In Black America; Life Saver ER, with Dr. Foye Ikyaator

From the University of Texas at Austin, KUT Radio, this is In Black America. In emergency medicine, you don't pick your patients, you don't check the side who walks in the door, you know, you can be, you know, you can be, you can be thanked by one patient and be cussed out by the next patient. You have drug seekers that come in the door, you have people who have real pain that come in the door, you have patients who pretend to be in pain, you have patients who never followed up with their cardiologists and, you know, they come to you to fix their problems and they never went to clinic, you know, so, you don't, you just don't get to really, you know, have any control over your shift or your day, I have friends who, you know, either they moved and they had to try to establish with a new OB-GYN because they, they, they have a new, they need a new doctor and then they have to, the OB sometimes gets

to kind of, you know, decide if they'll be able to take that patient based on their risk or their history, etc. with ER, you just, whatever comes in the door is your responsibility during that period that they're there and that could be seen as a positive or negative thing. To me, it's just, it's just part of the job. Dr. Fourier E.K.R. tour emergency room physician and medical director of life saver ER located in Houston, Texas. As a ER doctor, Dr. Fourier can treat and provide life saving acute care. She can also manage blood pressure, diabetes, depression and a host of other chronic ailments. At life saver ER, there's a team of health care providers dedicated to providing excellent and compassionate care. Their physicians, nurses and staff pride themselves on the ability to exceed each patient's expectations. Their goal is to deliver high quality, affordable, efficient, adult and pediatric emergent and urgent care.

They understand what it means to have to visit an emergency room and their goal is to make their experience as comfortable and seamless as possible while providing high quality, medical attention. I'm Johnny O'Hanston, Jr. and welcome to another edition of In Black America. On this week's program, Dr. Fourier E.K.R. tour, medical director of life saver ER in Houston, Texas, in Black America. Dr. Fourier E.K.R. tour, medical director of life saver ER in Houston, Texas, in Black They just try to basically triage them from the waiting room.

I try to order tests or start treating them from the waiting room because you don't want them just sitting there waiting. You don't know if they're the heart attack in the waiting room waiting there. You don't know if that chest pain out there is pneumonia or blood clot in the lungs. You don't know if that fracture there is not getting blood supplied to the extremities. So you have to, and you're responsible for everything that comes in there because your name is already on the chart whether you saw them or not. Dr. Forja Ikiato is a board certified emergency medical practitioner. She received a medical degree at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. After medical school, she received further training at Emory University School of Medicine and Public Health in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Forja moved to Houston to further her practice. She gained extensive experience working within the St. Luke's health system. In a few short years, she decided it was time to do what she wanted to do. In December 2015, Dr. Forja and her husband opened a stand-alone four-service emergency room in northwest Houston.

Since opening the facility, life-service emergency rooms she and the physicians have made it a point to offer free services to those in need. She has promoted free flu shot programs in order to provide preventive health services at no cost to the community. She has also teamed up with community leaders to provide CPR classes to the late person at no cost. She truly believes in service to others as a key to success. Today, Dr. Forja directs a free-standing life-saving emergency room, which she can take more time with her patients and counsel them on specific needs as well as to remote the kind of medicine she believes is necessary in today's community. I was born in Ibadon, Nigeria, which isn't West Africa, but I've lived in the U.S. since I was about eight years old. I lived in Tuskegee, Alabama for a couple of years and eventually moved to Atlanta, Georgia around high school. And what was life-like growing up basically in Atlanta? In Atlanta, it was fine in the suburbs of Atlanta.

