Putting Together the Primary Care Puzzle: A Spotlight on DCMS Member Dr. Alpa Patel

Story by Lana Sumner-Borema, DCMS Intern

Dr. Alpa Patel was on her way to Miami to start a residency in radiology when she matched for a transitional year in Jacksonville in internal medicine. Like with any decision, she had to weigh the pros and cons. While she loved patient interaction and working with families, she wasn’t sure if she was ready for the hours it would require. Ultimately, a passion for working with patients led her to choose internal medicine and before she knew it Jacksonville became her permanent home.

These days, Patel is a primary care physician with Millennium Physician Group, and in her spare time (yes, she surprisingly finds spare time!) you’ll likely find her conducting ground-breaking clinical research at the Jacksonville Center for Clinical Research (JCCR).

Patel started working with JCCR in 2008. She completed her undergraduate degree in microbiology and molecular biology, and explains that she’s “always been more scientific.” Clinical research has helped her “get more hands-on experience” and to also no longer feel influenced by secondary information from pharmaceutical representatives as she learns everything about a drug before it gets approved.

Her experience in the lab became especially important in 2020 with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. At JCCR, she was able to lead trials for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

“We were able to come up with the vaccines so quickly. I feel like I’ve been able to learn a lot from the studies we’ve participated in. I’ve been able to educate my patients more effectively and I feel more comfortable not only with the vaccines but with other medicines as well.”

Though the necessity for clinical research came to the forefront over the past few years, Dr. Patel’s interest in research has always been present. Before she started working with JCCR, she even tried conducting small clinical studies out of her own office, such as a treatment for urinary tract infections.

“I was the lab coordinator, pharmacist, and investigator.”

As you can imagine, it was quite a lot of work and wasn’t something she was able to keep up on a large scale. However, an opportunity took her by storm when the son of a family friend asked her to accompany him to an interview with research coordinators at JCCR as he was looking for a job in clinical research. During the interview, Dr. Patel’s experience in clinical studies came to light and while the student did not end up taking the research opportunity, JCCR asked Patel to join the team and the rest, as they say, is history.

To pursue both sides of her career, Dr. Patel splits her time between Millennium and JCCR.

Though Dr. Patel’s days are filled with caring for patients and conducting clinical trials, one thing she always makes time for is travel. She first started traveling abroad about eight years ago and, currently, takes three to four trips every year. In recent years, she’s visited Spain, Italy, Portugal, Morocco, Peru, Bali, and Thailand, just to name a few! She returned from her most recent trip to Italy just days before the first cases of COVID were detected there.

With the idea of combining her interests, she’s looking into potentially working with Doctors Without Borders in the next couple of years. As she explains, the need for medical care abroad in less developed, remote areas is tremendous due to the pandemic.

“The variant that is causing so much tragedy in India right now has spread to other places like the United Kingdom and the United States, but people are not dying and getting hospitalized in such large numbers here as we are ahead of the game in vaccines and healthcare infrastructure. People are running out of oxygen and medicines primarily in rural areas. In some of the more backwoods, rural areas, there is not a doctor or hospital in sight for hours,” she noted. “A lot of those people are also living in really close conditions like a small hut with 20 people. Yes, in these conditions of course COVID will spread like wildfire, and as stated there are no doctors on site to offer healthcare aid. These are the places that could really use help.”

Though Patel’s mission of providing healthcare abroad might not happen for a few more years, in the meantime she is focusing on local work in Jacksonville that she finds “very rewarding.” Collaboration with Volunteers in Medicine and Mission House has allowed her to provide free medical care to Northeast Florida residents who cannot afford healthcare. As Dr. Patel puts it “practicing medicine is not about the finances, it’s about how you are making other people feel and helping them improve their health.” She explains that her favorite work to do as a physician is problem solving. “The patient that no one else can figure out what’s going on with them, I like to get down to the bottom of what’s really going on.”

Although Dr. Patel’s interests might seem to lead her to a lifestyle abroad, Jacksonville is lucky to have her and she plans to stay. She’s currently in the process of building a new home, and ultimately sees no reason to move when she can “just travel more.”