A note from Dr. Farzana Badrun
I still remember the visits, early in my career, where a patient would answer, “How are you doing?” with “Fine,” and I would move on to blood pressure and cholesterol because that is what the appointment was built for. It was not until years later — after a slower conversation, a follow-up question, a little more time in the room — that I would learn the “fine” was covering months of sleepless nights, or a grief no one had asked about, or a stress they had stopped trying to name out loud.
I do not think that patient was unusual. I think most of us learn, early and quietly, that a doctor’s visit is not really the place for that conversation. There is a form to fill out, vitals to take, a list of complaints to get through before the door closes in fifteen minutes. Mental health gets squeezed into whatever’s left — which is often nothing.
That is one of the reasons I started New Essence Health.
Health is not just physical
Your body and your mind are not separate systems that happen to share an address. Chronic stress raises blood pressure. Poor sleep worsens blood sugar control. Anxiety shows up as chest tightness, stomach trouble, headaches that no amount of ibuprofen quite fixes. And the reverse is true too — a body that is exhausted, in pain, or managing a difficult diagnosis will wear on the mind that has to carry it.
I cannot, in good conscience, treat one and ignore the other. So, I don’t.
What does this actually looks like?
In practice, it is less dramatic than it might sound. It is asking how you are sleeping and waiting for the answer. It is noticing when someone seems more tired than their labs explain and asking what is going on underneath that. It is making space, in an unhurried visit, for the sentence that starts with “Actually, there’s something else…” — the one that so often comes at the very end of a rushed appointment, right as the doctor’s hand is already on the doorknob.
It’s also knowing my limits. I am your primary care physician, not a therapist or a psychiatrist, and there is real, specialized work that those professionals do that I am not trained to do. What I can do is be the first person you talk to — the one who takes it seriously, helps you understand what you are experiencing, and makes sure you are connected to the right kind of support if you need more than what a primary care visit can offer. Mental health care, done well, is rarely one person doing everything. It is a team, and I see my role as making sure you are never navigating that alone or without a place to start.
You don’t need a crisis to bring this up
I want to be clear about something: you do not need to be in crisis for your mental health to matter in this office. You do not need a diagnosis, a breakdown, or a “good enough” reason. Ongoing stress that’s wearing you down. A hard season you cannot quite explain. Sleep that’s been off for weeks and you are not sure why. Feeling like yourself less and less. All of that counts. All of that is worth fifteen extra minutes of conversation, which is exactly what an unhurried visit is built to give you.
An invitation, not a checklist
If you are a member of New Essence Health, I would genuinely rather you bring this up than sit through an entire visit deciding whether it is “worth mentioning.” It is. And if you are not yet a member and you are reading this because something in it resonated — that is worth paying attention to, too.
Health, to me, has never been just the absence of a bad lab result. It is whether you feel like yourself. I would like to help with that, in whatever way is actually useful to you.
— Dr. Farzana Badrun
