The 3 Amigos with Dr. Jonathan Dominguez

We had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Jonathan M. Dominguez, a Family Physician and owner of Domi Healthcare, whose motto is "Your Health. Your Family. Your Home."

We discuss growing up in Hudson county and what it's like giving back to the community.

Dr. Jonathan Domniguez
www.domihealthcare.com/
https://www.instagram.com/domihealthcare/

Transcript:

so you know i meet these people and i and i start to you know understand their culture more and more but for me i see them quite often i see their families they see their grandparents i see their kids i see their grandkids so um it's quite nice to see how how that all kind of integrates and uh and our cultures are not that different when you start looking into it because i'm more like the brains and the beauty anyway welcome back to recommended daily dose i am dr clinton coleman along with the brains the brawn not the girl the beauty and the beauty not the booty it's your beauty dr serra sucker so great how are you yeah good to be here please and we have a great day last time please make sure you subscribe and rate however you uh digest our our show um we have a special guest he's special to me because he takes good care of me dr don the dominguez he's a family physician in west new york and north bergen and his model is your health your family your home welcome buddy hi how are you i'm good i'm good how are you guys good man thanks for being on the show we appreciate that tell me about this motto what's that all about is that yeah the meeting it's a little bit of a yeah it's a little bit of a play on words my name obviously dominguez but domi um i you know obviously looking into it uh domi the root word because the latin root is basically home yeah um and uh the way i i've always envisioned my practice being is more of a like a family uh type of doctor where you actually are part of someone's family um and you know how people have used to say oh this is my doctor and i'm gonna call my doctor and this and that where you know medicine has you know significantly changed where it's a lot of groups or um you know hospital systems and you really don't have a certain doc i mean even my wife uh we were looking for an uh ob gyn uh to deliver rv and now it's just all groups and things of that and i understand the reasoning for it but uh i like that that part of it and i think the patients really appreciate that part of it as well to have that one person that they can you know confide in um at all times yeah i think most people when they go to med school they don't say you know i want to become a doctor and work uh for a health care system i mean i think a lot of people go into it with that uh old school mentality uh at least like mentors or people that looked up to of like a lot of times it ends up being a family doc right someone that they knew their whole life uh they treated them you know and the old school way at which i miss medicine where you would have family doctor would deliver babies even do like surgeries and then treat you know whole families their entire lives that certainly has shifted for a variety of reasons but i'm glad to see that there's someone like you that still believes that model um although you said for a lot of reasons that shifting i'm sure lifestyle has got to be one of them so talk to us a little bit about that how has that been i mean you're on call working 24 7 right uh yeah i mean you know early on in my uh academic career i learned the difference between a job and a career a career is something that you really have passion for in a job is what you do for money um you know this is something that you're passionate about i don't really mind it you know this is something that uh i integrate into my life into my family um and uh honestly it doesn't bother me a lot of people ask me like how can you be working so much and you're always doing and especially like the patient's families when i'm calling them on sunday nights or something like that um and they're like what are you doing i mean granted that might all change when i had this kid come around but uh uh you know i think that's just uh it's just something that i i enjoy uh i really i really enjoy it the same way that you know people enjoyed netflix or whatever the case may be i i enjoy what i do and and i like to think that we provide a high quality practice um in in times uh quality practices in hudson county have been difficult uh for for a variety of reasons and including you know just the the population that we have here um it becomes difficult you know so let's talk about that that population hudson county as you know is is very diverse uh dr sucker has trouble relating to patients of different cultures that's right because i'm so i'm so uh homogeneous man uh is that um is that something you had to learn or is that me in school or that you know yeah i don't i don't think i don't think you can learn something like that uh in school i was born and raised well i was born in hudson county raised right outside of hudson county in close side park my parents have pharmacy as well has a pharmacy um that he started when he was basically a delivery boy at 14 years old and now he owns the place but that that pharmacy grew because he was able to integrate with the community and i kind of learned with him and i learned with my parents i was in the pharmacy i would you know i would learn from the patients and and integrate myself in that but granted you know it is something that residencies are teaching so you know obviously you guys know you know i'm not that far out of residency i'm not that old um so you