In the sixth installment of Telehealth Heroes, we interview Dr. Darius Campinha-Bacote, a Licensed Clinical Psychologist operating in Texas. Dr. Darius discusses the doors that telehealth has opened for his patients, the advantages of treating people in their own homes, and how he helps patients define their success.
Episode transcript
Brandon:
On today’s episode of the tele-health heroes podcast, we get to listen to Darius Campinha-Bacote talk about his experience with telemedicine in psychology and in his whole experience doing this Darius, welcome to the episode.
Darius:
Thank you. Appreciate it. Brandon, always, always a pleasure and I’m thank you for, for bringing me on the show.
Brandon:
Great. So how did you first get into psychology?
Darius:
Yeah, so that’s a broad question. I love it. I love it. I got into psychology when I was in my sophomore year of college and excuse me, sophomore year high school. When I was listening to listening to the teacher talking about, about Pavlov and the dogs, right. Classical conditioning and all that lovely stuff. And it really clicked to me. I’m like, wow, this stuff makes sense. I really like, I love talking to people want to help people in certain ways. Now we’ve got some things with this Ivan Pavlov going on. This is really interesting to me. The other piece of it is that I wish for the life of me, that in the ages of 13 through 17, that there was someone there to talk with. Not that I didn’t have, my parents didn’t have that. I just realized that’s a really critical age and I wanted to work as a clinical psychologist or in any profession assisting that population primarily.
Brandon:
So do you work in that population now?
Darius:
I do. I do. So I work for Dallas county juvenile department. I am the supervisor of the manager of the functional family therapy team, FFT where we do in-home family therapy. Now we’re doing it virtually, which goes into it, right? We’re doing it virtually due to the pandemic COVID-19 and the different variants that are coming out. And so work with individuals aged 10 to 17, work with them in the capacity of providing family therapy once they’re adjudicated and leave the detention center.
Brandon:
So what are some of the biggest challenges that, that these children and these families have that require a psychologist to come in and intervene? And what, what is that clinical problem that you’re solving?
Darius:
Great. Great, great question there, Brandon. I would say if I were to boil it down. So I’ve been at Dallas county since 2012, July of 2012. And I would say in the past, you know, eight, nine years, I would boil it down your question there, it would be related to there’s there’s anxiety and there’s depression. The symptoms really focus on that family conflict. The reason why, what I like to say when I’m doing certain trainings is why are youth ran away from their home male, female non-gender individual. The reason why they left the home, maybe very different than why we believe it is. So I, I get a, I get a youth, let’s say a female youth, 13 years old that ran away from home runaway charge. Why she ran away may be very different, right? Whether it’s to be with a partner, whether it’s to work, whether legally or illegally to try to get money for the family. A lot of these family conflicts come from a lot of surface of, of, of not having access to resources and, and being really depressed and anxious because of that, particularly when you’re seeing on the media, social media and things like that, of individuals that do have everything or do have what you desire, whatever that would be. So hopefully that’s a long-winded answer my man, but that’s what I’m, that’s how I see it.
Brandon:
W th this is an absolutely great answer to my question. How do they get to you?
Darius:
Yeah, sure. So the way the process works is they committed offense right there. I remember speaking with a supervisor some years ago, you know, your numbers are a little bit down on, I’m wondering why individuals are not matriculating into the program. There’s less crime in the past few months. The people didn’t hurt anybody. Maybe that’s why she didn’t. She didn’t like that answer, but that’s what’s going on. That’s why I said, I said my truth. So to answer your question directly, individuals would do something in the community, a community, Dallas county, whether that is related to, to theft. Oftentimes the most of the most notorious one would be, unfortunately it would be assault related, whether you’re assaulting, I’m a public servant or a family member. We do have individuals right now in our caseload that have been charged with murder. They’ve, they’ve completed some of their sentence and they’re coming out in the community to see how they’re going to do where else you’re going to have a life sentence, things of that nature go to a juvenile prison.
Darius:
So that’s so, so they get from us too. So they, they would go to the detention center after they were arrested for the offense. Then there’s, there’s three different options that occur. You either go back out into the community, which would be know, including my program. You would go to a placement facility for three to six months, three to nine months. At that point, it would go be integrated. Reintegrated back into the community would come into my program likely. And the third option is that juvenile prison, prison. And so I’m evaluating and determining the fit for the families that are coming out, and then we get them involved.
Brandon:
So really the crime is almost a cry for help. And it’s because of the crime that they’re led to you. And then you’re able to intervene at that point. Are you guys, are you guys, and you’re preventing any further crime by intervening and helping the families and the youth going forward? Are you guys working on anything to help prevent that stuff before they even get to the crime?
