Shireen: Dr. Nair talks to us about how she incorporates her patient's values, spirituality and interest in alternative medicines, into her medical practice.

Podcasting from Dallas, Texas, I am Shireen, and this is the Yumlish podcast.

Yumlish is working to empower you to take charge of your health through diet and exercise and reduce the risk of chronic conditions like type two diabetes and heart disease. We hope to share a unique perspective and a culturally relevant approach to managing these chronic conditions with you each week.

Dr. Turya Nair is a faculty physician, board certified in both family medicine and integrative medicine at the UT Southwestern department of family and community medicine. She focuses on whole person care, including spirituality, patient narratives, and complimentary therapies in her partnerships with patients.

She also serves as a medical director for Parkland County's integrated pain and healing center. Welcome Dr. Nair.

Dr. Nair: Hi Shireen. Happy to be here! 

Shireen:  An absolute pleasure having you on. So Dr. Nair, can you tell us about why you decided to become, become a doctor in family medicine? 

Dr. Nair:  Sure. And it's something I've thought about a lot over the years.

I've now been in practice about six years after residency training. Family medicine, I find just to be a fascinating field because it truly is sort of the Jack of all trades of medicine. And we also fondly call it cradle to grave medicine because family physicians are capable and trained of taking care of every part of of human life, every life stage.

So we, our, our training includes care for prenatal patients that is women when they're pregnant, as well as to be able to deliver babies, to take care of newborns and those new moms, as well children of all ages, adolescents, adults throughout their lifespan, as well as geriatric medicine and even end of life care.

And when I was in medical school doing all my rotations, this is kind of a classic story for family medicine, I loved all my rotations. I loved everything I got to learn. I liked getting to meet patients in, in lots of different stages of their lives and their care. But another kind of classic feature. I, I didn't like giving them up.

I didn't like seeing them in the emergency room and then never meeting them again, never knowing what would happen to them afterwards. So I loved kind of being able to build relationships, to get to know people better and to allow that to then shape how we would take care of their health and their conditions.

And so that's also something that family medicine allows us to do, allows me to do is to take care of patients over a long span of time. Nowadays, it's really wonderful for me to walk into a room and say, Hey, it's great to see you again. I saw you last month, or I saw your spouse or your child last month. How are they doing?

And to really have that, connection over time so that I can understand what patients want out of their health. And for me also that, that long thread of kind of story and narrative in a person's life is really helpful for learning how to take care of them. We're kind of building that that relationship over time and, and that trust as well.

So those things I find are important, not only to me in the career that I wanted to have, but also really informs how I'm able to take care of patients.

Shireen:  Absolutely love that approach and your new bio specifically talks about spirituality. And even when you're talking about the continuity and care, that in itself is such a refresher because you don't have a lot of physicians who feel that way, or just kind of like going through the, going through the cycle.

Seeing their patients for the day and sort of moving on. But to build that relationship with your physician is, is so incredibly important. And so we'll, we'll dive into that in just a second here, but how did you find that your interest in spirituality and lifestyle and medicine have had an impact here?

Dr. Nair:  So for me personally, spirituality has always been a huge part of my own life. It was very central to how I grew up, conversations around the dinner table, philosophical questions about life and death and, and the meaning of life. These were all kind of common topics in, in my home. And also thinking about how we as, as humans can, can be tolerant to each other, can find spaces and ways to love each other, to serve each other, no matter what our backgrounds or our belief systems may be. So that was the background I kind of brought with me personally, and I, I think that was a really helpful lens when I began to see patients because,

ultimately, I, it allows me to come from a place of non-judgment and to meet people wherever they are in life. It's absolutely not up to me to say someone is living their life right or wrong. It's up to me as a physician to, to kind of partner with them and say, well, this is what your life is. Let's talk about what you want your life to be, or, or what you think you want to get out of you know, your day, your career your relationships.

And kind of work together in that way, and it's gonna be different for every single person. And there's a beauty to that because that also means I get the opportunity to be very flexible. I get the opportunity to, to be creative with my patient care. And it lends really strong, meaning for me professionally as well, thinking about patients, certainly not, not only as bodies, but as spiritual beings as well allows me to,

get creative with patient care allows me to be very individualized with how I approach each patient. Knowing that each person that I meet is, is very individual, has different kind of goals and understandings of what they want out of their life, out of their career, out of that purpose or meaning that they have formed for, for themselves.

