Emilia Murray, MD - Internal Medicine in Naples, Florida

Eva Sheie (00:03):
The purpose of this podcast is simple. We want you to get to know your doctor before meeting them in person because you're making a life-changing decision and time is scarce. The more you can learn about who your doctor is before you meet them, the better that first meeting will be. There's no substitute for an in-person appointment, but we hope this comes close. I'm your host, Eva Sheie, and you're listening to Meet the Doctor. Welcome back to Meet the Doctor. My guest this afternoon is Emilia Murray. She's a board certified internal medicine MD and her practices in Naples, Florida. One of the most beautiful spots in Florida, I think. Welcome Dr. Murray.

Dr. Murray (00:47):
Thank you. Thank you for having me today. Nice to meet you, Eva.

Eva Sheie (00:51):
Nice to meet you too. Tell me a little bit about your practice and why you decided to build such an interesting hybrid of the things that you're doing. I'll let you tell us what those are.

Dr. Murray (01:04):
Well, as you well said, I'm an internal medicine physician and I started initially as a traditional medicine. That was how I start my journey where I actually gain experience and valuable insight there. But I realized that I was not treating the root of patient's illness and health issues and I wanted to provide more of a comprehensive care. So that actually led me to go into a more holistic approach. And when I do the holistic approach, it's just more personalized and proactive care and that I started with the concierge care and also a little bit of aesthetic medicine.

Eva Sheie (01:50):
When you decided you'd had enough of the probably short appointments and not getting to the root cause and kind of complaints that we as patients all have about primary care, was there an incident or a moment or was it just sort of a general feeling of I've had enough?

Dr. Murray (02:09):
Well, when I started practice after I graduated, I joined a group, a multi-specialty group here in Florida. And the way that they were setting up my schedule, I wasn't feeling comfortable. It was like every 15 minutes I will have to talk to a patient. Some of them were already established. We are another primary physician and I felt like I was just sometimes discussing labs and doing medications, refills. I didn't have the time enough to communicate with the patient to hear what they need because I was part of another practice, there was a lot of pressure that I have to be on time on the schedule and that kind of frustrate me. So I realized if I was going to be somebody's employee, I have to follow the rules. So I said, okay, so I think I have to move on and open my own practice.

Eva Sheie (03:02):
Was that scary or did it feel like

Dr. Murray (03:04):
It was very scary. It was very scary. It was really scary. I'm like, oh my God, how I'm going to do this? But where is a will, there is a way to do it.

Eva Sheie (03:17):
When you have no other choice, you just do.

Dr. Murray (03:18):
That's correct. Yes. And at the end I knew that I was going to be happier because that was my mission. My mission was to take care of patient and listen to them and that's why I became a doctor. I didn't became a doctor just to write a prescription, 15 minutes to get out of here.

Eva Sheie (03:35):
And you trained in Puerto Rico. How did you end up in Florida?

Dr. Murray (03:40):
All of my education was there until I did my doctorate in medicine, including my bachelor in biology. And then I decided to move to Florida because I want to explore different areas that was in Puerto Rico. I always want to learn or practice English, so another language. So I decided to go to New York, so that's where I actually end up going.

Eva Sheie (04:10):
How long did you stay in New York and what did you do there?

Dr. Murray (04:13):
In New York, I completed my internship, my internal medicine training, and then after I finished I stayed one more year and I work in a multi-specialty practice there. And once I stayed there for about an extra year, I was married. Then my friend now and ex-husband now, he had an extra year to go and then once we finished when we moved to Florida.

Eva Sheie (04:37):
Are you glad that you moved to Florida?

Dr. Murray (04:40):
Yes, yes. I actually was expecting to have, I love the weather and I was looking for a place that I could go visit my family and it was going to be a short trip, so it's good. It's been good so far.

Eva Sheie (04:55):
Well, Naples is known for a couple of things, one of course for being beautiful and having the most amazing beaches. But what are the people like in Naples?

Dr. Murray (05:07):
People in Naples are from everywhere. I have a lot of patients that live here for six months from different areas in United States, from Illinois, from Michigan, from Ohio. We have Latinos from Columbia, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rican. So it's multicultural here. I love it.

Eva Sheie (05:29):
And how do your patients find you?

Dr. Murray (05:32):
They find me on the internet. They find me on my website. They find me by Google, most of them, a lot from referrals, sometimes insurance, they call insurance also referred.