My parents who worked really hard to make sure we could have the suburb life and how they would be in the band in high school and be in the marching band as well as do flag, which is extra-curricular activities. I started working at Kroger when I was about 15 or 16 or whatever age you were allowed to be able to work to make some extra money. But I mean, it was just so I really can't see anything particularly exciting about it. Having your father as a veterinarian, did dad attract you towards medicine at a young age? Definitely. My dad is more of a scientist than he was a vet. He was doing research on viruses or immunoviruses in animals and kind of like the HIV virus. So he would have us in the lab helping him. We would help write up his report. I learned how to type when I was really young because I could type out the different DNA chains

in animals and goats and cats and things. So we would learn how to use pipettes and make agar for solutions in the lab. So that's how we would spend some of our extra-curricular time working with him in this lab. By doing all that, what did your peers think about you being so inept for science? I don't know what they thought about it. It wasn't really, it was just something, you know, they had it interesting and it didn't, yeah. My parents, you know, we were able to stay pretty diversified in what we were able to participate in. So we do our science sometimes and then I'd be in band and I was a plate-baker. So I was never just, you know, a science geek or a stalker kid or so I was able to diversify all the things I was interested in. You also talked about when I was doing the research in the ninth grade you did a summer institute program at NASA?

Yeah. So one summer I worked at, it was at Tuskegee University, a collaboration with NASA where we were, and they're still, I mean, it's definitely active now and flourishing in that program. But, you know, a lot of people in space, they don't have all the, you know, resources to buy food so they're able to grow a lot of the foods that they eat in the spaceships or in the spacecraft, sorry. So they developed technology where they can infuse water with nutrients and grow things like peanuts and vegetables from water that's been infused with nutrients. And that was a pretty amazing experience to see it start from bowl of water and then by the end of the summer you had plants and vegetables growing from that, from the start of water. Obviously you were, you were real good at science. What were some of the other subjects you were pretty good at in high school? I, you know, I really liked debate, I liked law, I liked drama, I guess that I was in band, I liked music, so I think anything that you could get, that I had an interest in

that I could, you know, kind of get, wrap my mind around, I could, I would eventually become, I guess not good at it, but I developed an interest in it. So I was terribly good at math or anything, but I knew math was necessary, I hate math. But, you have to, you have to understand math to understand physics and to understand some of the, you know, why protons and neutrons worked, it all, well, there's going to be math involved in some of these things to be able to do well in your classes. So, whether I had an interest in it or not, I knew it was sort of the background that you had to overcome. What was it about the University of Georgia? Was that the only school that you were off for the full scholarship? No, it was in Georgia, it was about 30 minutes from our house, and my parents didn't, my older brother, he had a scholarship and he went to University of Florida, and he became

a gator, and I saw how it kind of put my parents through having a drive and go visit him and call him and trying to find him sometimes, and so they didn't even really give me that many, they were just like, yeah, UGA is a really good school and you should go there. So, I think we thought about Spellman, and it was a little bit farther, and it was going to be a little more expensive, but University of Georgia was close by the house, it's a really awesome school and every really great program there, and the, I guess I was closer to home, the campus programs they had were very good, they have a lot of programs that are tailored for minority students, where they make sure you're not just one of the students in a huge sea of students, so you have the programs that are tailored for black students to keep you grounded, to keep you mentored, and just keep you focused on why you're there, why you're enrolled, and working out very well for me, I already knew I wanted to go to medical

school, so I didn't want to go to a school where I'd have to pay out of state tuition on top of, you know, on top of having to figure out how to get into medical school, and how I was going to pay for that, so it turned out really well financially for us. No, that's right, if you're just joining us, I'm Johnny O'Hanston Jr., and you're listening to In Black America from KUT Radio, and we speak from the Doctor for you, Emergency Room Doctor, and Owner of Life Saver ER, located in Northwest Houston, Texas. You're attending the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Health, tell us about that experience. Let's see, that school is based in Madison, in Madison, Wisconsin. My older brother also went to that school, he was one year ahead of me, so he was somebody I always look up to, seemed always following his footsteps, really, but he kind of put me on that school, they have a focus on public health, and given back to your community,