And, and we can meet in the middle to kind of see how that is gonna inform how they wanna take care of themselves and how they want me to be involved with that process. Additionally, that inclusion of spirituality into my day to day practice with patients has been valuable for me from the angle of physician wellness and physician burnout, which we are learning more and more about, especially during the time of pandemic.

We have learned a lot from burnout research for physicians that. When physicians can maintain joy and purpose in their day to day practice that helps to stave off burnout. That helps to keep us well, because it, it keeps us connected to our own professional sense of why we went into the field and why we're here to take care of patients.

And so kind of aligning for myself, you know, this is why I wanna keep practicing medicine. Is being able to make those connections with people, to meet them at that kind of higher level. That maintaining that centrally to my practice is also helped to me to stay well and to prevent my own burnout.

Shireen:  Thank you for sharing that, Dr. Nair. I think one of the other things would be beneficial is what are the, what are the benefits of integrating a patient's lifestyle? You mentioned spirituality and interest in alternative medicines into their medical care. Because we don't, again, it is very unheard of, right.

From a physician. So I would like to learn a little bit more about the benefits there. 

Dr. Nair:  So when we think about this concept of incorporating other kinds of modalities or therapies or treatments into medical care, it's actually interesting. We have this kind of very narrow, I think a very narrow lens.

When we, when we think about medicine from a Western perspective, the practice of what we call allopathic or Western medicine is fairly new in terms of human history. And there are other traditions, other healthcare, traditions, and philosophies that are hundreds or thousands of years old from other parts of the world.

And so even though we in the west and, and with my medical training may think about those other practices as alternative. Those may be the foundational or traditional models for healthcare in, in other cultures. And so if I'm able to, to have some understanding of those other cultural backgrounds and the medical practices that come from those, number one, it helps me to be more culturally humble.

When I meet patients, to say, yes, you may be doing something that I'm not familiar with, but tell me more about that. I wanna understand how that's been beneficial for you. And, and help me to, to understand also at, at a, again, coming back to that spiritual or that, that level of purpose or meaning, why do you choose to, to do that?

Why is that kind of more valuable or more important for you than perhaps what I'm offering, which may be fine. It also, you know, this is also a lens that thinks about, again, coming back to that physician and patient partnership. It is less paternalistic than, than an approach that says I'm the physician I know best.

And it's up to me to provide you with the answer for what's going on in your body and to give you a solution that you have to follow exactly what I'm telling you to do. This is more about, well, You know, I'm here to provide the expertise that I have, but you, as a patient have expertise about your lived experience, about what it feels like to be in your body, about what things have helped you before that may have happened outside of the physician's office.

And that is absolutely valid. I, I actually use this concept when I teach medical students in residence. I, I tell this story that happened to me that really kind of opened my eyes. When, I'll, I'll try to keep it a little bit on the shorter side. But when I went for jury duty once for jury selection, one of the questions that the lawyers were asking in this particular case, which I assume was about a, kind of a, a car crash or an insurance case, they asked all of the potential jurors who here has been to see a chiropractor.

And so many people in the group raised their hands. And it was actually surprising to me because I had never been in that situation before where I could just ask a whole group of people in a room. How many of you have been to see a chiropractor, and the lawyers proceeded to ask those individuals, what was your experience like when you went to see the chiropractor?

Did you have a positive or negative experience? And many of them told stories about going to see a chiropractor for back pain or for neck pain, and many had had positive experiences. So they got me thinking, you know, those folks who had a condition pain or an injury, they went to see the chiropractor and they had a positive outcome.

I might never see those folks in my clinic. And so that kind of creates a sort of bias for me where, I would potentially only be seeing the people in my clinic who had never been to the chiropractor. So maybe they had never tried that and never had a good response or they did try it, and it just happened to not work for them.

So they decided to come see the doctor for something different. But there is, you know, when physicians don't get exposed to those ideas, we may develop kind of a narrower lens that says only the things that I'm offering are gonna be potentially helpful. And we're missing this whole aspect of the population that is doing other things, you know, seeking out other ways of, of helping themselves.

And that may be really working. And so it, from my perspective, it's also up to me to think about those partnerships, think about learning all of those different things, asking my patients, what have you been doing and getting those feelers out in the community, connecting with those practitioners and then building you know, this network of,

of options to help patients, this network of practitioners, so that I know who's in my community, who I can also refer other patients to. And I, I found in a lot of cases, patients also appreciate that they, they appreciate that I'm open to saying, you know, I'm not just gonna give you another medication or suggest that you go see this specialist.