know recently and what especially are you trying to say i mean you don't have to infer anything i'm just saying i'm not that old all right my beard if you haven't yeah it's nice it's quite nice no patches nothing's fine um but yeah they are actually you know this is something that uh acgme is actually integrating into their curriculum at least for family medicine that i can i can attest to um you know i did my training at hoboken university medical center which is in hudson county and we dealt with a lot of charity care cases and we dealt with a lot of the union city western europe kind of population and everything is looking for resources i mean that's one thing that i pride myself and my practice on is that we try to find resources for our patients to give them the same quality care that anybody would get uh and try to eliminate the cost and whatever the case may be to that's restricting them to get those certain medications or that certain care that they need so what i was trying to say um i asked it poorly but you know you've grown up in your in the town that you serve how and i know that they're teaching it to doctors and training now but how is it for you know doctors who aren't from the community to relate to patients you think the answer is teaching those doctors to immerse themselves in different cultures or like you being having doctors like you who look like their patients or like serve their community yeah i mean uh i don't i don't necessarily think it's necessarily a look i mean of course you know uh i think even look i mean like sure sure can relate yeah i i think that what happens is that if you can if you can be open-minded to all cultures and and not just think about your own culture you know i've grown up in different ways that other people have grown up um and i think what we need to do is start to realize how and be empathetic essentially to to how other people have have grown up and what they've been through and if you just listen most of the time if you just listen i mean there's just some wild stories out there and you've become appreciative of all these different types of cultures and you know whether it's religious cultures or or just from the location geographic location where you came from um it goes a long way and and then the nice thing at least for me is that you build on it you know that's what i liked about being a family practitioner as well it's something i can develop a relationship with so you know i meet these people and i and i start to you know understand their culture more and more but for me i see them quite often i see their families they see their grandparents i see their kids i see their grandkids so um it's quite nice to see how how that all kind of integrates and uh and our cultures are not that different when you start looking into it you know we all really have the same kind of morals and ethics in one way or another it's just different yeah yeah no i like what you said about being empathetic because i think you know people think it's either all or none it's either well i gotta be just um you know everyone could be treated a certain way or you know well okay you're american you're hispanic you're asian i can't treat you the same way you wanna be treated because i don't look like you i think the whole idea of culturally competent care which clint and i believe you know very passionately about and we talked about a lot was not always a big deal and so i know like going back for myself i mean i'm obviously uh it's hard to imagine because i look young but i'm a bit older than you you know when i was applying to med school you know my whole i'm not schtick but my whole idea was like well okay i've come from immigrant actually doctor parents from india but i was born and brought up here so i can relate east and west you know so i don't think it's just because i'm not black or hispanic or east asian i'm southeast asian heritage doesn't mean i can't um uh empathize and and be open to all different cultures so i think that's the whole idea i think it's important you know i don't think we're necessarily saying well black physicians have or black patients have to be treated by black patients hispanic by hispanic etc i think anyone and i think if you give the idea of culture competency and empathy um like you said we're much more similar than we are different we have the same wants needs dreams whatever um so i appreciate that i think that's for a long time was not a priority and then i think uh it's been a big shift and even probably from when you were training and when we were i know when i was training that was not such a big deal and then you started hearing about culture competency and now it's become a buzzword but it wasn't always such a big deal so do you think that a lot of younger physicians um are open to this um i think they are just because they they've learned in it but you know sometimes it's just kind of checking off a box and uh you know you have to really be genuinely interested in in in opening up your your your mind and seeing what other cultures can have to offer but you know like in anything right there's good and bad and and there's some people that are just going through the motion and they said yeah yeah yeah and then when it comes down to it they're really not um you have to be kind of genuine about it but yeah absolutely i think i think it's now more than ever not only in just medicine but just overall on throwing this pandemic and with all these you know blm black live movement all this stuff that's moving you know these these movements that are happening it's essentially like basically everyone has it on their mind now and