Darius:
Well say because the preventative measures for me are more important than, than after the fact after our little Johnny or Jane burn down the house, that’s already, we got, we got other issues going on.
Darius:
Come on, come on now, come on. That’s the only house we got. Right? And so the other part of my job, which I didn’t realize until I got into this position is that there’s other individuals in the home. Okay. There’s Susie, there’s Jackie, there’s Bobby eight, year-old listening. We want to include them into the so there’s preventative measures that are happening in the family. And then other ways that we have prevented veterans, that’s, that’s other sectors of Dallas county that we’re involved with. There’s a, I’m trying to remember the exact it’s your, that the program where we’re ensuring that they don’t go into the detention. So there’s, there’s, there’s ways that we can avert or, you know, revert around so that individuals do not even make it to the detention center. So we’re trying to do preventative measures with certain individuals that have not better, that are high risk or at risk, or the new term that I’ve heard is at help. You’d want to say at risk, they’re at held there, they’re used for help there. So that’s where,
Brandon:
You know, it’s interesting that you highlight brothers and sisters because usually it’s, it’s one individual, but that one individual is a symptom of a failing, a failure in the family. That’s going to impact all the other youth who are coming along in that family. So,
Darius:
Brent, Brandon, that’s it, there’s a term that I learned about two weeks ago and I’m going to go into apply right now. They sent me the kids, the youth, they told me this term, they brought it to me say less. I’m not sure if you’ve heard that, heard that term before. So that that’s a very positive thing that you would say to someone when they said something that is right on point won’t brand, it say less, say less. That’s what I’m going to use. That term there. Say less, I’m not in a negative way, in a positive way, in the sense of that’s exactly what’s happening. We’re helping out a significant amount of individuals and the other family members in that. It’s not just one person. And that’s one of the things that gets me excited when you say that, because oftentimes if we were to fix, let’s just say, Johnny, I don’t like to use the term fix because I don’t think we fixed.
Darius:
I think we address certain issues. And the goal is to empower individuals to continue that path. If we were to address the issue that brought Johnny to the detention center, would that solve all the problems in the family? Right? 95% of people say, no, no. I mean, we got Jackie, who’s doing it, we’re doing this. And that, this is just an added stressor onto that. Great. So there’s a lot of stuff that’s going on. There’s a lot of roles that are happening in the family. However, just addressing or fixing this issue does not trump. That’s why there’s a need for family therapy. And for those 5% or so that say, yes, no. If you were to address the issues that John is going to will have no other problems. I would like to challenge them on that. We go ahead and do family therapy for them. Let’s see how it works out. We start covering all this different stuff. Grandma grandma’s in the basement comes to a session. It tells us everything that’s going on, Randy. That’s what happened. Yeah.
Brandon:
Gotcha. Gotcha. So, so you, you play this very important role in helping these families, these help families get the service and help, and the correction that they need. What is the challenge that you faced that led you to seek out telemedicine to solve?
Darius:
Yeah, so, so the, the biggest issue that happened regarding that, right, is that I was leery because there, the in-person contact is so crucial. The non-verbals 85 to 90% new research in 2021 is saying 95% of communication is non-verbals. And so I don’t want to miss anything because of a break in radio silence. If something happens with technology or any, any of recent, however, there was not another alternative. This is just what you Brandon and there’s. I remember comedian years ago, that’s it? This is just what you do. They were talking about taking a pill, a vitamin. The doctor told me to take this vitamin. I heard this. And I’m like, I asked the lady before you leave, how long do I take this for a few weeks, a few months. He said, this is just what you do. You take a pill every day until you die.
Darius:
Right? And so it became a situation where this is just what we do. And so finding the correct platform to utilize was, was the issue. It’s not about whether we, you know, go to telemedicine or not you’re doing it. Which one would you prefer? And I prefer, that’s just me. I’m just being very, very honest because of the lot of things that occur in other platforms, I’ve seen stability here. The other piece to answer that is that I also work in private practice, a substantial amount of the work that I do is related. In fact, I had one just a few days ago, working with veterans. I got a, a contract with, with the VA through a VBS that trends evaluation services. So you’ll see a plethora of, of, of veterans that have served our country. And the only platform they use is doxing me and I, and they were asking me if they asked what we preferred, I actually said doxy.
