My journey into health care started way back in my childhood days growing up as young kid in West Africa. Fortunately for us, my father, now a retired physician, was always able to tend to most of our health care needs in the privacy of our own home. I vividly recall my younger brother being hooked up and receiving IV fluids in our bedroom during a severe bout with diarrhea. We also always had a stash of anti-malaria medication around and available whenever the first signs of Malaria seemed to kick in.

At the same time, I was also aware that people were dying from all sorts of ailments that I knew were treatable overseas. Being the first son, it was no surprise to anyone that I’d follow in my father’s footsteps. However, as if to assure that I’d stay the course, my parents and eventually all my aunts and uncles referred to me as “the young doctor”.

In medical school I was never able to decide what specialty I was truly passionate about, but knew I never wanted my knowledge of medicine to be localized to just one organ system. Enter my introduction to emergency medicine.

As for the world of the freestanding emergency center (FEC), that was never even something I’d fathomed. I literally stumbled into it by coincidence. I’d been informed of, and eventually started working at an FEC in the greater Houston area where I met one of my current business partners, who just like me was commuting from Austin to work in Houston. When he told me he was considering establishing an FEC in Austin and asked if I wanted to partner up, I surprisingly jumped at the chance. Turns out, it’s truly become one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

I appreciate the relative calm and attention to patient care I’m able to deliver in the FEC. I like to consider myself a friendly person and an excellent physician, but only in the freestanding emergency center have I on numerous occasions been told comments like, “Wow! You’re the only physician that has ever taken the time to explain anything to me,” or “hey doc, I just wanted to know whether you have a private practice and are taking patients?” It’s so refreshing to have patients appreciate the time I spend with them trying to tend to their medical needs.

For the first two years after opening the first Austin Emergency Center location, the biggest headache was the complaints we received about how much the service costs coming into our “Emergency Clinic,” as if there was ever such a thing. The complaints have effectively disappeared as we’ve reached out to the community to teach and explain to them what exactly a freestanding emergency center is. And that’s where TAFEC has been instrumental.

Thanks to TAFEC, the community at large has a much better understanding of what these new “Emergency Clinics,” as they’ve been erroneously called, actually are. Thus people are better able to appreciate the void we fill in emergency medicine, and they now understand why for an increasing number of folks, the FEC is the entry point of choice to access medical care.

Okemefuna I. Okpara, M.D. FACEP
Medical Director, Austin Emergency Center-South Lamar
Austin, Texas