Primary Care Champion: Dr. Tanya Reyes

When looking for primary care champions in Española, one only needs to look at community stalwart Dr. Tanya Reyes.

Reyes is New Mexico, through and through. Born in Alamogordo, Reyes’s family moved to Española when she was a year old, after her father took a job at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Santa Fe. Growing up, Reyes attended Española’s public school system, where she earned good grades and was an admitted “good kid in school.” Being a good kid in school likely played a role in carving out Reyes’ path toward a medical degree, as her junior year in high school she was told about the University of New Mexico’s BA-MD program and the opportunities it could afford her.

 “I never thought about medicine. I was going to draw comic books. I like to draw and art, and that’s what I wanted to do. I didn’t think I was going to be a doctor or could be a doctor.”

With Reyes’ career and educational pursuits shifted away from the anime and manga artistic stylings of Dragonball Z and Naruto, she now considered a career in medicine. One possible route was psychiatry, as she considers herself a good listener and likes helping people talk through their problems. Plus, psychiatry would keep her away from the gorier aspects of being a doctor. However, there was an appeal to family medicine and helping others that was partly inspired by her experiences tagging along to her mother’s doctor visits.

“I remember as a kid, like always joining her on her visits and serving as interpreter for a lot of the visits sometimes,” Reyes said. “So, it just kind of clicked, like this could be somewhere where I could fit in. Kind of, I don’t know, try to bridge that gap with language and culture.”

So straight out of high school, Reyes found herself in medical school at UNM as part of the BA-MD program.

“I think part of the BA-MD program, their goal is to have, well-rounded physicians that try to stay in New Mexico. I think that’s a big, big goal, so I think maybe that’s what they saw like, this could be someone who definitely stays.”

Just as the BA-MD program had hoped, Reyes remained in New Mexico joining the family medicine residency program at CHRISTUS St. Vincent in Santa Fe upon graduation. For Reyes, her residency site was a 40-minute drive from her hometown of Española, and it gave way to the thought that while the medical degree may not have initially been part of her life’s plan, returning home always was. She had considered traveling abroad and joining Doctors Without Borders, but the allure of returning home was just too great. After completing her residency in Santa Fe in 2019, Reyes returned to Española to begin work at the El Centro Family Health Clinic.

Working out of El Centro has given Reyes the opportunity to ensure her community’s health, much like she had originally envisioned in her BA-MD application letter. According to Reyes, maintaining a patient’s health is a team effort where both her and the patient are equal in the process.

“I don’t like to call them ‘my patients’ or I don’t like the idea of owning something like a person. I always say ‘people’ or ‘patients that I’m following’ or that I see.”

With the patients that she follows, Reyes focuses more on building personable rapport rather than trying to appear as if she is the infallible expert. Although this may take extra work, Reyes believes understanding of a patient’s cultural background and views, and directly addressing the patient’s reservations toward medical treatment provide much greater long-term benefits.

“It may push you back a little bit and may make you a little bit late in your schedule, but in the long term, once you figure out this particular patient, who’s probably going to follow you for some time, and you’ve shown interest into who they are and what their cultural beliefs are, that will help tremendously,” Reyes said. “In the long run, you won’t get as much pushback or just noncompliance when you know where they’re coming from.”