Darius:
And they said, you know, now that we’ve got all the different things from the thousands of providers, we are only going with with doxy.me. So it’s not only in my full-time job ranting, but in my private practice where I see veterans, as well as, as well as families, individual couples therapy, that was the mode of choice for me, because there was no other option in that sense. One other piece, if I may, I know it’s a long Reynold sense there, they did give us an option as well to not for, for the veterans to not see them virtually. Right. And so I was thinking about that because there’s so much information I’m trying to gather for the VA. And I realized it was actually more beneficial to many veterans to do it virtually. Right? One, one specific example, there’s a military. MST is what’s called military sexual trauma.
Darius:
I talked with a woman who stated just, it really still gets me. Right. She said, I couldn’t. When I saw that your name Darius didn’t know what, that I knew that that was a male. And I had been sexually assaulted by a male. I didn’t want to stupid. Now that it’s telehealth, I’m able to move the camera. I’m able to not look there’s things that we could not have done. I don’t know how, if I can say that more importantly, there’s no way that this woman would have done. She said I was going to cancel my appointment. If I had to go in, this is the only method actually was the best method for her.
Brandon:
So there’s no way that she would’ve got care if she, because if it wasn’t for tele-medicine
Darius:
Brandon, a hundred percent. I don’t like to say that. I’d like to say 99, no, a hundred percent. After talking with her, there’s no way she would’ve done it. She was crying, talking about how, whether it’s stocks, I’m be honest, but there’s not to me or any other platform I need. I’m not able to, I talk to a veteran who was in bed covered up. I haven’t been able to leave the bed because of the significant pain in my back and shoulders. I can do a session with someone like this. Now, come on, Brandon. We are, we, we were missing people in rural areas. I’m going to, and I didn’t realize that, right? The veteran I’m going to go out to where no one is. It makes sense. You’re typically speaking. I don’t want to be around people. This isn’t net, but guess what, Johnny, guess what? Bobby, you’re going to have to drive 500 miles to Dallas to see someone. Oh, no, I’m not doing that. So now we can bring us to you. Okay, come on.
Brandon:
Right. Right, right. And they’re missing out on the care. They’re either at the option is come to me and do it to me in my terms, or I’m not going to do it at all. Okay.
Darius:
It’s a hundred percent. It that’s, it. That’s what you’re that’s exactly right. Say less is, say less.
Brandon:
Yeah, exactly. So how did you first get introduced to telemedicine?
Darius:
That is a really good question. It was something that was recommended to me by a colleague, by a peer. I loved the in-person love to be in the trenches. Actually didn’t want to be a supervisor or manager. I still to work in those trenches and things like that. I would write. That’s a whole nother story of, of how I got to that direction. And so I was working with a colleague and she was stating, you know, tele-health is the wave of the future. There’s going to be things that are going to happen. And you’re going to, you can expand your practice. If you can see far reaching individuals, there is something called Saypac. If you may or may not be familiar with it, that was just introduced a few years ago. And as a psychologist specifically, there’s a, it’s a mobility program. So 17, I think we’re at 22 states are able to do it. How am I going to do in-person it it’s it’s it is skyrocketed my practice. 600% integrating telehealth. So after I heard that, and then the pandemic happened, kinda got, okay, we gotta do this now. Okay. Let’s go ahead
Brandon:
And do it. And you’re doing it now. You’re totally all in at this point,
Darius:
A hundred, a hundred percent. So the, I have, there is so 99, 90 9%, there was water prefacing. That’s an adolescent does not want to be seen virtually, but a hundred percent of my private practice and 99.9% is, is definitely virtual telehealth. So when I’m using solely doxy.me.
Brandon:
No, that’s fantastic. And I appreciate you. I appreciate you as a doxy.me user. And when, talk a little bit about the workflow, when, when you’re working with some of these patients, whether you’re private practice patients or your public service patients, how does that, how does tele-medicine fit into the new workflow of this virtual visit and what are some, so tell me about that workflow first.
Darius:
Oh, do you have good more? I want to, I don’t want to cut you off. Well, I’m gonna
Brandon:
Have some follow-up questions after that. What were the challenges you faced and how did you overcome for sure.
Darius:
So the workflow it’s actually helped out tremendously. So there were times that where I’m working part-time if I’m leaving, you know, our house here, my, myself and my married partner, give her, give her a shout out there, Kaitlin, right? If we, if I’m leaving our house here and going to go into the office, and I bet she doesn’t show up because they don’t get paid if they don’t show up. So I may not get paid. There’s things that occur now it’s been, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t want to use another platform if I’m helping certain individuals and definitely love in person. However, if, if there’s an appointment that Smith, which is frequent in, in regards to veterans, I would say there’s about a 55, 60% no show rate. Wow. Because 9% of the individual I’m seeing are related to PTSD. And the number one thing, if I can just shout out, I did a recent, I didn’t do the route as a part of a training.