learning about behavioral health as well, and learning why certain groups of people do things that they do, how we end up in different cycles, in different sectors in the community, and so when I applied to the school, the dean of the school was very encouraging and told us, you know, that definitely we would be able to pursue whatever interests we had. At the time, my interest was an international medicine, I always thought I would be able to travel all over the world, and be sort of like a doctor without borders, where you get to go to different countries and help, and they have a lot of programs that are geared toward that, so that was why I went to that school, and I was able to actually put that into practice when I was there, I received a scholarship or a fund that I could go to, I actually went to Nigeria during my third year of college, and I was able to work in HIV clinic in Nigeria, in Lagos, in Nigeria, and I was one of those are one of the perks

that they, you know, kind of shared with me when I was applying to the school. Being in the school was different, it was in, Madison, Wisconsin, there weren't that many minorities at the school, but that being said, it was still a very, very strong education that I feel I received, and University of Wisconsin is one of the top programs in medicine in the country, so it was very challenging, my race and my ethnicity played no factor in when it came down to the test, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's not black or white, that's just, do you know the information at that point. The clinicals were, clinicals you work with different doctors, and that was always slightly challenging feeling like you, you do have to, you, that's when you have to perform, so you can, you can do as well as you want on your test on paper, but when it comes to your actually, your clinicals where you're speaking before, you know, ten, you know, white physicians or older physicians or you're in a room with people that nobody else looks like you, you

have to perform, you know, at, or above what their expectations would be, so that was, that was a different experience for me, definitely, but I do feel like I had a lot of mentors and people that had my back, one of the women on the, on the admissions board, Dr. Gloria Hawkins, as one of the deans, and she was pretty much responsible for the minority affairs and the campus for the medical students, and she, she would always advocate for us and, you know, sort of encourage us to, to do our best, make sure that we're performing above and beyond what the expectations are for us in school. Now, go ahead, go ahead, finish it up. I would just say it was, I mean, it was a good experience. I left school, I graduated, feeling just as capable and competent as anybody else from medical school leaving there, and I was able, when I graduated from university Wisconsin, I had, you know, multiple offers and places I could do my residency and I carried my degree from there with a, you know, like a badge of, you know, approval or stamp of honor, because

I made it. I understand. Now, having lived in Atlanta, I've been to Madison, spent some time there, some years ago, learning the ropes of public affairs, radio, the, the weather change, your Southern young lady, you go to Wisconsin, and it gets cold there in Wisconsin. Oh, yeah. That was horrible. We would leave, I would leave class, or leave home that, you know, classes start around seven, leave home around six or seven, and you'd literally have on three layers of clothing just to get on the bus, honestly, and then from the bus to class, and once you get to school, you'd get find your locker and, you know, distro and take off all the layers and then go to class. And, I mean, because it's a medical school and the hours are long, you would be in school for potentially, you know, 10 hours or longer, so you wouldn't really have to worry about it until it was time to go home where you put all your layers back on, and so that was

the one good thing is that we weren't in medical school, most of your classes are all held in one building. Right. So you're not going from, you know, building A to B to C. Right. So during school, that was fine. And when we weren't in school, you know, there's not a whole lot of electric curricular in medical school. It's four years of very intense education, so it does, whether it didn't affect me too much because I wasn't, I wasn't, I would go skiing with friends once in a while, but for the most part, you're indoors studying in the library, you know, so. Now what, go ahead. No, it was still a good experience, I mean, I learned how to ski there, I went ice fishing, which is pretty interesting. So. Now, when you attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison, how did that experience help shape you into the position that you are today, considering that there weren't a lot of individuals that looked like you?

I think when I, when I was graduating University of Wisconsin, that was one of my goals that I wanted to come back home to the South, I wanted to come to Atlanta, and so Emory University really appealed to me, which is in Atlanta, and they, there are only a few emergency medicine programs in Georgia, they're only two actually in Georgia, so my whole fourth year was targeted to building my resume, building my grades, making sure that I would be a great candidate to be able to get back to Atlanta. So, but when I moved back, you know, in Atlanta, you're surrounded by physicians who look like you, doctors, nurses, you know, it's just one of the norm, you're not, you're not an eyebrow raised when you walk in the zone because there's so many people that look like you, so when you move to places like Atlanta and Houston, where this is almost, you know, this is almost the norm, I would have a ship, you know, even as a physician now, you have ships where, you know, the morning ER doc is a, was a black female, the afternoon ER doc is a black female, the night overnight ER doc is a black male, you feel good about