I'm going to maybe think about, what do you wanna do for your health? And I will give you my understanding of the evidence base in terms of the science, in terms of the safety concerns. Maybe we can join two things together and do truly what we call integrated medicine, where maybe there is a role for something medication wise, but there's also a role for let's say, acupuncture or a role for an herbal supplement that maybe won't give you the side effects of a prescription.

And so, those are, you know, I've in my practice so far, I've found all of those kind of aspects come together. And ultimately, you know, as I said before, that concept of relationship is really underlying all of this for me. It has helped me build rapport with patients. It's helped them say, Dr. Nair, I feel like I can trust you more.

I feel like I can open up to you more, about what I'm doing and not be judged for it. I've experienced other doctors who maybe said, don't do any of that stuff. You know, only do the things that I'm telling you to do. And, and sometimes that closes a door between patients and physicians. So I, I found that it kind of just helps to build that relationship more as well.

Shireen: And that's so helpful. I, the obvious question that comes to mind Dr. Nair, is, why aren't more physicians doing this, right? If it, if it's working, why aren't most of them taking the time to understand why aren't they getting to know their patients and what's important to their patients. Why, why do you think that is?

Dr. Nair:  That's a great question. And that's a question that I thought about a lot also, because part of my, my role as a, a faculty physician is involved in medical education. And so I, and I'm not that far out from my own medical education and residency training. And so one factor I can tell you is, there is a lot to study in medical school, and the amount of research, the number of new studies that's coming out often on a daily basis is staggering in medicine.

And so even when you compare medical education now to even 10 years ago, 15 years ago, the amount of, of knowledge and information that we are asking medical students to learn in that four year span, is, it's such a high volume. We call it drinking from the fire hose when you join medical school, because that's literally what it feels like.

It's just being bombarded with so much information. Not only that, but there are a lot of people asking the question now, should we keep everything in medical education that was there before we keep on talking about adding new elements? You know, it, we. In fact, this very topic we talk about, how do we teach medical students to create those connections with patients even better?

How do we ensure that we are building and growing humanistic physicians are there elements of the arts and humanities that we should be bringing into medical education? But the question is if you're gonna do, how do you, we'recontinuing to kind of compress so much into those four years, or if you add on residency education into those additional years.

So how do you balance it all? How do you kind of go back to the drawing board and say what's important to learn? In terms of my own education? I chose to do a fellowship on top of my initial training to gain that, that understanding and kind of foundational concepts in integrative medicine, because that was my passion and my interest.

But you know, once physicians maybe finish their, their medical training and they're out in practice, it can be hard to be open to exploring things that you're not familiar with. Physicians are also,  many of us, you know, we wanna feel comfortable. We want to feel knowledgeable about the things that we're telling patients.

And so it can be very uncomfortable for us to say, Ooh, I don't know what to tell you about those things. And, and oftentimes even for myself, that is the answer, is maybe for, for me to say, I haven't heard much about that yet, but I would like. To, to look it up. I'd like the opportunity to take a little time and understand it better.

And then I would, I would love to come back and speak with that patient about you know, what I learned and be able to, to be more knowledgeable about it. But, It's a lot.  And so sometimes what that also means is at least being open to partnership, as I was mentioning before. So even though I am not an acupuncturist or a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, can I find my reliable and well credentialed people in the community that I can build a relationship with and say, If I have a patient, who's interested in that,

okay. I have a good connection for you. Someone to go to who I trust, who I know is doing things that are safe, they've had the appropriate training and really that's what's most important to me is that I, I wanna make sure I'm connecting patients with things that things and practitioners that are safe.

And if they can provide some relief, if they can get some benefit in terms of their health, that is wonderful. But safety is, is, is still kind of a number one priority. So we'll see. I think the fascinating thing is there's, a lot of student interest in these topics partially also because we all experience family members and friends who bring us these questions.

That's the other thing that happens when you become a medical student is suddenly everyone wants your medical opinion,  as you're learning and that's, that's good and bad. Part of that also means that you are, you know, again, you're looking things up on your own and you're developing your interest in terms of how do I become more knowledgeable about all this?

So there are medical students who have reached out to me and we've formed things like classes and electives and shadowing experiences so that medical students can become and stay more open to all of these different concepts within integrative medicine.

Shireen:  Thank you for, thank you for sharing that as just, you know, more out of curiosity to understand why,

how that comes to be in that the care can be differentiated in that way. But coming back to the how and incorporating some of the spirituality conversation, how do you help patients who want to incorporate spirituality and alternative medicine into their care? How do you guide them? What is, what maybe sort of off limits, is there anything that's off limits?

