Thriving Against the Odds; A Physician's Journey with Multiple Sclerosis w/ Dr. Simarta

Welcome to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay Podcast with Dr. Kerry Reller! This week I am joined by Dr. Simarta Brennan-Prescod to have a conversation that explores strength, self-discovery, and the transformative power of sharing our stories.

Dr. Simarta Brennan-Prescod is board certified in internal medicine, a nephrologist and hypertensive specialist that practices in St. Petersburg Florida. She also a motivational speaker,  She runs Dr. Simarta Incorporated, is a professional business coach academy and an Author! Her new book is called “The Parts We Don’t Talk About!” -My journey as doctor, patient and caregiver in the health care system.

The book delves deeply into the trenches of living a dual life under the radar - one of a doctor and one of a patient, showcasing the mental fortitude required to handle both roles. As she had to face failures, biases, and the physical challenges of having multiple sclerosis head-on. 

Being not just an inspiring memoir, this book also teaches how others can overcome the challenges and balance parenting, working and chronic disease as she shares six secrets and a step-by-step guide to handing all these challenges. She excited to share it has been an Amazon best seller list in multiple categories towards immune disorder and available globally for print, audiobook, kindle  and book stories.

0:00 Welcome back! Guest Intro 
00:28 About Dr. Simarta
03:20 Multiple Sclerosis
07:51 Writing "The Parts We Don't Talk About"
13:43 Congenital Heart Disease
19:48 Lessons Learned from Caregiving
20:46 Self-Care & Support Groups
23:10 Grieving Process and Acceptance
26:05 Connect with Dr. Simarta, Closing Remarks

Connect with Dr. Simarta 
MyWebsite: www.drsimarta.com
IG: @drsimarta
FB: Dr.Simarta 
Email: doctorsimarta@gmail.com

Connect with Dr. Kerry Reller
My linktree: linktr.ee/kerryrellermd
Podcast website: https://gethealthytbpodcast.buzzsprout.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClearwaterFamily
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clearwaterfamilymedicine/
Clearwater Family Medicine and Allergy Website: https://sites.google.com/view/clearwaterallergy/home

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Transcript

Kerry: 0:28

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Kerry Reller. And today we have a very special guest, Dr. Simarta. Welcome to the podcast.

Simarta: 0:38

Thank you for having me. I'm more just appreciative to be able to spread the word. My name is Dr. Simarta Brennan Prescod. I'm a primary care in St. Petersburg, Florida, and I'm also a patient Thriving with multiple sclerosis and a caregiver to a child with congenital heart disease. I am here basically to answer questions, give another experience and I'm just excited to be on.

Kerry: 1:08

Yes, thank you so much for coming on. I can't wait to hear everything that you have to say. So, I know that you have a pretty unique experience, obviously being a physician and having a medical condition of yourself. And like you mentioned, you're a caregiver as well. So I guess, I think everybody wants to hear all about where did everything begin? How did that start? Maybe even how you decided to become a doctor?

Simarta: 1:32

Oh, wow. I'm a talker. So for the safety of time, we'll talk about our passions, helping people. I always wanted to be in health care. And this was something I think all of us start the journey until we figure out in what way in what capacity. I'm a trained nephrologist. I'm a trained hypertensive specialist and primary care, and that's how I started my journey. And I've loved every day of it. Now, in regards to my perspective on a patient diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, I was diagnosed 10 years ago while in training and it was challenging. I learned a lot about myself, patience, advocacy, and I kept that all to myself for nine years. I recently decided to share my story, that's one way to see it, and decided to use my story as an avenue to share other people's story. So I actually wrote a book called The Parts We Don't Talk About. And it literally is walking through the journey of being diagnosed being a physician and it's a story about advocating for yourself being less perfect and more being joyful oriented. I've been blessed with three kids and that also spun the journey as well as everybody knows with motherhood and trying to be a working mom. So, I feel, I mean, A story of an easy read. It's one of those things you'd like be in an airport, be on the beach, and just kind of share, grow, and the intent is to inspire.