yourself about your people, you say, all of this is weird, we're all over the place, you know, but it's concentrated, you only see that in Atlanta and Houston, you know, maybe some places in Maryland, you know, but that's not, that's definitely not the norm throughout the country. What is it about emergency medicine that's different from regular medicine? What are some of the extra things that you have to learn to be an emergency physician? In emergency medicine, you don't, you don't pick your patients, you don't have to decide who walks in the door, you know, you can be, you know, you can be, you can be thanked by one patient and be cussed out by the next patient, you have drug seekers that come in the door, you have people who have real pain that come in the door, you have patients who pretend to be in pain, you have patients who never followed up with their cardiologists and, you know, they come to you to fix their problems and they never went to clinic, you know.

So, you don't, you just don't get to really, you know, have any control over your shift or your day, I have friends who, you know, either they moved and they had to try to establish with a new OB-GYN because they, they have a new, they need a new doctor and then they have to, the OB sometimes gets to kind of, you know, decide if they'll be able to take that patient based on their risk or their history, et cetera, with ERA, you just, whatever comes in the door is your responsibility during that period that they're there. And that could be seen as a positive or a negative thing, to me, it's just, it's just part of the job. That's a good, one good thing is that you do get to impact lives in a, in a short period of time, you get to educate people as much as you can during the time that you have them, you know, you have patients who, you know, things like hypertension, you don't always have symptoms from it, so people come in with blood pressures that are sky high or just out of this world and you have that, you know, one or two hours to try to either scare them into taking their medicines or educate them enough just so they can get back on board, start on their meds, follow up with your doctor, you know, get their cholesterol checked,

you know, you have very, you know, finite period of time to be able to impact their lives. And also with emergency medicine, you, you're, you're able to get all these tests done and kind of get people on the right track of a patient, for example, patients with uncontrolled blood pressure, you can do any KG and show them, you know, these are the effects that's harvined on your heart and this is, you know, we can check your kidney function, we, you know, we can check your heart out all these things and show them, you know, sort of raw data that says, hey, you know, you, you really need to take control of your health today. So, I mean, those are good things, I think, about emergency medicine. Some of the, you know, obviously, the negative things is that you see people at their worst and their best, you see people, you know, in dire, you know, in distress over, you know, whatever it is, heart attack, strokes, you see it all, so you, over time you carry their burdens, you carry their emergencies, either home with you or their stress, you care at home. But I don't, I mean, I don't see them as negative things because they're, they're just, they're part of medicine, every field has its own, you know, my, my, my, my, my brother

is either rehab position, so he, he sees patients who've had strokes or who have things, medical problems that are, they end up being chronic and he has to carry that home, you know, so he has to try and treat them during their time in the hospital or during their post-hospital period after their stroke or their neuromuscular disease and that's just, it's just part of his field, there's no, there's no perfect field that you can be in where you don't because they just, like, people are unhealthy, people have health problems and you as a physician, it's your role there to try to get things better for them. I know that's right. Dr. Folio, you 31 years old and you woke up one morning and said, I want to open a ER clinic. Yeah. What, what brought that on? Well, I'm 32 now, a few weeks ago, thank you Sarah. So I woke up one, well, so Houston, Texas, we have a lot of ERs that are similar to this,

so it's not, it's not something that hasn't really been done necessarily, however, as far as what, you know, led me to do it, I work in a few ERs in Houston and a lot of times I get to work and there are, you know, 15 or 20 patients in the waiting room waiting on me. There are patients in the ER waiting to be admitted, there are patients who are admitted, who can't get a bed upstairs, so they're taking up space. So you just start seeing the repetitiveness of the clogged system where you can't get patients out of the ER and you can't get patients in the waiting room inside the ER to get treatment. Sometimes we'll go into the waiting room and pull patients aside to a small room and try to start the workup, look at the risk, look at, listen to their lungs, see if they need to X-ray and just try to basically triage them from the waiting room, I try to order tasks or start treating them from the waiting room because you don't want them just sitting there waiting.