i don't think that was the case before you know pre-pandemic or something like that you know i think we all knew about it but we never really addressed it the way that we're addressing it now and i think it's gone a long way um and i think like i said i think patients are open to it too you know i think you know i have a a colleague in the area that he's um i think he's southeast asia i'm not exactly sure where he's from but he's not hispanic and the hispanic patients love him um and it's just simply because he he can oh you know he has a good charisma he listens and he does what he's supposed to do um so you know as long as you're a good person you're kind person um you know you can see that whether you can speak the language or not i i think i know who you're talking about he speaks excellent spanish though am i right he does he does actually yeah i know exactly who he is you would never know that yes he's from pakistan actually but i just want to make two comments okay the first comment is the um your second unbuttoned shirt is making me uncomfortable which one is that right here not you it's actually you know what uh are your chest hairs feeling a draft no but what it is like you always show up here in your jacket and your white coat and i said i just ran in here and uh i took off my eye because i like to look professional i don't walk around the hospital the whole name looked like i came off you know whole 18. you don't have anything let me relax a little bit so you know i i figured john if you look good you feel good that's kind of the mantra you know and uh i'm trying to spread that wealth to clinton he's still work he's still a work in progress as you can see my if you have to try something my second point is um there is some truth that patients do have better results if they're either cared by someone who's culturally competent or someone from their their background so they're more compliant you know they listen to the doctor there's more health literacy or the explanation of health issues so um i don't think you could just put anyone into any situation and they're supposed to just fly but uh yeah i think it's a good idea that they're teaching how to be more culturally competent yeah i think they both always agree i'm sure you would too that we need more diversity um especially for underrepresented groups african-american native american latinx community so um what are you seeing in trends in terms of um the diversity of the med school application mix we know that it shifted a lot from males to females during my time it was the first time i went to 50 then slightly over um but there's still always those underrepresented minorities i mean are you seeing a change so i think uh like where i went to school which was ross university um university of medicine and that that's a school in the caribbean islands and basically um they will accept more students but it would be harder to get through that system so they give you an opportunity and you know that was really all that i was looking for um and they were able to give me that opportunity so there's a lot of diversity in school like that but in a school in the us schools for instance very difficult to get into um not just academically wise but um you know i'm you know extracurricular-wise and all these kind of things that you just need to get in there right um but um what i'm seeing is you know because a school like ross university is graduating 600 uh you know doctors every year whereas a us school is probably graduating somewhere around 80 you're seeing more and more diversity in the communities especially in these communities like you know new york city around you know chicago stuff like that uh you're seeing more and more diversity which is a good thing um but i can see how it's it's also probably not where exactly what we wanted um and granted i think it starts even before that i mean i'm i'm the first doctor of my family and i'm talking about the extended family first doctor uh and and it's not because people didn't want my father wanted to become a doctor it's just that i had the opportunity and my you know thank you to my family yeah you know and i think uh i don't think the opportunities or at least people don't think they have the opportunity or they may really not have the opportunity to do to to even go on that track and i was lucky enough to do that or they may not even have the exposure right i mean i saw somewhere a statistic about 35 of all physicians had parents who had physicians and i would be lying i've talked about before that i'm heavily influenced by my own parents you know going to medicine and you know that shapes you right um but if you have parents who maybe not were in that medical field and that's where you know and i've talked and clinton can can go on but that's why it's important to have role models um who are willing to go out in the community and kind of motivate and and and you know present to kids who may not be thinking oh medical school is not for me it's for someone else it's for richer people i think the average you know certainly most med students in general um you know the exceptions but in general do probably come from upper middle class backgrounds because there is the idea of the cost right and if not the cost and the loans and saying that's a scary thought you know and then you have to have some kind of backup either from family or whatnot so i think the idea of having role models with someone like you something like clinton going out in the community now into high schools and saying hey look you can do this you need to do this so um have you thought about doing that or i know clinton