We’re so excited to introduce the newest addition to our Family Medicine team, Sara Ohadi-Hamadani, MD! A non-traditional physician with a prior career in campaign research, she brings a deep passion for preventive care and a unique, empathetic perspective to every patient interaction. We asked Dr. Ohadi-Hamadani to answer ten questions so you can get to know her, including her journey into medicine, what inspires her every day, and what she loves to do in her free time.

Why are you excited to join NMC Health?
“I’m excited to be part of a health system that invests its profits back into its facilities to better serve patients and staff. When I interviewed here, I met several doctors who had been with NMC Health for several years. They all seemed to genuinely enjoy the culture and support they receive from leadership.”

Why did you choose to have a career in healthcare?
“In healthcare, I get to constantly learn and grow. Medicine is always changing, and I love staying up-to-date on new research and techniques.

Having the privilege of caring for patients through their best moments and some of their toughest moments is also a blessing.

I’m an extrovert with deep empathy, and I love connecting with patients.”

What is your specialty, and why did you choose it?
“I chose Family Medicine because of my own family’s experiences. I’ve seen family members and patients struggle with or succumb to chronic conditions, including substance use and autoimmune disorders, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and heart disease. Due to inadequate management of their conditions or failed prevention and early intervention, they developed chronic conditions that progressed to numerous complications, leading to poorer health and quality of life.

No one should suffer from preventable complications and disease progression.

I became a family physician to help prevent, manage, and treat chronic and degenerative conditions like the conditions that have plagued many of my family members.

I have the privilege of serving a diverse group of patients, from children to seniors, and providing crucial care that helps prevent the development or exacerbation of chronic conditions, particularly those impacted by social determinants of health.”

What inspires you to do what you do every day?
“As a non-traditional physician with a prior career in campaign research, I thrive and derive energy from constant variety. In family medicine, I have developed flexibility by responding to changing patient needs and treat a broad range of conditions. I enjoyed all my rotations in medical school and residency training, as they helped build a clinical foundation to serve future patients.

Family medicine fulfills my desires for constant growth, quenches my thirst for continual learning, provides challenges in managing complex diseases and comorbidities, and allows me to utilize surgical techniques and procedures for various conditions.

Family medicine also aligns with my extroverted personality and my commitment to both patient-centered care and social justice. I love seeing patients relax, apprehensions fade, and trust grow due to my enthusiasm and empathy, which allows me to provide better care.

I want to serve the Valley Center and surrounding community, provide care that reflects patients’ diverse backgrounds, and utilize but also expand my skill set to fit dynamic and changing community needs.”

What is your favorite thing about working with patients? What is your top priority when providing healthcare?
“Building relationships. As a family physician, I enjoy being responsible for treating patients and managing their health long-term by building a strong trusting relationship that is unique to each patients’ goals, health, and life. I enjoy gaining patients’ trust, putting them at ease, and working to empower them.

I know that social and economic barriers to good health are hard to overcome, but I enjoy finding resourceful ways to help my patients improve or maintain their health.”

What are your favorite things to do outside of the office?
“I love traveling to different parts of the world and learning from other cultures. The more I travel throughout Latin America and Europe, the more I see the commonalities in our respective consciousness and humanity and the environment around us. I see more and more how the planet and people are interconnected much more and how climate changes affect not only the environment, including plants and animals, but also peoples’ ways of life and living.

In my experience, most people want to be loved and spread love.

I truly enjoy life, meditating, increasing my faith and connection to the higher power, spending time with my husband, kids, cats, our dog, and the rest of my family. I also enjoy roller skating and being outdoors, and I’m always learning more and more about the mind-body-soul connection and how it impacts my career and treatment of patients.”

If you could give one piece of advice to someone considering a career in healthcare, what would it be?
“It is very rewarding but also challenging. You will be with patients at their best moments and at times some of their most difficult times. This can be both invigorating and spiritually enlightening but also can be exhausting and mentally and physically draining.”

What’s the best advice you received?
“You can never please everyone, no matter how much you try. You can, however, live each day striving to be the best version of yourself and working hard daily to constantly improve. Your unique personality, life experiences, and knowledge make life and our settings rich with diversity, ideas, beliefs, and knowledge.”

What’s one thing you wish every patient knew?
“Our healthcare system in the U.S. is a work in progress and not perfect. Due to how insurance and billing work, we only get about 15 minutes per office visit. We wish we had unlimited time to address all of a patient’s concerns, but the system limits us to one or two per visit.

I also wish that our healthcare system had more emphasis on prevention and on the mind-body-soul connection and how it is related to health.

The stress from our busy lives, commutes, and even family challenges can impact not only our minds but our physical bodies. A diet filled with quick, convenient, and easily accessible foods and limited time for rest in the evenings can also cause stress.

Stress can:

• Raise cortisol;
• Tighten muscles, eventually leading to chronic pain;
• Increase mood symptoms and disorders;
• Increase weight; and
• Worsen our sleep quality.

Unmanaged stress can lead to serious health issues like a heart attack, stroke, or dementia later in life.

Medicine helps your health, but your overall health is impacted far more by your lifestyle, resilience, personality, income, and personal circumstances than by a 15-minute appointment with me or another provider every few months.

While I will always work hard for you, it’s also up to you to advocate for yourself and find a doctor who will listen to and partner with you on your health journey.”

Dr. Ohadi-Hamadani is a fantastic addition to our family medicine team at NMC Health – Valley Center. Please join us in giving her a warm welcome!