Kerry: 3:20

Yeah, it's amazing and I appreciate that you want to share your story as I was saying, you know, it's unique in that you're on all sorts of sides of it. And I also find it interesting that you were saying that you were diagnosed with this, but it was during your training. So you already knew you wanted to be in medicine and all of a sudden. You know, you're at these super stressful times, right? Residency, fellowship, whatever it is, and maybe even med school and here you're diagnosed with this chronic medical condition. And you didn't share that with anyone. So you kept all these struggles to yourself and how did you navigate through that?

Simarta: 3:56

That's an excellent question. The truth is I didn't know enough. I felt the advocacy part I was not aware of and that made it twice as hard. How to advocate for yourself as a patient, not be rude, but understanding the concepts of how the healthcare system works. It's as simple as be prepared for your appointments by having your questions written down. You know, all my patients, I make them say, Hey, The best way to be heard is to write your questions down ahead, give it to the provider, and they'll appreciate being able to walk through that experience with you. So I try to give helpful hints about how to advocate for yourself. Ask why you're doing what you're doing. How is it going to benefit you? And tell me if it's short term, long term. How to have those difficult conversations that maybe I didn't have at the time from the provider standpoint, it is definitely shown me how patients perceive things, you know, truth is, we come into these visits with people with our own biases. That's a reality. If we say we have no biases, then we have biases. I always say that, you know, it's better you own that you have one perspective and maybe the person in front of you has a different. So maybe we open up to a shared dialogue that we can meet in the middle. And I always say that as a physician, make sure you're having dialogue. We're in people's lives for different reasons. I may not watch your cat because I have a cat allergy, But definitely we can talk about your experiences in health care and how primary cares can help navigate your experience. And that's what I advocate for. One of the things I talk about in the book is the tips to go through the process of being a caregiver. In other words, you have to one, grace. It starts with the long haul when you're having somebody in your life with chronic disease and you're a caregiver and advocate. You have to give yourself the ability to say you can make a mistake. You have to realize that you do have to do self care to take care of someone else. Because if you don't, you're going to substandard take care of them. And that applies to any caregiver, whether it's your kids, whether it's your parents, as people take on that role, I always say give grace self care and own the experience. You want to make sure that you realize that you are the caregiver and you have a different experience than the diagnosed patient. So we may want them to do everything we want them to do, but it may not work that way. You may have to do things a little different or meet them in where they are in your diagnostic journey. So that's a third for me. A fourth for me is research. Going to the appointments and realize that different people, whether they're specialists, primary cares, the technician that's running your tests, they're in your lives for different reasons, but do your research and get people that you trust and you have to develop relationships to trust them so that you lean on their understanding and not the what code 654 means. You know, and I find when it comes to advocacy for someone else, it's somewhat easier to do versus as a patient, you need to learn that you are advocating for yourself every day because it's not going to feel perfect, but you can create more days of feeling joy,

Kerry: 7:51

Yeah, I really think that is super important for patients to know that they can advocate for themselves, right? And they need to find the doctor who's willing to listen, right? To know what they are trying to express, or the symptoms that they're feeling and how they can understand. I think that's super important. A lot of people will come and they just want the medicine. I'll just do what the

Simarta: 8:11

doctor know

Kerry: 8:11

says, but it really would benefit them to understand the condition a little more. Like when I have a patient in there, I'm just explaining labs or something. I might use, you know, doctor speak, but I'm really explaining to them. Why am I doing this? Why am I checking this? What does this mean? Not just all the labs look good. See you later. Here's your medicine. So I feel like, finding the right person for that is very helpful too. And then advocating for yourself, meaning like, okay, so, why do I need this medicine? What does this mean? Is this forever? Like, you know, is it going to hurt or anything like that? I think that's really an important thing that you pointed out.