Darius:
Number, one thing they said, and this, this person was yelling passionately. Brandon. They say the number one indicator of PTSD is avoidance. If you don’t have avoidance and you don’t have PTSD. Right? So what you’re telling me is that we have individuals whose one of their primary symptoms is avoidance, but we want you to come and talk to us. Okay. But that’s what it knows. Her rate is high. And so for me back to your original question, my friend, the workflow has been amazing because if Sally doesn’t show up, I’m able to integrate other individuals. I’m able to do something else during that time, instead of driving there and driving back the tactical resources, we could talk about fossil fuels being used and stuff like that. You want to go that far at the end of the day, it helps my workflow significantly because when there’s no shows, there’s stuff that I can integrate in when previously I could not,
Brandon:
You just bounce from one thing, Hey, this person has show, Hey, I’m going to do the next thing. And you’re able to keep yourself busy because of the flexibility.
Darius:
A hundred percent. Exactly. Right.
Brandon:
So what are some of the challenges you mentioned? No shows people not showing up, but what are some of the other challenges that you’ve seen as you’ve, as you’ve moved over to this virtual care model and how did you overcome that?
Darius:
Sure. The number one issue that we’ve been having, it’s actually been in regards to, to Dallas county, my full full-time job, where, and it’s really sad to me. I don’t want to speak sad and say, it’s not sad for bumping. They might be funny, or my battle dope. I’m just talking about my emotions, not other people’s emotions, right? For me, it’s sad that there’s individuals that do not have access to care. So they do not have access to a remote form so that we can, you know, provide services. And so that has been an extreme challenge where either a individuals don’t have a working cell phone, they have the cell phone. That is a flip phone. No, no shade. As they say, Nope, no knocking out that a phone is a phone. However, if we’re trying to do something such as these, this there’s certain bandwidth, that’s neither certain, there’s some requirements that are needed.
Darius:
The other pieces that, and I, I hear this. I can resonate. I never Brandon. I don’t like to say I understand because I don’t know what people are going through a hundred percent. Right. But I can see, I can see, I can relate. Right. I don’t understand completely. However, so one of the things that I can relate to not understand is that, Hey, I’ve got a data plan. I got 15 minutes left and you’re telling me we got to do therapy with my 15 minutes. Are you paying Brandon for my cell phone bill? Are you, whoa, wait, I’m just trying to get a watch. Where’s the wifi, you know, the one point the library’s replied, I can’t get on a hotspot. I don’t have a hotspot. That’s that’s an elite stance and say, just get on a hotspot, come on, man. You don’t have an unlimited plan. Come on now. Right. That’s that’s the latest scan. So that was one of the barrier. And so there’s ways that we were helping them connect with individuals in the community, as well as providing hotspots to certain families. We’re, we’re, we’re looking at that. So that was a huge, huge barrier. Cause we got all this stuff, we’ve got this platform that’s going to work and individuals are not able to utilize it because we weren’t looking at it from a socioeconomic standpoint.
Brandon:
Right. Right. And probably a lot of the families were having issues or those who are struggling financially and not able to provide some of the luxuries of these internet connections. And
Darius:
Which for me, Brandon loops back in the reason why we, I talked to several divisions. I can tell you example of story. After story, I am PR I’m trying to get resources for my family. I stole this because of that. I had had a youth crying to me saying, Hey, you know, did you look at my offense? Did you see what I did? You see what I saw? I got theft of under $200. Did you see what I saw? I got tears crying. This was when I was doing an assessments before milk baby formula. Right? Well, I’m trying to feed my family. I’m trying to do, I’m trying to help where my mom and dad are not doing that. So there’s, there’s different resources that individuals are lacking and a smartphone, as they say, right. Where are you going to not smartphone would say dumb now, but not smartphone. I don’t even got that. Right. I’m trying to get resources, but now we can’t do it in person. How do we do it?
Brandon:
What’s been the most successful solution that you’ve presented to them to help overcome the spend with issue.
Darius:
Wow. That’s a huge one. It’s it’s for them gaining access to someone that does. And it seems like an easy solution. Right? However, do you have a brother or sister? Does your partner, is there uncle or does anyone, is there a way that you can gain access to that for 30 minutes, 45 minutes? One of the things that I didn’t realize, and I almost want to use it myself, I still might. Brandon, I didn’t know that for free libraries, rent out hotspots. Did you know that branded free high?