Eva Sheie (05:44):
Now you do concierge medicine, which I think is the greatest invention of the 21st century. There was a day where I used to go, they got bigger and bigger and bigger, and then it was like it took up the whole floor of a building and then there was a team of 10 people and you didn't know who you're going to see and if you were sick it was like you had to jump through nine hoops just to get a decision. You wouldn't even know if you could go in. They'd have to tell you if they wanted you to come in or stay home. And I was losing so much time and that's really what pushed me over the edge was that they had no idea who I was anymore and I couldn't keep taking so much time just to solve basic problems. And so that was when I switched. And I'm interested in your philosophy of concierge and how you approach that with your patients.

Dr. Murray (06:39):
Well, my practice philosophy is just that the patient's care is the center of my practice. So I prioritize my patients. They're the most important thing, the most important aspect and their wellbeing. So I just want to listen to them. I learn a lot from the patients when they speak. That's one of the things that I learned from having the time, the concert care, that actually helped me set up a personalized plan for them. So I'm not randomly treating anybody. I am very possessive of my patients basically in terms of if I care for them, I try to prevent them. I don't want them to go to the emergency room or urgent care, I just want them to contact me first because I know them so well. And sometimes they just need reassurance or they just need to be seen right away and I'm here for them. My moral in concierge care is treat the patient not only in their medical needs but also psychological. If anything that I could help them achieve, that's what would be my plan for them. So it's a personalized attention and care.

Eva Sheie (07:59):
Can you think of an example that you can share?

Dr. Murray (08:04):
Today is interesting. I actually have a patient who is being very healthy. She's a very active lady, a beautiful lady inside and out, and she was having a lot of kind of cardiac symptoms, palpitations and feeling kind of unease. So I have her, she came back just to check her blood pressure again and monitor her heart rate being a little bit erratic and I wasn't sure, I was trying to go through her history with her the previous visit, trying to, she's eating something new, if she having some caffeine or what's going on, if any issues with sleeping. And she came back and she gave me her vital signs and I noticed by date on time, and I noticed on the note all the dates, everything, her vital signs were perfect, but on her way here, her heart rate all of a sudden just went up to 120.

(08:55):
So she's like, Dr. Murray, what happened? What do you think it happened? I said, well, I think it's something maybe I'm stressing you out. I thought, so she started crying and I said, now Dr. Murray. So she's going through a lot of family issues that she's being with one of her kids and it's taking so much of her energy and actually of her day-to-day living, that she's not even being able to sleep well for her and for her husband. So if I wasn't her primary, I wasn't able to talk to her. I won't even come up with the conclusion that is probably something psychological that is having some systematic symptoms. So when we approached that, she would be fine. We talk about that and she's like, yeah, I'll be fine. So some kind of adjunctive therapy that we've been using and just, but if I didn't know her, I would say, oh no, you need to go to a hospital. You need to go to the emergency. You're having palpitations, you're hurry. So I think that it's more like knowing the patient and approaching what they're going in the bind in the body that actually drive a lot of how I practice my personalized care.

Eva Sheie (10:07):
And she trusts you enough to tell you what's going on with her life?

Dr. Murray (10:10):
Correct. And that I appreciate it. That's very valuable.

Eva Sheie (10:15):
This is why concierge is the very best thing.

Dr. Murray (10:18):
I love it. I said I have to find one myself.

Eva Sheie (10:21):
No, you have to find your own. Yeah, you can't really treat yourself, can you?

Dr. Murray (10:26):
Sometimes I do for little cold or stuff like that, but when I need help, I need, I'm sure I'm going to need somebody else.

Eva Sheie (10:33):
So if the concierge is sort of the core or the heart of your practice, then you've also added on things like aesthetics and skincare and weight loss. And can you talk a little bit about how those things factor into the rest of the program?

Dr. Murray (10:49):
Yes. Everything is in my practice is an integration of making the patients feel great, live longer, enjoying life. So it's not for me, it's not only being healthy inside. I think that looking great and it make them feel more confident and it made them more active. Sometimes I see the patient change their appearance and they become more socially active. And actually that reduced their stress level. It helped them lower their blood pressure. It helped them lose the weight. We also discuss a lot about diet and being active, and I'm not saying diet to put anybody on a diet like I was talking to one of my patients today. I don't want you to feel like you're going to go in a diet. I think it's a lifestyle change. So when you change your lifestyle and the way that you eat and that work for you, just keep doing what you're doing.