Simarta: 8:48

absolutely. And I think we're in a similar experience in that you will find your overall goal will be reached better as clinicians if we have that dialogue and also recognize that we don't have all the answers. I'm the first person to tell you, I know what I know, and I'll tell you, I'm the second person to tell you, if I don't know it, I'll find out.

Kerry: 9:14

Yeah, exactly. I'm like, okay, well, I might not know this answer. I will go look it up or else get you the person that will, know the answer and send it to them. So absolutely.

Simarta: 9:24

I think that's a huge part of navigating the healthcare system, and also recognizing that no two people are equal. You have to realize that, like you said, finding somebody, because you may have a good relationship with this doctor, it may be a different fit for someone else. So, it's not necessarily that the patient's bad or you're bad. We like these finite words, but it may just be the fit. Maybe you finally found somebody that fits your way of communication, fits your way of need, because we're all different. And you may stay with that person and go, Hey, man, this is who I want. This is my guy. This is my doc, but it may mean you may need something a little different for someone else. So I think being open to that is huge as a patient and I've done it and I found it opens up so many worlds. You brought up a huge part about patient engagement. You're right. We want them to be engaged, but we also want to be able to know what level they want to be engaged in. And we advocate for engagement because it connects them more. Real time with what the goals are, you know, like, okay, why do I have to get my sugars good? Why do I have to get a little weight loss on because it's gonna help this bigger picture We're trying to paint for them and I think that's a big part of what we both do

Kerry: 11:03

absolutely. Speaking of that. So you practice primary care and nephrology as well. So that's the doctor of the kidney. And that's not totally normal, I think. So how come you practice in that way on the provider side?

Simarta: 11:19

I think my story is a little bit unique in the sense that I've been nephrology for several years, but then I had a change in life, meaning between the diagnosis and now I have three little kids under three no longer being in the hospital at 3 a. m. was so fun.

Kerry: 11:40

Yeah.

Simarta: 11:42

and I think that's the whole point of our life experiences to learn to pivot so that we can understand, but also gain more joy in a different way. So right now I do mostly 100 percent primary care. I do a lot to do with kids at kids advocacy. So I'm going to Pineallas County schools, our local school district, and I talk about getting into health care. I try to get kids more excited in going into medicine. It's a scary thought, but less kids are wanting to do that, especially kids of parents that are in health care. So I go in with a big smile and different perspective to be able to show them, hey, these are the people that make things turn and recently I actually did for the American teacher locally. I did a who's everyone in the office presentation because we know the doctor doesn't make the entire experience. If nobody answers the phone, it doesn't matter who the doctor is, or how good they are. The point is, we have to advocate for the system has somebody who answers the phone. There's a medical assistant. You may have a care coordinator, case manager, social workers. So I try to advocate for kids knowing more about the system. And I have a lot of them My mom's a nurse and she comes home at this time. And I say, well, it's because it brings her joy. Another kid was like, Oh, my mom's a medical assistant and the smile on his face to be able to say, my mom does something important. It was worth its weight in gold. And that's what I try to do with my focus is getting into niches that can bring other people join and people loving healthcare a little bit more.

Kerry: 13:43

Yeah, that's super important. I feel like to include the everybody's on the team and the patient gets served by the whole team. It's not just the doctor and I think it's great that you're teaching the kids that there's other positions out there that do work together and help the patient and see the patient and get the job done. So I think that's great. How did you see like certain biases or anything going through the healthcare system as a patient? Like, what did you encounter?