Can you help us understand that?

Dr. Nair:  Absolutely. So coming back to spirituality and, and this also kind of fits in with the question that you asked before. Spirituality can also be something that is potentially uncomfortable for both patient and physician to speak about. Because for many of us, it is something that is intensely personal is intensely you know, important or central.

And, and so, again, this comes back to relationship and rapport between a physician and the patient. If there is not already some of that foundation of trust and, and a good relationship, I would not explore spiritual questions if there's not that foundation of trust already present. And so as I, I teach this to medical students in residence as well.

Many times spirituality is not an appropriate thing to discuss at the very first visit when you're meeting a patient for the first time. At least to kind of get into something very deep with them until you've kind of built that connection. That being said sometimes a first visit or a first encounter with someone in the hospital could be a good time to, to ask.

How you know is, is your spirituality or your religion or your faith, something that is important to you with regards to your health. Is it something that you want us as your healthcare team, your healthcare clinicians to include, or to be aware of as we're trying to to manage your health and, and take care of you.

So that can kind of be a nice way to open the door and just ask if that's something that patients would like to have considered. It's interesting to look at surveys that have been done previously for kind of the general population in the us. A grand majority of people do have some kind of faith belief or some kind of spiritual belief.

And many also use prayer either for themselves or for their loved ones. And, and believe that it is a valuable part of helping people to heal, helping people to get better. But there's a lot more, there's a much wider range in terms of whether or not patients or their family members are comfortable speaking with their providers or with their physicians about those topics.

And again, this comes back to, if it's also not something that physicians are trained to do or that they are taught about in medical school and given that level of comfort on how to discuss those things, It can, it can be awkward. It can be difficult to broach those topics. But sometimes I also wait for patients to open the door.

If I am listening to a patient actively in a, in a visit. And I'm hearing some of these hints around you know, that prayer is an important part of their day or an important part of how they were managing a loved one's illness, or if I'm hearing things about their relationship with God, sometimes it may be that you know,

a particular illness that they, they received a diagnosis for, may have really changed how they relate to that higher, that higher entity or that God that they had a good relationship with before. And so that might open the door for us to then talk about, you know, what has changed, how how are you still incorporating that faith or, or if that changed, that can be a huge deal for people in, in their own personal lives.

If they feel like their relationship with their own. Inner spirit spirituality or, or, or God figure has changed dramatically. That can be a, a, a large existential change. And I, I would wanna know that I would wanna know if there's something that I can do potentially to connect them there. It's also an opportunity for me to ask, are you part of a support group or are you part of, let's say maybe a Bible study or a religious community that could give you some additional support.

Where they can connect you again with something that helps you live better or helps you feel better. Certainly, when patients are receiving a new, serious diagnosis, such as cancer or something else that is going to potentially have a huge impact on their life, that's also a time when it could be valuable to discuss spirituality, because again, diagnoses that are really serious can come back to those existential questions.

How does this change my purpose in life? How does this change? The goals that I had for myself, those kind of spiritual elements, of of where my life trajectory was gonna go. And so those are the times when I might, I might consider talking about those things. I have certainly, I I've prayed with patients in visits as well.

And again, always with their permission, always, if it's an appropriate moment, that is some of the subtlety that comes on the professional side for a physician to know kind of when is, when is the right moment? And I think you, you had also asked, you know, what are some of the potential limitations or things that, that, you know, shouldn't happen at these times?

My faith beliefs and, and my background are, you know, are, are not something that should come into play here. And if there is a tension with that, then again, maybe it is not an appropriate conversation to have, or, or an appropriate topic to broach. If, if I feel that discomfort or You know or if there's, if there's a tension there, I'll say that.

I was gonna add something else as well. Yeah. I mean, that, that is the, the interesting thing also about the physician and patient relationship is that patients are often coming in a very coming from a place of vulnerability, the doctor's office, and that meeting with the physician can be a very scary time.

It can be a very kind of personal and vulnerable time, but oddly enough, for the physician, it's part of a work day. It's a, it's a moment within a profession. And so that dynamic is also something that kind of fascinates me, but it also means that there's certain again, there's certain kind of parameters and, and sort of unspoken kind of I don't wanna say rules, but certain unspoken kind of guidelines for how, how that interaction should go.

If that makes sense.

Shireen:  It does it, it truly does. And this is where I would even love to explore a little bit around alternative medicine. So what types of alternative medicines do you often see people interested in using?