goes out into the community and he he himself will tell you uh you tell your own story clinton how you know you participate in programs summer enrichment what have you but i think that's extremely important yeah i mean i i'm actually because i was born and raised in this area it's actually quite funny because a lot of the patients that i may have um are people that i know and when it comes down to it we're human right uh and i think we're you know all three of us um are more uh laid back and we're and we act human towards our patients and and when when people see that they say wow i think anyone instead of having this kind of big ego thinking that we're you know god's right hand or something like that we're actually just human just like you just like you know we you know we may have anxiety like the way that you have anxiety we have the issues of sleeping the way you have you know we go through the same things that you go through and you know i'm not afraid to to admit it to my patients and i think it's a sense of security with them just knowing that we're human so when people do see someone like me that you know i went up their ranks the way that i did and i became a doctor they're they're kind of surprised but i think they have a you know a reassuring um way of going about it where to the point where i've had now patient uh people that i know have their kids reach out to me and say hey listen looking into i'm doing medicine or so it just seems like now they see oh wow you know if he can do it and he came from you know a a high school that's you know not private high school it's not a you know this uppity up high school like if he can do it then why can't we do it you know and uh and that's all you're really looking for you know i do do some things in the community i love getting getting involved in the community actually uh just last week uh which is why we didn't do it last week i was doing school physicals for community college about a half an hour from here i'm a union city school physician um i i you know in cliffside obviously i do a lot of sports events and things that i can just get involved uh career days when when school is open um you know i try to do greetings to the to the kids my wife's a teacher so she gets me involved in that so whatever i can do i try to get involved in but i think it goes a long way when uh you know when when people and any any people your kids or or adults when they see a younger physician i think they uh they have so many questions because they're used to such older doctors for so long and when they see a younger physician walk into the door they just have so many questions that maybe not even related to medicine just how how did you get there how did you become that that person great point um i want to change it up i'm going to talk about the vaccine because i was on the new jersey site where it keeps track of each county who's gotten the vaccine you know hudson county is doing a great job getting everyone vaccinated they're up to for you know hispanic latin next to 22 and that's like i know that's a large hispanic community but man you guys are doing a great job and i have a i have an office we share um a clinic in west new york so you know every patient i talk to it seems like they've gotten the vaccine so i'm not sure what you guys are doing different than every other county but it's working so i guess it's through you know community clinics and and outreach but what's your what's your insight on on that yeah and john talk about you know because we've talked about before in other communities um is there and if there is then how do you tackle that is there a distrust of um vaccines or of you know medicine sometimes and specifically your latinx community yeah um so in regards to the to the vaccine um yeah i mean this is something that i talk to my patients every day um we have our own list there's multiple whether it's pharmacies hospital systems um county state um you know towns everyone has a list of patients ready to go um so as soon as the supply comes people are in there um granted you know i have an issue with the way that the vaccines are being given i think i read just recently on cdc it's a lot i think only two states have actually given more to the elderly than they were supposed to be giving to everyone else that's the one thing i have against it of course um because obviously there are more at risk but um but yeah i mean granted they've done a great a phenomenal job and they're just doing it in so many ways where they're going into these buildings and remember uh four out of five of the of the top the most dense cities in this uh in the u.s are in hudson county so there's just so many people in the same area so you know we're able to at least when we reach out to one of these buildings that have so many residents we hit a lot of people when we when we do that right um so i think that's probably one of the reasons just because we're such a dense area that we're able to get everybody as much as many as we can but yeah granted you know i in regards to the medications and medicine overall in the latin community yeah it's it's kind of two spectrums you know one either they're they they are so trusting of medicine they they would you know take anything that they need to take or just distrusting on medicine and there's just so much misinformation that's out there um and and granted that you know natural products they do work and and and never um you know say that they don't work or you know there's just not the studies that are out there to tell you yes or no but in the same sense you know i i it's always a constant struggle to reassure patients