Brandon:
I didn’t know that I know they had internet, but I didn’t know that had,
Darius:
And not to say that I don’t have my own and things of that nature, but I just, I didn’t know. So having them, directing them to the correct resources in a functional family therapy program, the last model is called the generalization phase. What we do is generalize the information that was taught and give them natural resources that are already existing in the community, as well as trying to integrate some new resources. And now I know, I didn’t know that I’m teaching you to now here at Brandon, they have hotspots. So directing them to them, to the library,
Brandon:
Andrew teaching everybody else. Who’s listening to this podcast as well. So come on, go get hotspots at libraries for anybody who does.
Darius:
I need to get my two, wait a minute.
Brandon:
You got to check it out. Right? All right. At least not in Dallas, at least on down. Where do you think you would be if you didn’t adopt telemedicine?
Darius:
Wow. That’s that’s insane. Yeah. I love that. I love that for me. I would have lost a substantial amount of money at the that’s just being there, being very transparent. In regards to my private practice, I would have lost probably 80%, 90% or more income regarding that because I didn’t feel safe enough to put myself in a position and I have a very small office. And so I don’t, I don’t have the breadth to, to even accommodate some of the standards that are necessary. Six feet away. Individuals may or may not wearing mass regardless of your, of your viewpoint of that. And there’s certain standards that, that at the facility that I’m at, that they say you have to have a mask mandate. There’s several veterans that I spoke with that I’m not wearing. It doesn’t matter. I’m not wearing. So before I even get to do the assessment, right, we’re going to have some barriers.
Darius:
And so even trying to do that in person would not have been feasible in regards to Dallas county. That would have just been extremely detrimental. I’m not even sure I even fathom what would occur because we are the most at risk. I I’ve been told this by my bosses boss. We are the most diverse because we’re going into the home, the probation officers come to the door, how’s everything going, we’re going in that home. Okay. Right. And so to not be able to do it virtually would have devastated the community. I would imagine that we would need it to have old pellet on. They may have dropped people off of my seven different clinicians. They would have cut. Many of them. We’ll give you some back. Once everything goes, there would have been hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of individual that would not have re received services. For sure. That
Brandon:
That’s incredible. What an impact that you’re making with telemedicine. How, how has your perspective of healthcare change from the time that you first got into it as a, as a middle school boy, till you’re yourself now, how has that perspective changed for
Darius:
That? That particular has changed drastically. So my, my father is a, and he’s not going to want me to say that. I hope he listens to the, to this episode, my friend, he’s a medical director. I’ll make sure I say it again. He’s a medical director or for a company for a large health insurance company. And I never understood that as a middle schooler growing up, he said, please, don’t talk to people about what I do. Right? You must actually, both my parents are, are doctors. My mother is a doctorate nursing. My dad has a doctorate as a medical doctorate. And you first went from being an OB GYN. I don’t really like the system. I don’t know why things were approved or not approved. And then he went to that side of being a medical director. And it took me when you, when you talk about what has changed my viewpoint, I did not understand what my father meant when he said, don’t tell people my job, oh, wait, hold on.
Darius:
Now that I’m older, you’re the PR. Now I’m getting all these different things. I’m getting kicked back from, Hey, you know, you provided services, but we’re not sure if they, you know, maybe 30 minute sessions, instead of saying, we’re not going to pay you this rate. Oh, wait that your, the person that’s deciding, okay. That’s why, you know, like, okay, now, now wait a minute. Right. And so, so that has changed my perspective significantly. If you’re talking about just in general about healthcare, I didn’t realize the barriers to treatment that individuals have. I talked to, I talked to colleagues that say, I’m just throwing out a, you know, be transparent. And hopefully people can hear that in my voice, blue cross blue shield, Brandon, they pay the most in Texas. Okay. Whether, whether you’re a, a social worker psychologist or, or an LPC, any, any, any, any profession, they, they pay more.
Darius:
Okay. And so I I’ve talked to different individuals that own practices. I’m not taking anyone but blue cross blue shield. Brandon, if you got another, I wouldn’t necessarily speak other, other, you know, things out there. If you don’t have that, maybe you got Medicaid, Medicaid. I’m not taking that because BCPS paying at a high, I’m talking 60 to $70, more per session for the same service. And I didn’t realize that. So for me, I want to take anyone who gets their eye on a panel with 25 different places, because no matter what you have, I want to be able to take it. And so we can answer your question even more directly. That’s probably the number one thing I did not realize the insurance world, they taught me. Brandon in school had talked to people, assess for suicidality, do assessments, talk to people about issues that are going on. Schizophrenia work. They didn’t tell me about the health insurance. How they’re going to one is, is, is $30 for an hour. One is 1 36. Okay. We’re talking a hundred dollars difference between, oh, then I’m not going to take salary. How about if Sally needs help? Brandon, how about Sally needs help? More than, than, than bark with BCBS. Come on. That gets me worked up.