Simarta: 14:13

So a couple of things I always advocate for is biases I saw were more related to what people's expectations were. A lot of, the most common words I hear is, but you don't look like you have multiple sclerosis. So then the question is, what does somebody with multiple sclerosis look like? So a huge advocacy for me is Educating and re educating. I remember the first patient I saw when I was in care, and I've been trained. I've been practicing now for 17 years, and my first patient was a Caucasian female in the emergency room. And the truth is, multiple sclerosis can affect much wider range than that. Now, we know you can have kids diagnosed in multiple sclerosis from as young as 16. We know you can have adults into their 50s diagnosed. So the age understanding has changed. Other things is the racial. A lot of people who went through med school is okay mS is a caucasian female disease, but there are a lot of people of different racial backgrounds that have multiple sclerosis, but if you don't know that, you won't think of it and you won't investigate it.

Kerry: 15:35

I admit, I don't remember any ethnic parameters for multiple sclerosis at all.

Simarta: 15:42

And that's what I do. I really found my niche and in saying, Hey, It's actually quite common as primary cares we don't see everybody. We see our niche and maybe our patient population, but there is actually quite a bit. I just went to a conference 2 months ago for black women with multiple sclerosis. Like, that's very specific

Kerry: 16:07

Yeah,

Simarta: 16:09

and it was over 200 women attending. So from all over the country. And the point is, through those experiences, I've learned you can create ripples by just sharing. Now we can think of it. Divorce is, when I was first diagnosed 10 years ago, it just wasn't something, we didn't have all this, you know, podcast and the global experience to be able to share and grow. But it creates ripples. I truly do believe that that's a part of my purpose in sharing my story. It's to advocate for others, which I think we all do, right? We got into this, and to honor that, I think I could play a role differently.

Kerry: 16:56

Awesome. Yeah, absolutely. Another question as the caregiver side now, so did you encounter anything with like being a caregiver to your son with congenital heart disease, like any thing in the healthcare system.

Simarta: 17:12

I always tell people, I was unfortunately entered into the world of a child with congenital heart disease. Nobody wants that, really. But the reality is it's changed my life tremendously for the better. My son, who at 20 weeks ultrasound, that was diagnosed with congenital heart disease, and it was one of the T's, we always called it in med school. And what that means is it's the ones that make kids blue. That's all we remember, you know, it's trichospiratresia. So. What do we really know? What do we understand? It's very different when you're dealing with it on a day to day basis. So, I had no idea at birth what to expect. And we all have choices to make, but I see him now, he's seven years old, rambunctious He plays soccer like everybody else. He is thriving. And he's one who teaches me a lot about thriving and advocacy. Is there bumps in the road? Of course! He's had two open heart surgeries, one cardiac arrest. He's had it, and we've overcome it. And it tells you a lot about the resilience of kids. Children don't have the PTSD parents have. And that's a good thing. You know, I see the decisions I made now I honor them. And I know, as parents with kids with chronic disease, whether it's cystic fibrosis, whether it's a lung disease. It's a journey. And it is hard, but in my experience, it's been well worth it because I've learned a lot about strength through him. I've learned a lot about what health care in pediatrics looks like, which, by the way, a plug, it's amazing. And it taught me about resilience. So kids adapt as we all know as parents, right. But to see a child with a congenital heart disease adapt so wonderfully makes me hopeful on a day to day basis. And you just keep learning to keep on advocating and they advocate more for themselves.

Kerry: 19:48

It's definitely amazing to see what kids are capable of and how they can just brush things off their shoulders and not worry and be strong and do everything else. The other kids are doing and you'd never would know anything. It's kind of amazing. Absolutely. And I think that, like you were saying, kind of the pediatric profession, I think they get to see a lot of that for the kids that were sick and overcome something and I think that's very rewarding. It's really nice. Do you do pediatrics too?

Simarta: 20:15

No, not in pediatrics. I'm humbled by their work.

Kerry: 20:20

Yeah. So another thing you mentioned, like being the caregiver, I think it was something really important that I know a lot of like my patients struggle with is, you know, really not just completely, you have to give yourself your all right. But also that whole self care idea, like you really can't take care of someone else if you're not taking care of yourself, is there any like struggles that you had with that when your son was younger?