in regards to that but in regards to the vaccine i would say a lot of a lot of my my patient population are open to it you know people who would have never gotten the flu vaccine they're they're they're online for the cova vaccine yeah and generally though we've been very pleasantly surprised that the demand uh while it's obviously outstripping the supply has actually been much higher than we thought this whole idea of seeing hesitancy we were scared about um has not really materialized i mean you know and it could be in certain communities in certain communities and we know and clinton's talked about the african-american community it has been lagging somewhat uh and again that's the whole idea of this community outreach and education and um but that it's overall been very pleased you know in the medical community section of these worlds so how many people want to get the vaccine so we've got to keep up the good work

we're on our way john tell us a little bit about your practice and like how people can reach you and where you're at and you know stuff like that yeah so my practice uh domi healthcare is a is a family practitioner practice that is uh the goal of our practice is to be able to help our patients in every aspect of medicine and navigate our patients through the health care system we have uh we have the art practice here in north bergen where i'm tonight um and then the one in west new york that dr coleman and myself we share and uh basically we we are you know your full scope family medicine practice obviously pre-pandemic but we were doing in-home visits we you know we do all of our ultrasounds ekgs uh blood work whatever we need to get done we get done we have a care coordinator that literally will set up appointments for patients to to you know transportation um whatever the case may be the whatever you know if there's certain resources that's needed for medications or or for uh certain imaging uh these things get done um which is which is difficult for patients a lot of a lot of insurances you know they want to they don't want to do so much they don't want patients to be uh to be doing these uh certain procedures which they they may not think is appropriate but they are um but yeah those are those are certain things that we kind of um strive ourselves for and our i would say our our staff is is next to none and uh you know i think that what we'll try to do as we move forward is continue this high quality care um and and that's for all patients when it doesn't matter what culture or what background you come from we'll continue to do that and you know i i believe that if we can especially in hudson county if we can incorporate high quality care it'll go a long way oh you're doing an incredible service the community i know you're active in media and social media just tell us kind of where your handles are you know with facebook instagram yeah so we're on a facebook instagram twitter um you know dummy healthcare and uh essentially we we like to communicate with a lot of our our patients on those types of platforms we are constantly giving information in regards to you know trending topics or uh you know certain things that we're doing in the office or community events that we're trying to promote uh and uh you know granted you know this practice has been open for uh since january 2020 now and uh we've been doing remarkably well and uh you know i have a lot of pride in what we do and uh i imagine that we'll continue doing this going forward your pride shows man and we got a pretty good creation with dr coleman so now is he is he does he bother you you know do you need me to come over there and like like you know does he make too much noise you know or is he well behaved or what no i'm good he's well i would say he's well behaved he's well but he's he's not screaming to patients or you know getting golf balls out the window or something like that not that i can attest to i'll plead the fifth on that oh well john dominguez i should say we thank you so much for coming on absolutely you're doing it we love talking about uh culture competent culturally competent care we love talking about local care you know we like to talk about global topics but it's always good really talk about our colleague our friend uh you know but someone who's doing something so great in our local community i mean it's really empowering um you know we all try to make a difference you know you know say act globally or act locally think globally but you truly are you know making a difference uh in patients lives we really appreciate you coming on sharing your insight and uh we hope you come back you know thank you and and by the way i love what you guys are doing here with this podcast i think uh giving this kind of laid back no it's true it's true you guys you guys doing a great thing because honestly i don't think uh there's like i said earlier on you know uh you guys are humans we're humans and you're putting more of a laid back approach to this uh to this medicine so uh i appreciate it yeah okay you know you said the old days of father knows best doctor knows best i mean those days are gone you have to be able to talk to patients at their level uh and show them that yes you're the doctor but you're also like you say empathize and if you can also show them that you share certain fears experiences what have you well then that trust factor only goes even higher so we appreciate your thoughts man um until next time as my illustrious colleague dr coleman said uh we hope you will rate your view subscribe until next time dr stewart slugger thank you so much this is recommend dailydose until next time be well