I was going to go into sports medicine and sports management. Um, and then a lot of my patients were actually , um, very chronic illnesses, terminally ill. Um, I ended up having a lot of the patients that had multiple , um, uncontrolled diagnoses of chronic illness because I could manage it. Um, and with that too, I had a lot of patients that then became palliative or hospice. And so kind of my care would go from either , um , trying to help them get over these diseases and live a longer life, or if the disease per grasp , we would transition into palliative and hospice care. Um, and so I used that as, I mean, that's where I got a lot of , um, reward in my, in my training. And so I went and I did a fellowship in hospice and palliative care. Um, and while I was working, I was working in a very large , uh , public hospital , um, working with underserved patients. And I also noticed that the physicians really weren't getting quality treatment , um, or care. I mean, we were working over 80 hours a week , um, with limited access to food or even on call rooms when we were working overnight. Um, and so I got very active in my labor union as a physician , um, and then became the vice president of the labor union for physicians in Florida and then the national executive secretary treasurer. Um, and I actually left cl medical medicine to do that full time . And so I was organizing other resident physicians how to form their own unions, as well as helping nurses and physicians pass legislation and real types of political change that would positively impact our patients. Um, so I did that. Yeah. Uh , during the COVID pandemic , um, up until the end of 2020 , um, yeah, we had over, we were overseeing , uh, over 60 hospitals, 10 different states over 20,000 doctors , um, during the pandemic. Um, yeah, I , and it was a political job at the same time. Yeah . And so as much as I love politics, I was like, I'm going to step back. Um , and I also wasn't, you know, practicing anymore. And I was like this, you know, although I support this fight, this isn't my fight and I should be passing the torch. Um, and I was holding that position while getting my MBA. And that kind of led me to my current, you know , um , calling and job and real passion, which is a level, a sports nutrition company dedicated to female athletes. And so that's what I'm working on now, but it's again, not linear kind of hard to follow , um , but super rewarding through that whole journey.

Speaker 1 18:04

Thank you for joining us for another empowering episode of Budda belly life. For more information on gut health and mindset, resources, visit Buda belly , life.com and remember heal yourself and then empower others to do the same.