Dr. Nair:  In some cases, again, this also comes back to the larger question of what is a patient's kind of motivation or how do they wanna go about managing their health?

In some cases, it may be that patients don't want a prescription. They don't want a pill that's coming from a pharmaceutical company, but they may be comfortable with an herbal medicine or with using their nutrition as medicine. So that, that is, is common. I do find patients who are interested in herbal options because they feel that something more natural that's coming from a plant source may be less likely to produce side effects or maybe kind of gentler on the system than some of our pharmaceuticals.

I also find patients who they don't want anything in the form of a pill, whether it is coming from a plant or from a lab. And they may be opting for more lifestyle oriented aspects of their own care. So that could be focusing on exercise or focusing on mind, body modalities like meditation.

Or yoga, ways of using movement and breathing techniques to, to kind of get connected with the body and reenter, especially to help with things like mental health conditions the everyday stress that we all experience, managing weight. I also find that there's a lot of interest in modalities like acupuncture or chiropractic, again, things that are pretty low risk overall.

And don't necessarily involve changing the body's chemistry or putting a pill into the body that may have you know, effect that we were not expecting or or that actually kind of work against the goals that we originally had. So those were a lot of the, the kind of modalities that patients come requesting or looking for.

And again, some of the underlying kind of thought process for why they're wanting those. Unfortunately, these days, as we've seen in the pandemic, There's a lot of, kind of angst and mistrust of healthcare systems. And you know, how kind of tied in these things are with certain industries, be it the pharmaceutical industry or insurance.

And so that is, that is absolutely a concern for some patients. And again, that's, I think the, the beauty of integrative medicine is being able to meet patients wherever they are in that spectrum. And and being able to offer something that, that still kind of fits their values. 

Shireen: And I love that you're, you're taking that approach where you're taking the time to get to know them, to then understand how best to provide that care to them.

That takes all these other aspects into account as well. How important is it to listen to these patients' values and goals when it comes to their health? How do you see it impacting health outcomes?

Dr. Nair:  That's also a, a wonderful question. I will, I will start by mentioning a really poignant quote that a patient mentioned to me, a couple of, about a month ago. This was a patient that I saw in, in the pain clinic at Parkland where I work. And unfortunately she had seen lots of different doctors, lots of different specialists for her conditions. And really wasn't feeling much better. And one of the things that she said out of frustration, that just really stuck with me, she said, I wanna be heard, but I just keep getting referred.

The rhyme helped it also stick with me of course, as well, but it was kind of a, you know, a sort of sad moment for me and I can, I can see the, the frustration on both sides working in healthcare. I can certainly see the frustration for many of my colleagues who. The system, maybe doesn't provide enough time for them to sit with patients to build these relationships, to build trust.

And sometimes that is where physicians may get stuck with saying, well, let me, let me see where else I can, I can send you to get care or, or have somebody else maybe see if they can give you those answers you're looking for. And, and. Can certainly see, you know, where physicians may be coming from in that process.

And unfortunately it speaks to systems also that we need to kind of work on and improve. But coming back to your original question, If I understand, or if I can, can begin to understand where my patients are coming from, what is it that they value? Where is it that they want their health to take them?

What do they want their health for? Do you want your health so that you can enjoy your life, be able to, to, to travel or to really enjoy those decadent foods? That could be very different than somebody who you know, just needs their health to work those 12 hour days at their job. And, and you know it is maybe for lack of a better term, maybe a workaholic or somebody who needs to work those long hours.

That could be very different from someone who is now a grandparent and their goal is to stay healthy so that they can help take care of grandchildren or, you know, a, a parent who's in that sandwich generation and needs to take care of children. And their own parents. So if I can understand those values and understand a patient's circumstances as well, that is absolutely gonna inform the treatment plans that I consider for them.

I had a patient a couple of weeks ago in my own primary care clinic. He's so torn and he's so frustrated because he understands the importance of lifestyle medicine. He knows how good he has felt in the past. When he was able to exercise regularly, he knows how good he felt when he did not weigh 30 extra pounds that he does now.

But, he loves his job and he's working incredibly long hours. And part of what he really values is feeling like he's contributing well to his workplace, feeling like he's a really important part of the team. Like he's making a difference at his workplace. And so, as I'm hearing all of this and also seeing this blood pressure that has been climbing the last few visits, higher cholesterol numbers, as he's gained weight, we had to have a Frank conversation about how do we align all of these pieces together.

