Thanks for tuning in to the Armor Men’s Health Hour Podcast today, where we bring you the latest and greatest in urology care and the best urology humor out there.
In this segment Dr. Mistry and Donna Lee are joined by local primary care physician, Dr. Georgeanne Freeman, a.k.a. 'The Downtown Doctor'. Dr. Freeman has a primary care practice located on 5th street in the heart of downtown Austin.
Dr. Freeman discusses her medical training and experience, as well as how much she enjoys caring for her patients at the different stages in their lives. She shares her thoughts on the primary care model and the importance of the doctor-patient relationship- an aspect that is sometimes overlooked in large-scale medical care. Both of our docs today share a love for private practice as it allows them to develop a deeper relationship and a more personalized care plan with their patients.
If you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share us with a friend! As always, be well!
Dr. Mistry is a board-certified urologist and has been treating patients in the Austin and Greater Williamson County area since he started his private practice in 2007.
We enjoy hearing from you! Email us at armormenshealth@gmail.com and we’ll answer your question in an upcoming episode!
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Speaker 1:
Welcome back to the Armor Men's Health Hour with Dr. Mistry and Donna Lee.
Dr. Mistry:
Hello, and welcome back to the Armor Men's Health Hour. I'm Dr. Mistry, your host here with my cohost Donna Lee.
Donna Lee:
That's right. Mistry is your correct and actual name. We have to remind people over and over.
Dr. Mistry:
That's right.
Donna Lee:
When they Google you.
Dr. Mistry:
I'm a board certified urologist. We, this show is brought to you by NAU Urology Specialists, the urology specialist group that we started 13 years ago. You know, we wouldn't be here as a practice without wonderful referring primary care doctors.
Donna Lee:
That's right. They mean everything.
Dr. Mistry:
They mean everything. Like I kiss...I, it's very funny in medical school, you know, when you were like the powerful, gonna be a surgeon, you know, and they were like the people that were like going to go into some other fields, you know, maybe you weren't like the nicest person. And then, and then later on you go through all this training and you end up having to kiss a lot of primary care persons' butts. You got to make up, you got to make up for it.
Donna Lee:
I can see that.
Dr. Mistry:
That's right. That's right.
Dr. Freeman:
Well, we like being kissed any way we can get it.
Donna Lee:
On any body part.
Dr. Mistry:
And that is the voice of my guest today, Dr. Georgeanne Freeman, the Downtown Doctor. Dr. Freeman, thank you so much for joining us today.
Dr. Freeman:
You're welcome.
Dr. Mistry:
Some of you that listen to the show regularly may recognize dr. Freeman's voice when Dr. Freeman and Donna Lee did a segment, and that actually hurt my feelings a little bit.
Donna Lee:
Well yeah, because we got more downloads than you.
Dr. Mistry:
It really got a lot of downloads.
Donna Lee:
You're welcome. It's now the Donna Lee show, featuring Dr. Freeman.
Dr. Mistry:
She's taken over!
Dr. Freeman:
Get'ya some!
Dr. Mistry:
Dr. Freeman, you were one of the very first people that I visited when I was in town to try to garner business, just so amazed with what you've put together. You're known as the Downtown Doctor...
Dr. Freeman:
In some circles.
Dr. Mistry:
...and really at a time when downtown was just like starting in burgeoning and what foresight you had in putting that, that practice together. But what really impresses me is that you've kept it small. I think that in this world of like this corporate medicine, you know, where everybody's going to bigger and bigger and bigger, the personalized care is getting lost, right.
Dr. Freeman:
For sure it is. Thanks for bringing that up. I will continue to provide excellent care and spend time with my patients in our cute small clinic, as long as I can. I can always do something differently if I need to, I can go to a concierge model, I can charge people in membership fees, but it feels really good to know that I can provide excellent care, do things what I consider the right way and let people use their insurance. And as long as I can do that, that's what we're going to do.
Donna Lee:
You keep it local.
Dr. Freeman:
And keeping it local.
Donna Lee:
Right? Solo doctor needs the help...
Dr. Mistry:
She's like the farmer's market of primary care.
Dr. Freeman:
Oh, I like that. Organic, local heirloom!
Dr. Mistry:
We're the second biggest urology group in town. You know, and I feel like because we're second biggest, we're given a little bit more latitude, how we organized ourselves, how we go recruit for patients and what kind of care we provide. So I totally see what the value of not being super big and super corporate is. And in primary care, I feel like in the past, people had a very close relationship with their primary care doctor. You knew who you were going to go see that person took care of your dad and this, but I think a lot of that's being lost today.
Dr. Freeman:
It is. And I think one of the reasons I do this and I do such a good job is that I was a National Health Service Corps Scholar. So that's kind of like the Peace Corps where I served in a rural, medically underserved area. I chose the Ozark mountains. If you've ever seen the Netflix show Ozark...
Donna Lee:
Right, does it look just like that?
Dr. Freeman:
...we can have a long conversation about all the things that they really got right in that show.
Donna Lee:
Oh, wow. Money laundering?
Dr. Freeman:
Money laundering, no.
Dr. Mistry:
I don't remember too many doctors in there.
Donna Lee:
That's true.
Dr. Freeman:
So I spent eight years being a country doctor, where there were no specialists for hundreds of miles. So I got to be a real, traditional classic...
Donna Lee:
From birth to death.
Dr. Freeman:
...from birth to death, the psychiatrist, I was the pulmonologist, I was the urologist, I was the cardiologist. I did vasectomies in the office.