Brandon:
So how’s your perspective of healthcare change because of your experience with telemedicine?
Darius:
Definitely. So my experience with healthcare has changed several health insurance companies were at first saying, well, I’m not sure if they’re going to be covering us services that are telling them we want in person. And that changed drastically. And so I know for me, I, I was reticent to do it because as I stated earlier, I was worried about the non-verbal communication things that would happen. And I’ve realized that you can still get that same flare. The, and that, that same, that same quality of care can still be there with telemedicine. I was definitely reticent. I wasn’t on board. I didn’t want to do it at all, having a stable connection what’s going to happen. And how would, if someone has a psychiatric emergency while they’re there talking to you, where are they located? Exactly. They say they’re located here. Where are they? There’s all these different concerns that, that fluid through my head, the main one being what’s the quality of care going to be.
Darius:
And I realized as I began providing services to the clients that I had prior to that, and I asked them very candidly of doc, Dr. C, Dr. DeRose, whatever they called me, right. Darius. This seems to seem very similar as if we’re in person. This is very similar. Some of my clients were regressive needy, Brandon. Some of my clients were reticent to, to, to engage in, in a telemedicine. They don’t know how it works. The lecture, it’s just the link. Do I got to sign up for stuff, signed my life away. And there’s going to be ads everywhere. I got to click on something. I don’t want peanut butter. Why they saying all this different stuff that happens. I was able to dispel a lot of those myths. And so it’s changed. It’s changed drastically for me. And my view shift from one of, of not wanting to deal with that, or, you know, that’s, that’s the wave of the future. And I think the future is here now, and now you’ve got it on them. You
Brandon:
Got to jump on the ship. So you mentioned the patients and their perspective. What’s your patients think about telemedicine?
Darius:
They weren’t, they were more reticent than me, Brandon, to be honest, they did not. I’m not sure what to do. Hey, I just got a link here. I send them the link. I click on it. Then they’re in, they put in their name. They’re good as, as it relates to docs to me. And so that is something that they were very, very reticent. I had individuals that did not want to do it at all. I said, let’s give it a shot. Let’s see what that’s like. Given the circumstances that are going on in our country and our state and our city, different mandates that are going around. Let’s, let’s give this a shot. And if it doesn’t work, then we’ll try and find another method. So they were very, very reticent. All of my clients with the exception of one stated that they, they, they, they wanted to transition to a tele-health after trying it. They all didn’t want to do it though, to be clear.
Brandon:
Oh yeah. Interesting. But now they do. Now what about going forward? What if, what if, what if you come back and say, Hey, we can do it in personnel. What would they decide to do?
Darius:
So I would say about 80% of my caseload would prefer actually what we’re doing here. So being in a, a vehicle parked on the side of the road now parked and make sure you that you better be right. Right. Exactly. Right. We’re not, not me, right. With the client being able to, I want this, this is what I hear so much. I want to do therapy. I want to work on this issue with my partner. I want to work on this anger management. I want to work on it, stress eating. I want to work on whatever issue. However, I don’t have the time in my life to do that. I would traditionally, I would want to challenge that. Right? What happens when you don’t make time for it? What happens if this, that now I’m on the way to work. I get to work early.
Darius:
I go off to the side and I can do have a therapy session now, and then go straight to work. Instead of driving 45 minutes, right. To your office. There, there was a time prior to the pandemic that I was meeting an individual outside, we were meeting at different establishments because he moved further away. He didn’t feel comfortable driving. That was one of his issues was driving. And so now we can have these platforms. Now, if you were to shift back into your question directly, Brandon, he wouldn’t do what no, we’re not going to meet at, and I’m not going to say a certain establishment. We can do it here and it’s have the same quality.
Brandon:
Right. So, so they’re in right. 80% would be like, yeah, keep doing this, go for it. That’s fantastic. If you were to go back in time, what would you do different
Darius:
In regards to tele-health and integrating it? Does that. Yeah.
Brandon:
Yeah. Yeah.
Darius:
I think I would’ve jumped on board sooner, right? At the full transparency. I waited, I waited a month when, when, when all the mandates came out and I didn’t see any veterans for a month. And, and I, if I’m being honest with myself and honest with you, I think about it frequently, how many veterans were missed in that, in that month? Right. So answer your question. I would’ve jumped on, on, on it to telehealth sooner. And, and I was like, okay, maybe they’re going to stay. Maybe they’re not going to stick. Let me see. Let me wait a month. And I there’s, there’s people that want service during that Denmark. I would’ve, I would’ve jumped on board sooner. Is, is that is the true for me.