(11:48):
Because if you feel like, oh, I did this, Dr. Murray, I'm eating more veggies, more this, and I dropped 20 pounds, but then I stopped doing it, why did you stop doing it? It was working for you. So you still being the same person. Our body change with age, so we have to change the way we eat and the way we exercise because in reality, aging is a process that we have to go through, but we just have to do it smart in terms that we take care of our symptoms and prevent some of them if we can. And I believe the healthy diet, the regular exercise, the sleep, the amount of time that you should be sleeping for, everybody's different. Managing the stress, which usually would exercise or going social, having friends over all those things contribute to the patient wellness. And also if they want to treat themselves having some kind of aesthetic, that will be great. The aesthetics that I like to concentrate in my practice is a lot of the anti-aging. So one of the things that I love is actually prevention. We do the PRP microneedling. I do love that procedure. So I don't do plastic surgery, but I try to have patients looking great with a healthy skin that they glow, that they feel confident and they look great.

Eva Sheie (13:13):
Do they ever come and tell you when other people notice that they look different?

Dr. Murray (13:16):
Oh yes. Dr. Murray, everybody said my face is glowing. I said, well, it's good because it's glowing.

Eva Sheie (13:25):
I used to get this, you look way younger than your age compliment all the time. But then after I lost weight, then people were like, you look 10 years younger. And I kept thinking, if I look 10 years younger, what did you really think before when you said I looked young for my age?

Dr. Murray (13:41):
I know, it's funny you said that because I went to a soccer game with my son and I saw one of the parents that I haven't seen for maybe four years, and he was a little overweight and when I saw him, he's next to me and I said, oh my gosh, you look great. And he's like, yeah, I lost like 45 pounds. And I said, I don't know what you're doing, but you look even younger. And to tell you the truth, I thought he was in his fifties before when I saw him now, I said, oh my god, you really look young. And then we were talking about age and he's just barely 40. So now he looks like 40 years old.

Eva Sheie (14:22):
Wow.

Dr. Murray (14:23):
It was amazing. And I said, so how is your wife? He said, yeah, she lost some weight too, but I lost more.

Eva Sheie (14:29):
They always lose more. They have it so easy. I swear my husband can just look at the scale and he loses weight.

Dr. Murray (14:36):
Yeah, exactly. But it, it's good. You make them feel great and it looks great just with little lifestyle changes.

Eva Sheie (14:46):
So the hot topic of the year is really the weight loss medications, semaglutide, tirzepatide, and the ones that are coming also very exciting. So when did you start seeing those have an impact and when did you bring them into your practice?

Dr. Murray (15:03):
I'm going to tell you something very interesting. I was resistant to use it. I have been using it for patients with diabetes and they have some side effects. So some of them, they didn't want to take it anymore, but they did lose the weight. So it was interesting. So I kept the medication in my mind all the time and every time they come with a new research, I was just reading it and I said, that could be a potential good medication for weight loss, how I could find a way that the patient don't get side effects and they get the benefits from it. So they keep doing studies and I'm like, this is very interesting. So we brought in the practice as a compound medication and what I love about it, I could titrate the dose. It's amazing because the first dose that they used to use point 25, some patients can handle it. They get very nauseated, they get a lot of symptoms. And I said, you know what? Why don't we start maybe point 10 or maybe half of it. So they feel confident they lose, not as fast as they wanted to, but hey, if you lose four pounds, five pounds in two weeks, I think that's pretty good.

Eva Sheie (16:22):
That is good.

Dr. Murray (16:23):
So they kind of negotiated said, okay, Dr. Murray said, and I'm here for you if you get nauseated, we just do this and do this. And I find out if they drink a lot of water, a lot of liquid before they give the same injection, they don't get nauseated, most of them. So that's what I like. I love the fact that I could titrate it and it's working great, so now more patients can benefit from it. I've been using the semaglutide for a few months now, and now they have the tirzepatide and then there's more coming. I do also use a human growth hormone analog. I use the smolin. I've been using it before actually the semaglutide came available. And it's not a peptide, it's analog and it works great. It's in a different way. So you lose fat, but you also retain the muscle. With the other peptides, I have seen that some patients, some of the muscle mass. So I kind of use both of them. I kind of alternate and they love it and I love the changes because they're happy and they become more active. It's interesting when patients feel great with their weight and how they feel in general. So I love their face when they come and I'm like, oh my God, I dropped 10 more pounds. So it's amazing.

