Interview with Dr. Tea Nguyen; Pacific Point Podiatry

Interview with Dr. Tea Nguyen; Pacific Point Podiatry

I had such an amazing time interviewing Dr. Tea Nguyen. She is a podiatrist who believes in treating patients as a whole human being and that the patient-physician relationship is sacred. Having worked in the traditional insurance model, she realized that this system wasn’t working for her or her patients. Dr. Tea wanted to spend more time with patients and give them treatments in a timely manner, which is why she opened Pacific Point Podiatry.

Dr. Tea at Pacific Point Podiatry performs minimally invasive foot and ankle surgery (MIFAS). MIFAS is a highly technical procedure that requires advanced foot and ankle training, intuition, and specialized equipment. What is a podiatrist? A podiatrist is a foot doctor, Doctor of Podiatric Medicine (DPM), who has specialized training to diagnose and treat abnormal conditions of the foot, ankle, and connecting parts of the lower leg. Some podiatrists are specially-trained foot and ankle surgeons who perform procedures from bunion correction to tendon repairs.

Dr. Tea is currently the only foot and ankle specialist in both Santa Cruz and Monterey County offering MIFAS in her Office-Based Surgical Suite.

Dr. Tea treats the following foot and ankle conditions; Amputation Prevention, Ankle Pain, Ankle Sprains, Achilles Tendonitis, Bunions, Callus, Corns, Warts, Diabetic Foot Care, Flat Feet in kids & adults, Foot Fractures, Ganglion Cysts, Geriatric Foot Care, Hammertoes, Heel Pain (plantar fasciitis), Ingrown Toenail, Minimally Invasive Procedures, Mole Removal, Neuropathy, Neuromas, Pediatric Foot Care, Plastic Surgery Techniques, Regenerative Medicine, Scar Removal, Second Opinions, Soft Tissue Disorders, Stress Fractures, Tarsal Tunnel Syndrome, Tendonitis, Toenail Fungus, and Wounds.

Set up an appointment to visit Dr. Tea Nguyen. Learn more about Pacific Point Podiatry!

Interview Transcript:

