Years ago, Sheena Smith of Palm Bay was seeing a doctor who was sure the font of all her ills was the extra weight she carried.

“No, really, he said, ‘You’re fat,’” she recalls.

Seeking a new Primary Care Provider, she balked at making an appointment with Stephanie Bixby, an Internal Medicine Provider at a Health First Medical Group practice in Malabar. “I don’t want to see an APRN,” she thought.

But she did it.

“That first appointment, I cried,” she says. “I cried because she listened. She asked what was wrong, and she listened to all of it. Then she started talking about how we were going to come up with a plan to address my health.”

The story of Bixby and Smith is a vivid illustration of the patient investment Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants can offer – of deeper listening, then tapping into healthcare’s kaleidoscope of specialty care and services.

Smith eventually did pursue a surgical weight-loss solution, and lost 100 pounds, but it turns out, she also suffers from postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) unrelated to her weight. At Bixby’s direction, she now gets comprehensive cardiac care from Health First Cardiologist Enrique Polanco, MD, and Cardiologic Electrophysiologist Vishal Patel, MD. Later, Smith watched another mystery unravel when she received an auto-immune disorder diagnosis from Health First Rheumatologist Sheetal Patel, MD.

“I think I’ve sent 25 friends and clients to Stephanie, maybe more,” Smith says. “Every time I have a breakthrough, I commend her, and thank her for all of her service to me, listening, never giving up on me. Not thinking I’m crazy.”

“I know people like their doctors, but she saved my life.”

READ the complete feature in Space Coast Daily HERE.