I, I, I hear that you, you know, would love to be able to exercise and you understand how important that is. And he also, I, I got this sense that he felt like starting a medication, would've been a failure, that it was kind of admitting that he was giving up on those other lifestyle options. And we had to kind of had this Frank conversation that.

First of all, I, I don't see it that way. These are all so many different options. We are living at actually really a wonderful time in healthcare, where we have so many different ways to help people with their health and nothing has to be forever for some of these chronic conditions. The goal is to keep you safe.

It's to make sure that, you know, we aren't, we aren't just leaving those things untreated, but that maybe you do need a medicine for now. Because my, I wanna make sure you don't have a stroke. I wanna make sure that even though you are stressed out at work, that it's not raising your blood pressure so high, that something catastrophic happens to you.

So maybe we need the help of a medication during this time. And again, maybe that won't be forever. Maybe something will change about work in the future. Maybe something will change about your perspective in the future. Those things certainly happen to all of us. Maybe a life event happens or just a change in how we want our, our day to day life and work to be.

And that could be a transition point where someone says I'm cutting back on my work hours. My, my new goal is I wanna spend more time with my children. I wanna be able to run after them and not feel like I'm huffing and puffing. And maybe that is when our goals shift or how we, we achieve that might shift.

So for me, I mean, that's just kind of just one example, but I, I can't bring the same plan to every patient. That would not be fair to them. And nobody would follow those plans. If I also had, had attempted to just throw a medication at him, but hadn't had that conversation, I don't think he would've appreciated that. He wouldn't have understood kind of where I was coming from and, and how we were kind of meeting in the middle.

And so it helps me also to make sure that I'm offering a patient, a plan that is gonna fit with their lifestyle. That's going to fit with With something that they will do. Many times patients ask, what kind of exercise is the best kind of exercise? And the real answer is the exercise that you will do. Doing something that, that you feel drawn to do every day, maybe something that brings you joy.

That's why I, I have a lot of patients I tell to go dance because they love dance and that's absolutely a form of exercise. That's my, my long winded answer to this question, but it helps me to make sure that again, I'm really building a plan that is individualized. It's personalized for someone and that they can see fitting into their, their day to day life and fits what they want, what their, their goals are.

Shireen:  That is very helpful, Dr. Nair. And so with that, we are toward the end of the episode, unfortunately. At this point, can you tell us how can our listeners connect with you and just learn more about your work? Be it any kind of research, website, social media, anywhere where we can learn more about this.

Dr. Nair: That is a good question at this point, I'll be honest with you. I, I don't have a whole lot of online presence. That may be something that, that begins to build over the next few years. And, and similarly with research, that's a process I'm kind of getting started with right now. I'm enjoying kind of beginning some partnerships with behavioral health faculty or therapy faculty that we have within the family medicine department to think about.

Things like lifestyle of behaviors and mental health and how we link those things with the larger picture of taking care of patients. This wonderful endeavor with integrative medicine at the Parkland clinic may also create some opportunities for research over time because we are. In that clinic space, we are actually trying to work on this model of collecting lots of different kinds of modalities, like acupuncture, like yoga, mindfulness, nutrition education, and bringing those things together.

And so some of these things may develop over time, but at the moment, sadly, I do not have too much to, to offer in that area.

Shireen:  Sure thing. And, and we can always reach out to Parkland communications if we need to, to absolutely. If we need to get ahold of you.

Dr. Nair:  Yes, definitely.

Shireen:  Lovely. And so with that, thank you so very much, Dr. Nair, For your time. For our listeners, head to our social media, head to Facebook, head to Instagram and tell us how do your spiritual beliefs affect your approach to your own healthcare? Again, find us on Facebook. Find us on Instagram. Find the podcast post on either of those and comment below to tell us how do your spiritual beliefs affect your approach to your own healthcare.

And with that, Dr. Nair, thank you so very much again for your time. 

Dr. Nair:  Thank you so much for having me. This was fun.

Shireen:  Thank you for listening to the Yumlish Podcast. Make sure to follow us on social media @Yumlish_ on Instagram and Twitter and @Yumlish on Facebook and LinkedIn. For tips about managing your diabetes and other chronic conditions and to chat and connect with us about your journey and perspectives. You can also visit our website Yumlish.com for more recipes advice and to get involved with all of the exciting opportunities Yumlish has to offer. If you like this week's show, make sure to subscribe so you can hear more from us every time we post. Thank you again, and we'll see you next time. Remember your health always comes first. Stay well.

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