Bill Klaproth (Host): This is an AAOMS On The Go podcast. I'm Bill Klaproth, and joining us today is Rodrigo Garcia from the Parkdale Center for Professionals Treatment Center to discuss the AAOMS Cares: Being Well Together program. Rodrigo, welcome.

Rodrigo Garcia, MBA, MSN, APN-BC, CRNA: Thank you, Bill. It's good to be here. Thank you for having me.

Host: You bet. Looking forward to talking with you about this. This is a very important topic. But first, can you explain briefly your career background?

Rodrigo Garcia, MBA, MSN, APN-BC, CRNA: Yeah, absolutely. I've spent the past 25 years or so in, uh, as a direct health care provider. I started my career off in emergency nursing, in a little inner city, area here in Indiana. Did that for quite some time and then moved over to the trauma ICU and, uh, I've most recently moved over to direct care as an anesthesia provider.

So I've been doing anesthesia as a certified registered nurse anesthetist, since about 2004. The last 10 years of my career have been focused on the mental health space and substance use disorders as they relate to the impaired healthcare provider. I run a treatment center called Parkdale Center for professionals and work every day now trying to provide access to care and treatment and prevention, a lot of the talk on education and prevention surrounding the health care provider.

Host: So I'm curious, what led you then to the field of addiction and mental health? Was there something that caused you to go in that direction?

Rodrigo Garcia, MBA, MSN, APN-BC, CRNA: Yeah, certainly, and it's certainly not a plan that I had in mind when I started off in the career. I had a personal run in with a substance use disorder and mental health struggles as a healthcare provider. I had been doing anesthesia at the time for about five or six years, and everything kind of came to a head after I had surgery and a prescription for some opiates, and found out that there was a maladaptive coping mechanism that I was using.

So my first interest, I guess I could say in the mental health field, was as a recipient of care and treatment to help get not only me better, but help preserve my career that I had worked so hard for.

Host: Absolutely. So, hearing that story, it sounds like you really would have empathy for people that are struggling with addiction and mental health having gone through it yourself.

Rodrigo Garcia, MBA, MSN, APN-BC, CRNA: That's, that's quite the understatement for sure. There were so many things that I wish I had known back then that would have saved me a lot of heartache and turmoil moving forward as I made the decisions to try to get well. And I spend a lot of my time today really kind of sharing those little tidbits of information that I wish I had known as I was going through it as opposed to finding out the hard way what I should have and should not have done.

Host: So is that one of bigger problems, Rodrigo? Is people not wanting to ask for help? They might, know they need help, but they're just too proud, or I don't want to ask for help, or I can get through this on my own. Is that one of the bigger problems?

Rodrigo Garcia, MBA, MSN, APN-BC, CRNA: Absolutely Bill. So I think that's probably one of the top two problems. One is, they don't know how to do it. And, they're not sure what's going to happen when they do ask for help. So it's, really kind of this fear of the unknown. If I raise my hand and say, I'm not well, or I'm dependent on alcohol or drugs, or if I'm suffering from depression or anxiety. What does that mean for my career and my license, my ability to practice would be one issue. And then the other one is, how do I even do that? How do I do that safely? How do I do that confidentially? Where do I find kind of the one stop shop where I can preserve all those things that are important to me, like confidentiality and preservation of my license and my career.

Host: Right, so if I raise my hand and say, listen, I'm struggling with addiction, I'm going to lose everything I've got. So I'm just going to try to fight through this, probably is the attitude, right?

Rodrigo Garcia, MBA, MSN, APN-BC, CRNA: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, there's this kind of characteristics that we see with healthcare providers in general that say, you have to be the calm in the storm. So as everyone else's days are getting really bad, oftentimes and the stress and anxiety, and they're coming to you for surgery, and they're coming to you, you have to be the calm before the storm.

And sometimes with healthcare providers, that repetition of mindset over the course of years and years, plays into themselves as well, saying, you know, yeah, things are bad, but hey, put your chin up, put your shoulders back. And I know you're tired. I know you're exhausted. I know you're stressed, but get back to work and keep doing it over and over again. And it's like a slow erosion over time.

Host: That's a great way to put it. So then, for someone struggling with addiction or their mental health, Rodrigo, how would a health care provider contact you?

Rodrigo Garcia, MBA, MSN, APN-BC, CRNA: So there's a couple of different ways we can be contacted. I guess the easiest way would be give us a call on this helpline that we have set up, through AAOMS. AAOMS Cares is an incredibly wonderful program that's confidential. That's where it's really started off. One of the values of the program is that it's one step away from the actual organization so you truly will be talking to and working with people who are not directly associated with AAOMS, but can work with providing access to care.

And we can be reached at area code 888-462 2706. That would be the easiest and the fastest and the most confidential way to get ahold of us.

Host: So, it is confidential, which I would imagine is very comforting for an OMS struggling with addiction or their mental health. And you said 888-462-2706. You also mentioned the AAOMS Cares program or AAOMS Cares helpline. Can you give us more details on that and the services provided through AAOMS for their members?

Rodrigo Garcia, MBA, MSN, APN-BC, CRNA: Yeah, this, and this has been an incredible journey working with the leadership team at, at AAOMS. So they have valued the well being and health, the overall health of their members in such a way that they've asked us to work with them to provide this service called AAOMS Cares.