Eva Sheie (17:42):
It's really good. So tell me if I have this right. I think what you're saying is because you can get it from, you have a lot more control over the doses, correct?

Dr. Murray (17:55):
Right, right. So I can customize and personalize for the patient so they can tolerate it.

Eva Sheie (17:59):
Yeah. The pens that the prescription drugs come in will only do,

Dr. Murray (18:03):
Correct, yes.

Eva Sheie (18:04):
What they're allowed to do. Yeah.

(18:05):
Right.

(18:06):
Yeah, that's an interesting perspective. I had not heard that one yet. Very smart. Well, you said you have a son.

Dr. Murray (18:14):
I have a son.

Eva Sheie (18:15):
Any other ones?

Dr. Murray (18:17):
I have a daughter, yes.

Eva Sheie (18:18):
And what do you like to do with them when you're not at work?

Dr. Murray (18:22):
They are two teenagers, so sometimes they want to spend time with mommy. Sometimes they just want to spend time with their friends. So I'm trying to grab a little bit of time what I can. My daughter is now 17, she'll be going to college in a few months. And my son is 14, so he have me pretty much very busy with soccer. He plays soccer in middle school and he plays soccer in the club. So almost all my weekends are pretty busy with the soccer.

Eva Sheie (18:52):
Lots of sunscreen.

Dr. Murray (18:53):
Yeah. Yes. I love the outdoors, so I don't mind. And I love soccer too.

Eva Sheie (18:59):
That's perfect. Yeah. What about yourself away from the kids? Is there anything you'd like to do?

Dr. Murray (19:06):
I love the outdoors. I try to find time to relax. I sometimes enjoy doing nothing, which usually doesn't happen, but at least I could just sit and just listen to the breeze. The birds for me is so relaxing. You just transport my brain somewhere else. And I think everybody needs those moments. I think my bigger ideas come after minutes or days or hours when I able to kind of reset myself. I love being active. I ride a bike. I love doing exercise, going for a walk. If the weather is bad, I just do my spinning bike or Pilates, something. I always have to do something.

Eva Sheie (19:53):
I see that you do something called a meet and greet when someone's interested in considering you as their doctor. Can you tell us what that meet and greet is all about?

Dr. Murray (20:02):
Meet and greet is something that we have offered the patients because when they are looking to get a primary physician, particularly a physician, I think it's a decision that is very important when you, you're going to trust somebody with your help. And if I am the same situation, I would like to know the doctor, the person who I'm going to trust, my healthcare. And one of the main, most important things of my life is my health. So when the patients call and they want to make an appointment, we have them coming over and they say, well, this is me. Any question that you have, because they could find all my profile online, but the personalities sometimes are not the best. So we don't click or we click. Great. So that's very important. So I give them the opportunity to say, Hey, maybe we can just, it's going to be a good relationship.

Eva Sheie (21:06):
Sounds really nice.

Dr. Murray (21:07):
Yes. And it worked for both. It worked for patients and worked for the doctors too.

Eva Sheie (21:13):
Well, your website is Murrays health and wellness.com in Naples.

Dr. Murray (21:18):
Yes.

Eva Sheie (21:19):
And if someone's interested in finding out more about you, is there anywhere else that you'd like them to look on Instagram or I see you have a TikTok.

Dr. Murray (21:26):
We have Instagram, we have Facebook, Google, and the website. Yes.

Eva Sheie (21:31):
Okay. And I'll put all those links in the show notes so they're easy to find. It was a pleasure getting to know you today. Thank you.

Dr. Murray (21:39):
Oh, it was my pleasure. So you want to come visit Naples? Let me know.

(21:41):
Anytime.

(21:42):
I'll give you a tour.

Eva Sheie (21:44):
Not a hard thing to say no to. If you are considering making an appointment or are on your way to meet this doctor, be sure to let them know you heard them on the Meet the Doctor podcast. Check the show notes for links, including the doctor's website and Instagram to learn more. Are you a doctor or do you know a doctor who'd like to be on the Meet the Doctor podcast? Book your free recording session at Meet the doctor podcast.com. Meet the Doctor is Made with Love in Austin, Texas and is a production of The Axis, T-H-E-A-X-I-S.io.