Simarta: 20:46

Absolutely. And I think we have it day to day because we're still curious, right? And I always say, the key tips I would give is we want people to lean into social groups. I'm a big advocate for following with your doctors, getting good recommendations, getting a team behind you to take care of a chronic disease adult or patient. Even if it's your parents, you want to get a good team behind you. The other thing you want to do is realize that you're not alone. And we all kind of feel that we are when we're in the care group because we may be the direct caregiver, but the reality is, you want to lean in on all that help you have. And that help might be the medical or it may be social groups like their associations with congenital heart disease. Check their websites a lot. Other things I do to help myself is social media groups. Facebook moms are the thing now. But it really helped in regards to small things like, okay, I have to get a child in a diaper and a, and a, oh, I need a button, not a zip. Thanks mom. So it's that kind of perspective that gets you learning. Not just surviving, but thriving, because now you're going to go from the physicians helping you about the education of the disease, but how do you get that child to reach their maximum potential? How do you get grandma to be living safely, but independently? Where do you get that navigation? And that's where you have to think of it, and that's what I share with patients.

Kerry: 22:38

Yeah, the social support is super helpful, like whatever way it has to be in person, like you going to a conference for yourself is a great example too. But I mean, I think that for the caregivers to that's typically some sort of association that can exist to help people and answer simple questions or meet someone in person. So I think reaching out and finding those groups is definitely a great idea. So what were you saying about the research like patients or patients should do research on basically their medical condition or anything else or

Simarta: 23:10

I found in my perspective that one of the biggest challenge for me was learning that when we get diagnosis specific diseases like chronic diseases, whether it's autoimmune or like chronic diseases that really change our independence or perspective, we grieve they're like, what? Yeah, you can grieve yourself and and a part of that is understanding that shock and denial shock and denial is a part of the subsets that lead to a lot of people with coiling and not finding information. And I think the big advocacy I do, because of my experience is, we want to work through that and that's our mental wellness we want to make sure as we're going through grief for ourselves. We are educating ourselves from the right resources, whether you're going to medical associations, you're going into chat groups. I joined support groups locally. And the idea is a lot of times when we're in that denial phase, we will go, well, I don't have that. That's not me. I mean, they think that. I have doctors. But the truth is, it's the grief process. We're in shock. And if we don't get past that, then we don't educate ourselves to be able to get to the point of acceptance. So we start bargaining. We start accepting. It gets delayed. And we can go above and all through that grief process. I advocate for people educating themselves with the resources with their physicians, their providers, and also with the resources that are now available and bring it to people. Don't keep it to yourself like, Oh, I heard if I drink that tea five times a day, it's going to cure my hair. No, you want to make sure you're talking to your doctors and go, Hey, I saw this. This is my source. What do you think? Bring it to the table. And that's kind of how you contribute to your own education. And it's super important.

Kerry: 25:31

Yeah. I like that. Definitely. I don't know about the hair thing, but bring it all in and bring your sources. I think that really does help too. Like, where did you get this information? Is it straight out of Google or what? I think that's a good, good point. So what else would you like to share with our audience today?

Simarta: 25:47

If you want to connect with me beyond I do have a website, www. drsimarta. com, that's d r s i m a r t a dot com the book is available on Amazon, Barnes Noble's local library.

Kerry: 26:05

Don't forget audible now, right?

Simarta: 26:06

but, and Audible, good point, good point for an on the go lady. The idea is you may want to get yourself a copy to hear my experience or you may want to share it with someone else. I've had a lot of people who will buy it for, hey, that person I know. So reach out to me. I'm always available to share and grow. And yeah, I'm just happy to be able to share one story.

Kerry: 26:32

Well, thank you so much for coming on. And you are a primary care doctor in St. Pete. So if anybody needs you, they can find you there too.

Simarta: 26:38

Absolutely. I work through Optum Primary Care in the Northeast.

Kerry: 26:42

Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and everybody tune in next week. Okay.