Dr. Mistry:
Yes, I mean this was a training that you had in which you delivered babies...
Dr. Freeman:
I delivered babies, I had a nursing home practice, I took care of my patients in the ICU.
Dr. Mistry:
And how fascinating is it that like all the training that you've received in all these different fields and you've come to this point, which maybe the patients out there feel like,"Well, maybe that person doesn't know anything because they know a little bit of everything." And so how unfair of a label that would be because a family practitioner, a general practitioner, a primary care provider is somebody you should really rely on to keep your medical health history, to make sure you're going to the right specialists to make sure that you need all the things that you're taking, reducing medicine load, reducing side effects. I mean, you're really their health boss.
Dr. Freeman:
Checking their immunizations because once you're over really 16 or 17, your mama ain't following that for you anymore. So I tell them,"I'm your mama now. I'll be letting you know when you need a shot."
Dr. Mistry:
I need my Tetanus booster if that's OK with you.
Dr. Freeman:
Yeah.
Dr. Mistry:
A lot of patients come to me. I think that I do a really good job taking care of them. And they ask me for recommendations on a primary care provider, just as you're trying to advise people on who to pick for primary care, what are some of the things that you'd like to, that you'd like people to know about what makes you special and what they should be looking for in their primary care provider?
Dr. Freeman:
So I love my relationships with doctors like you. I'm close with Dr. Stacy Ong as well. I have relationships with different specialists around town, and I vet them. I know who the good specialists are...
Donna Lee:
...because you're sending your patients to them directly. So you have to trust them.
Dr. Freeman:
Exactly. So you get a good referral if you need a specialist, when you come to to us. We love giving this old fashioned service to patients, getting to know them. I've had the clinic now going on 10 years. So I have patients I've known from childhood who've graduated from high school, people who I met in high school who are now having their second kid, things like that. When we know someone and we've gone through life changing events with them, some of which maybe were medical, some not, maybe a little bit of both, then when they have urgent care needs, we're there for them as well. So people establish with us, we're their primary care, and then they get cut and they need stitches, or they have a broken bone, they can come in. Urinary tract infections more than a few urinary tract infections they come see Dr. Mistry, because that's...
Donna Lee:
...that's his jam.
Dr. Freeman:
...the plumbing.
Dr. Mistry:
You bring up a really important point, which is that especially in this era now, in which you may not even know which doctor you're going to see the next time you go into see the doctor at the big clinic, you know, that, and you could be seeing maybe, you know, not even a physician anymore, you could be, you may not have any idea. So you may think that it's not as important to have that relationship with your provider. So then when you do have a problem, like you think you sprained your ankle or broke a bone, you just kind of go to the nearest place. That seems to make the most sense. But people are going to have to redo your health history. And even if you're healthy, wouldn't it be nice if somebody knew you did break your leg and it was in your record, you know, like some kind of consistency. So I feel like the smaller primary care place, maybe just because it's after my own heart, the idea of a smaller kind of more personable kind of places is really important. So when people are looking to establish a primary care relationship, how can they make that relationship better and make it easier for you?
Dr. Freeman:
I would say like a lot of things, the more you put into it, the more yu're going to get out of it. I love it when people show up with a list.
Dr. Mistry:
Written down.
Dr. Freeman:
Written down.
Dr. Mistry:
Like, I thought about what I was going to talk about.
Dr. Freeman:
Yeah. You know, I always wanted to ask somebody about this boil on my ass. Like, is it a boil? Could somebody, could a medical doctor look at it and tell me, let's check that out. I don't, I feel like one eye is smaller than the other, like things that people wonder about. Like, go, go ahead and write it all down. Primary care we want to, we want to delve into absolutely everything. I am the only doctor at the practice. I have a PA who's lovely Laura Meters, and sometimes people will establish care with Laurie. They may never even meet me. So she has her own practice, but it's the two of us providers in there together. If something gets complicated, of course, she calls me in to help. And I ask her for advice and recommendations sometimes as well. But yeah, I think coming in prepared, make a list where we're actually the doctor who wants to look at your list and we want, we want to go over everything. We probably won't address everything on your list at that first visit. That's okay. But we can direct you. You've had erectile dysfunction for all these many years. Viagra didn't work. I'm just going to go ahead and do the referral to Dr. Mistry, okay. And just, like, you know, from that list, we can help get pared down...
Dr. Mistry:
The list is really important. I actually take the list from their hands because I get through it a little quicker if I can read it myself. And I like it when they bring in their research from the internet. I know just like you do. Because, you know, if they can't come to us with these questions, then you know, what are we here for? Right. I mean, we don't want people really trying to educate themselves, and you're just such a wonderful teacher, and I can't really thank you enough for joining us today on the show and for being such a wonderful health partner for us.
Donna Lee:
And what's your website?
Dr. Freeman:
Thanks so much. Our website is freemanmedicalclinic.com. That will also get you to the IV website, for our IV hydration services, which is the hippohydrate.com. They're connected and they're run under the same roof.
Donna Lee:
We need to sign up. I'm signing up right now.
Dr. Mistry:
Very good. Tell people how to get ahold of us.
Donna Lee:
Call us during the week at(512) 238-0762. Our website is armormenshealth.com and you can send your questions to us and we will answer them anonymously to armormenshealth@gmail.com. We'll be right back!
Speaker 2:
The Armor Men's Health Hour will be right back. If you have questions for Dr. Mistry, email him at armormenshealth@gmail.com.