You don't know if they're the heart attack in the waiting room waiting there, you don't know if that chest pain out there is pneumonia or blood clot in the lungs, you don't know if that fracture there is not getting blood supply to the extremities, so you have to and you're responsible for everything that comes in there because your name is already on the chart whether you saw them or not, once they walk in they are assigned Dr. Foye, so I may not have seen them but my name is I'm responsible for them. So you start seeing that enough and you start having dissatisfied patients enough that you know that's how these came about is do they have to come to this building to get emergency care and that the answer is often no, a lot of people who come and walk in and talking can receive a lot of these treatments at a separate facility and that's why life favors emergency when it's created, we can see patients, we can bring them straight back because we don't have the long way, we don't we don't share our X-ray machine with the ICU as well as the regular floor and the rehab floor, so we can get patients

treated a lot faster, a lab is dedicated just for our ER patients, so we're not having a waiting line for the ICU patient's labs to get run or the rehab patient or basically the rest of the hospital to run their labs before we can get ours in, so the patients like it because they don't, they come in here and a lot of times they've been sitting at another hospital for a few hours and they Google and they say oh yeah let me go there, but they'll come here and they'll come straight back to the room, they see a doctor within about ten minutes of walking in the door and they're always pretty amazed at it and I think it's an awesome thing, a lot of states and cities need to really look into this because healthcare doesn't have to be the way it is today. What was it about North West Houston that you said that we need to have this type of emergency room located in this area? What was it about North West Houston, I mean I think there's a need for it probably all over Houston, all over Texas, this happens to be where we live, where I have a family,

my son goes to school in this area and I work in the area so I know what it's like when I work at the hospital and I felt like this would be a good environment to establish it. Now Texas, I don't know about other states but like you said, there are a lot of emergency rooms located in different neighborhoods, obviously this is a gigantic financial outlay, how did you go in the bank and say okay I want to open up an emergency room? Yep, that's pretty much what I did. There are a lot of things that the government has, the initiative of the government has taken to allow small business owners to be able to finance and develop whatever passion or program they want so we did get a lot of help from the bank and would SBA lending to be able to get it approved.

How has faith played in all the decisions that you've made thus far? It's been the backbone of everything, I don't believe that we could have gotten this far without faith, without God, without guidance and support, we ask for favor and all that we do. When I go to work and I see patients, I pray about my patients, I pray for my patients and the decisions that I make so it's not just the patients, it's daily, they definitely commit everything to God that the things that we do will not only just, you want to treat a patient but you also want them to have good health, you want them to be impacted positively past all that. We see a lot of patients with mental health in the ER, they may be there for risk pain and then you find out they're depressed and you find out all this other stuff about them. All right, Dr. Fourier, I know you got to go because you're out in emergency room, Dr. a couple more questions.

How do you strike the balance between working family? My husband and I, we worked together, he manages the office and operations of everything and I try and focus on seeing the patients so that makes things a lot easier. We don't have to outsource a lot of things because we work together. We have a pretty, you know, great family as far as support. Dr. Fourier, Ekiyato, emergency room physician and medical director of life saver ER located in Houston, Texas. If you have questions, comments or suggestions ask your future in Black America programs, email us at jhansettkut.org. Also let us know what radio station you heard us over. Remember to like us on Facebook and to follow us on Twitter. To views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin. You can hear previous programs online at kut.org. Until we have the opportunity again for technical reduced today, but Alvarez, I'm John L. Hansen Jr.

Thank you for joining us today. Please join us again next week. CD copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America CDs, KUT radio, 300 West Dean Keaton Boulevard, Austin, Texas, 78712, that's in Black America CDs, KUT radio, 300 West Dean Keaton Boulevard, Austin, Texas, 78712. This has been a production of KUT radio.