So what it is essentially is, we have a team of trained professionals that work in this space, as their career. They work with highly accountable professionals. They work with very smart, intelligent individuals that have may have maybe a potential problem with substance use disorder, alcohol, drugs, prescription medication, or mental health issues.

And the idea is to provide a safe venue where AAOMS members can give us a call and we can get you connected with resources and support if that's something that you need. And sometimes it's as simple as a shared experience. Sometimes, getting someone on the other line like me who can say, yeah, I've been there. I understand the job. I understand what you're going through. These are some of the things that I wish I would have done in the past. And then it could go all the way as far as somebody's looking for some treatment or some providers, or maybe it's some therapy or counseling, and we can help guide them through that as we also simultaneously navigate preservation of the career and the license.

Host: Absolutely. So we talked about why someone would be reticent to call. So I just want you to speak directly to someone listening to this podcast that may be struggling right now that's like, man, I know I should make this call, but I, I could use some help, but I'm still unsure about calling. What would you say to that person right now?

Rodrigo Garcia, MBA, MSN, APN-BC, CRNA: Sure, well I would probably kind of reverse engineer that answer to them and what we get when we talk to folks most of the time is, one response of, I wish I would have called earlier. After I know how the process went, I wish I would have called earlier. And then we ask them why, and this is what they say, it's nice to have someone on the other end of the phone who knows what I'm going through.

It's nice to know that this is confidential and that you're truly here to help me and I'm not going to get in trouble from this. Then it's, nice to know that my organization cares enough about to have this set up, and I wish I would have known about it earlier. So I think confidentiality would be the first thing and then this kind of the shared experience to let the members know that they're certainly not the first people that may be struggling with substance use or mental health issues, and they're certainly not going to be the last providers that are suffering.

So it's that shared experience of saying, hey, you're not broken. There's nothing wrong with you. Sometimes you need to hit the pause button and get some help and get some support. And that's what we're here to do. And, uh, I know I've said it quite a few times, but I really want to stress the importance of how confidential this transaction is and how there's access to care in this conversation.

Host: OMSs are people too, humans, just like everybody, and even though this doesn't happen often, it's good to know that AAOMS and people like you are providing resources for these people to get help. So, by treating health care providers affected by substance use disorders or mental health issues, have you seen any trends that may be indicative of where things are headed?

Rodrigo Garcia, MBA, MSN, APN-BC, CRNA: Yeah, that's a great question. And, Bill, it's kind of interesting because we're seeing kind of two polarities in terms of trends and what we're seeing and maybe the profile of what the healthcare provider looks like and what they're struggling with. And I'll speak to that first. Some of the trends that we're seeing is that, you know, a high fast, high paced world that we live in and the profession is high fast paced as well.

So, you know, with access to care and providing these services, more and more patients are needing them. And that sometimes equates to longer hours and what we're seeing is, sometimes higher levels of stress, higher levels of sleep deprivation and things of that nature because people are working harder.

On the other side of that, we're seeing a lot of trends that people are asking for help more. And they're asking for help earlier. And organizations are starting to realize the importance of member wellness. So we're seeing programs like this starting to pop up, which is a really, really positive sign.

And one of the overall trends, I guess, if you put those together, and this is a very apparent and consistent trend that we see throughout the country, the folks that ask for help earlier and sooner have a far better outcome than the ones that try to just grin and bear it and roll up their sleeves and keep pushing through it. So, that's one of the promising trends that we're seeing is that more people are asking for help earlier, and those people are doing much better.

Host: That is a really good point. The sooner you ask for help, the better the outcome instead of trying to fight through it. I think that is really, really important, and it's really wonderful that people like you, and of course, AAOMS, has put a program together for this. They recognize the need for this for a member that may be struggling, and thankfully, they have put this program in place to provide that person the help that they need to get them through this and back to their practice. So I think that's really important that AAOMS has done that. As we wrap up, Rodrigo, any additional thoughts you want to add about AAOMS Cares, and what we've been talking about today?

Rodrigo Garcia, MBA, MSN, APN-BC, CRNA: First of all, I'd really like to thank you for the opportunity and the venue to even talk about this kind of program. It's not too long ago that I was looking for some assistance myself and it was quite the task to check off all the boxes that were important to me in terms of confidentiality and talking to somebody who knows.

So what I would like to make sure I mention to all your members out there is that there's a tremendous amount of resources available to you. We're all here on the same team. And we want to make sure that you're well so that you can provide the top quality safe care that you have been providing for such a long time.

And you can continue to do so for a long time to come. We're here if you need us, give us a call. We look forward to working with you and speaking with you and hopefully meeting you guys in person sometime very soon.

Host: Absolutely and great thoughts. Rodrigo, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. And once again, that's Rodrigo Garcia and for members who are struggling, or if you know someone who is, please call. And once again, that number is 888-462-2706. 888-462-2706 for a confidential consultation. And also you can visit aaoms.org./ aaoms-cares. Once again, that's aaoms.org/aaoms-cares. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social media and don't forget to subscribe. Thanks for listening.