Brandon:
What is the key to your success today?
Darius:
Key to my success and I love success. I, I was talking earlier to one of your colleagues and success is such a robust topic. And for me, it’s so subjective. Right? And so I, first of all, and I appreciate that my success, right, being a hero here, being, being recognized, I want, I want to acknowledge that of first and foremost, the key to my success, I think is I was listening to a podcast and I really resonate with it is, is, is grit. They said the number one quality of someone being able to persevere when you think of the different individuals in either in your life, other people’s lives or, or individually hallmark individuals that have made ridiculous change here and in the world, it’s about grit. It’s about, this are going to happen. That there are going to be some back slides there’s going to be, but being able to persevere is the key. And so I would, I would argue that that’s for me, has been, has been a large part of my journey is being able to persevere and that that’s led to the success that I believe subjectively, that I’ve, that I’ve had.
Brandon:
Do you ever talk about what success means to your clients?
Darius:
I do. I do. One of the things that, that really struck me, I was talking to my, the administrative assistant and at the private practice that, that I own and what things I asked her, you know, what does success mean to you? I asked my family as different individuals. She said something that blew my mind risk still sticks with me today. Love to share with you and the viewers, your listeners is that she said with, with, with some tears, with some tears in her eyes, I think it’s important to note the context there. She said without a doubt, because a lot of times people have to think she said it right off the bat. She said, I bet I asked you a question. That’s interesting response to that. What w what does success mean to you? I bet you that’s. Whew. I love this. I bet you go to the grocery store and you get all the items that you need there without going to another store.
Darius:
I was like, I’m also sensing that this is sensitive to her. I said that may be happening. That’s well, yes, that’s, that’s what I, so what I success for me, doctor is going to be going to the grocery store and not going to the end. It broke me. I’m gonna be honest, not going to the bottom shelf here. I bought cocoa Krispies, not cocoa, and I’m not trying to promote the not cocoa, you know, creepy. I have to go here because it’s cheaper to go to another steps, Walgreens here. Then I go Walmart, and then I will afford it. I’m trying to, I bet you go to the grocery store, get items that you want, and you can dig them out and not worry. What is the total canopy? Okay. Administrative assistant told me success means to me that I can go to a grocery store and purchase items that I want without worrying that I’m not going to have enough money. That is success.
Brandon:
I mean, that’s taken that perspective. It totally makes you rethink about what you should be grateful for in this life. It’s a lot of things we take for granted that I don’t about it. I just go to the store. I get it. But for some people, it is something it’s a challenge every day to, to keep things, to be able to purchase things all in one place, not having to stress about every little dollar and jump from place to place. What is something people don’t understand about success?
Darius:
That’s a lovely question. What I think people don’t understand. I don’t know if you can fully understand, but relate to work or, you know, insinuate regarding success is how addictive it can be, right? A of how addictive it can be and be second here of how it is. It’s conformed by who you identify as important. Okay. So success for me, I can, I’ll be very, very honest. My parents had nothing less than six that there’s, there’s no option, but success. You need to succeed. We, we, we, we got to the, the story that I’ve heard the experience. I also am reticent to say the word story, because there’s one time. I really appreciate that story. So when I was on a train, this is not a story. This is my life. This is an experience, a story it’s a made up. Okay. So my experience branded that I heard from my parents is that they got together becoming doctors.
Darius:
And we need to be, we need to go to the place in, in the United States that has the best opportunity to raise children. Okay. They looked at Cincinnati, Ohio, and that’s where I grew up Brandon to stay Ohio and somebody, my brother. And I’m just saying this, I think it’s important to note brother, amazing whether I’m missing. You’re not an amazing attorney based out of San Francisco. Right? My sister went to, she just finished this year, Yale divinity school. She went to brown for undergrad. So we’re talking high level things here got a doctorate. And so for me, answer your question directly. I think about success that people don’t really understand or get from me is what do I do after this? Okay. Now I got the doctorate. Okay. How can I be more successful if you’ve been, if you’ve been bred, if you’ve been taught, if you’ve been been told that you need to go a certain path, what happens when you make it to the top?
Darius:
What happens in certain things? And also, like I said, it’s the context of individuals around. You saw a documentary some years ago that stuck with me one comment, date at least, and said, show me your friends, Brandon, show me your friends and I’ll show you your future. Okay? Show me your friends. And I’ll show you your future. Very easy. So who are you around with? What does success mean to them? Wait a minute, maybe more important than what success means to me. If I associated with, with a lot of different individuals, the call, the law of parties. I didn’t know what it meant here. When I came to tech, law parties, parties, we get to know the law parties. If you’re, if you’re familiar, the viewers may not be familiar with it. Is that if you throw a rock, there’s five bucks, you throw a rock at a car and we’re all together. We all threw the rock. Legally. We’re all responsible for that. You were in a party, you lot of parties, right? Show your friends and I’ll show you your future. And so if you’re around individuals that are going the direction and trajectory that you like for yourself, that’s, that’s, it’s about the people you were around, as well as the right. It’s going to be addicting in a sense of where you, where do you stop? I need to do something more. I need to do something more,
Brandon:
Right? Th
Darius:
The key is surround yourself with the people you want to be like, that’s it that’s well said. I love that.
Brandon:
So tell me experiences of success from yourself or others around you that highlight this example, you’re talking about.
Darius:
I do. I do. I would be remissed. If I didn’t say I asked all my family members and it can be kind of our psychologists asking us questions about success. How’s it going? I, I finally, I found the pride out of a Brandon and the one that not to say that it rises to the top. And the one that sticks with me the most for my family members, wasn’t my brother Avanti. And he stated very succinctly Darius success to me means having as few regrets in life as possible. Right. And that really hits on some research that comes in into 2020 and 2021, where a doctor had looked at hundreds of individuals who had passed away. And they’re in their last moments of life within hours. And they stated, I wish I would have done this. I wish I would’ve done this. This is unrelated to my brother saying this. These are just things that are tied in having a life success, having a life with as few regrets as possible. And I think that that’s, that’s something that’s really resonating with me. Okay. How can I help you? What can I do here? And that, that’s something that, that I really would like for your listeners and viewers to, to, to tell you and yourself right myself, to contemplate that, that thought that gets really helpful in determining and defining success.
Brandon:
You know, eh, when you graduated high school in new yearbook, you get to get, give a quote. And my quote was leave high school with a feeling of, I did not a feeling of, I wish I had, I applied that to my life where I say, leave life with a feeling of, I did not a feeling of, I wish I had. And so that kind of resonates where it goes in line with what your brother says.
Darius:
Yeah. I love that. Brandon. I’m going to chew on that a lot. I think that, that, that’s something that I want to share with my clients as well. That that’s a really, I love that. I love that. Yup.
Brandon:
Yeah. So we’ll put it up on a plaque for you, put it on your wall and I’m going to do it. Great.
Brandon:
So I would love your input on what is the future of healthcare look like
Darius:
Future of healthcare. I believe that there’s going to be a healthy mix, a hybrid model. I actually developed a help. I developed it. My team also helped me do this for, for, for Dallas county, a hybrid model of treatment. That’s going to include tele-health as, as a central portion of that mixed with the in-person. It brings me back to another anecdote. Another anecdote, if you will, of a, of a father that was wanting to be a part of therapy, but he was a truck driver, nothing bad or good. And I think that’s, he’s a hundred percent gone, right. And they’re trying to make ends meet. So he’s taking double shifts. I want to be a part of this, but I’m in Arkansas, but I’m in Maine, but I’m here. Let’s get this person involved. It took me all months to get those sort of, okay, let’s call them on the phone.
Darius:
Let’s get a speaker phone. Okay. We actually found out we can give him an integrated here. This was years ago. Now that’s the father. We could see his face. We could see a lot of the, there’s a lot of stuff that his daughter was going through. Brandon. And I think that seeing his face, we miss that. Okay. We miss that. I miss that. We didn’t have that. I didn’t have that thought to do that. They didn’t have that thought to do it. So the future of healthcare is going to be the integration we have now integrated and incorporated individuals who would have never been there. We’ve got a grandmother right now. One of my collisions. We have a grandmother in what house, the mother with the youth and the up, excuse me, the grandmother and the youth are together. The mother, and they’re going to be getting custody back to her. We were able to have all three people on the phone there. As we try to integrate the youth back to her mother, we would have not done that because the mother and grandmother having difficulties, UA coming over my house daughter, but we can do it virtually. That’s just one story. How can you not? How can you not integrate it? If it’s, if it’s helping in that capacity, I’d be very concerned if the future, I know it’s a slightly different question. If it didn’t integrate telehealth some capacity.
Dr. Darius, thank you so much for your time today. Really appreciate it.
Darius:
The pleasure’s mine. I really appreciate having the opportunity to be on here. And speaking with you, you provided me with insights that I’m going to be integrating into the community here in Dallas. So thank you.
Brandon:
Awesome.