• Shemeika: I am here with Dr. Tea, who is a world-famous podiatrist right here in beautiful Aptos. So you don’t even have to travel far to see her.
• Dr. Tea: Pacific Point podiatry. Now in Aptos.
• Shemeika: Have you always liked feet? It seems kind of like a gross subject.
• Dr. Tea: Yeah. No, I can’t say I’ve always liked feet and I don’t even know if I like ’em now.
• Shemeika: Why are you treating people’s feet then?
• Dr. Tea: Well, because we under appreciate our feet. So I was a dancer in high school and I saw what could be if your feet didn’t work. And then the further I got into this specialty, the more problems I saw. Things like club foot, diabetic foot ulcers, people who want to be active but they can’t because their feet hurts. That sucks.
• Shemeika: Yeah, that does.
• Dr. Tea: So, I think I fell into it accidentally and then this whole world unveiled itself. And now I’m seeing people, I do amputations and I’m like, how do I not do these so often? So I got to learning about foot biomechanics, why people have pain, why people wear high heels, you know, what the long-term consequences are. And then I started to look at the foot in a more holistic approach. How can I get people to care about their feet so that they don’t lose it? So that’s how I kind of stumbled into it. It really became a public health issue. Why do, why was I doing so many amputations? And it was because people didn’t have basic foot hygiene knowledge.
• Shemeika: Wow. How many amputations have you done?
• Dr. Tea: Well over 500. You don’t count after you do so many or you’re just like, this is just part of my resume now.
• Shemeika: Where were you working? Why were there so many people who needed amputations?
• Dr. Tea: I did my training in Michigan and Texas. So my fellowship was predominantly limb preservation. It was people who had diabetes, maybe diagnosed or misdiagnosed or under-diagnosed because they didn’t have access to a medical doctor. And they would start off with something like a blister or a callous. They stepped on something but they didn’t feel it. They got infected, they ended up in the emergency room, and they would call my team, the wound care specialist team. And that’s when I got to discover, sometimes people just don’t know that there’s something wrong with their foot. They think that what they have has always been normal for them until they start to feel really sick or they’re bleeding, there’s a blood stain on the sock and they didn’t know it ’cause they didn’t feel it. So that’s kind of how I got into the world of limb protection, preservation, limb salvage, however you wanna call it. That’s how I got to learn to appreciate feet a lot more when I started to have to take ’em off to really save the person’s life from the infection spreading or losing their leg or even higher.
• Shemeika: Wow, that’s a trip. So how did you shift from amputation to, it’s more of the education and care before amputation is needed? So how did you kind of shift gears and start doing that side of the business?
• Dr. Tea: It was always a whole spectrum. When I did do the amputation, they would ask, “How did I get here?” Well, it starts off with recognizing that you have a foot problem or that you have diabetes. A circulation problem, may be peripheral neuropathy, something that needed to be monitored by a specialist. And it was just a gradual transgression on education. Every appointment I would have with a patient as I’m changing their dressing or I’m looking at other deformities that are developing because of one amputation. The one amputation doesn’t stop there, other parts of your body starts to adapt and can create new problems for that individual. So it was very natural to talk about what can we do next to prevent this from happening again? Because we’ve got two feet. So if it’s gonna happen to one foot, you’re gonna increase the chances of problems on the other foot. So I already had that opportunity to speak to people about prevention. And then I started to pull out of that chronic care because I knew that I could capture patients sooner with education. And here in Santa Cruz, people are very proactive. They are very preventive and they wanna look for holistic approaches to foot care. And so I started to push my practice in that direction because I saw that that was a huge gap in medical care and most of it wasn’t covered by insurance anyway. So that’s how I started to lean into holistic podiatry.
• Shemeika: Can you elaborate on holistic podiatry?
• Dr. Tea: Holistic podiatry is a general term. So the term holistic, what does that mean? It just means that we’re looking at the person overall from their mental wellbeing, their social status, beyond what we see on an x-ray or an MRI or even the lab results. So we’re not honed in on just the symptoms. We’re looking at the individual. Can this individual undergo a surgery and heal it successfully? Or are they better off at a care facility? Or would this be so detrimental that it’s not even worth considering? So that’s the holistic viewpoint that I take with people who have foot problems in trying to prevent the foot problems from getting worse.
• Shemeika: Do you have a favorite foot issue that you treat?
• Dr. Tea: Yes. Too many. My most favorite foot problem really is pain at the ball of the foot because it’s under-appreciated. And oftentimes, I get patients coming here for a second opinion because there was a misdiagnosis of something called fat pad atrophy. And that’s when your fat pad and your foot shrinks or shifts because of age or that’s just the anatomy of the foot. So that is my favorite pathology to fix because it no longer needs to be surgery where I have to do surgical correction to realign bone pressure points. But really I can do something that I’ve shared with you before was a foot filler where we use various types of injections to increase internal cushion versus wearing custom orthotics that we put inside shoes. And most people here like to be in sandals. They like to have open toes. They like to wear dress shoes, they like to wear, you know, very stylish shoes for their jobs. So by adapting to what the people’s needs are instead of telling them they need surgery, it’s black and white that you need this thing, we have alternatives to that. And so, the injection is a really innovative tool that I get to offer to patients.
• Shemeika: That’s cool. How long does it last, the foot injection?
• Dr. Tea: There’s a couple of different types of injections that can range from six months to 18 months. And it depends on the person’s age, their ability to tolerate that product, how quickly it gets metabolized and how much they’re on their feet.
• Shemeika: Very cool. And what would you say your least favorite thing to treat or about this job is?
• Dr. Tea: My least favorite thing, which I have already gotten rid of is treating the insurance company. Not the people, The insurance companies. There’s value to having it, catastrophic accidents, but when it comes to preventive care, routine care, it’s a lot more restrictive. Patients don’t get immediate access to their doctors without permission, without going through the red tapes of the insurance stuff. So it just made it really hard for patients to access me, especially people who need it, people like diabetes or circulation problems. So I kind of just wiped it out and it is, if you need me, I’m here. No restrictions.
• Shemeika: Yeah. That’s great. Did you know that you wanted to be a doctor from very young or is that just something that you kind of fell into later?
• Dr. Tea: That was an accident. I had no intention of becoming a doctor. I went to undergrad thinking that I was just gonna get the degree and work somewhere. I got my medical degree and I was like, cool, does the job just kind of fall into my lap, come my way, or like?
• Shemeika: Yeah, did it?
• Dr. Tea: And weird stuff came along and I was like, I did not expect a lot of that. And then I kind of just got guided to wander, you know, to one thing to another. You know, I went to undergrad and I said that wasn’t enough. I went to podiatry school, that wasn’t enough. I went to do my fellowship. That wasn’t enough.
• Shemeika: You weren’t satisfied? What do you mean it wasn’t enough?
• Dr. Tea: It wasn’t enough. It just wasn’t fulfilling. And then I opened my own practice and I was like, whoa, how did I get here? This is way fun.
• Shemeika: You love it?
• Dr. Tea: This is so much more intimate. It’s so much easier to be with the patient and their families and their friends and really get to understand the entire dynamics of the person and how they came to need foot care.
• Shemeika: Yeah.
• Dr. Tea: I do wanna share that I’m board certified in minimally invasive foot surgery, which means I’m the only one in the Santa Cruz County and Monterey County to offer minimally invasive surgery right in the office. So traditional foot surgery, we take it to the surgery center or the hospital and that is a really great option for care. But an alternate to that for people who don’t want to be at those facilities, they don’t wanna undergo anesthesia, they want something quick and efficient at an expert level, I just do that all in the office. It’s totally convenient. The price is transparent. People know exactly what they’re paying for. They’re not gonna get a sudden surprise bill nine months from now from the service. So it’s just clear care. And I’m really happy to be able to offer that. And this is, I don’t think anyone else has been offering that in the entire community.
• Shemeika: That’s great.
• Dr. Tea: So the top things I recommend for foot care, which I’m trying to like shuffle through in priority. So foot care is undervalued. It really is. So it really comes down to the very easy thing we can do is, number one, pay attention to our feet. Which shoes are we choosing for the activity we want to do? Are we choosing flip flops to play volleyball or basketball? That’s a bad idea. Are we choosing Converse shoes to go on a hike or running? That’s probably most of us, also a bad idea. So really choosing the right type of shoe for the activity that you wanna do is super important. And that’s number one. Number two, when you pay attention to your feet, notice anything that’s changed. Maybe your toes are starting to change shape, like they’re hammering, or you’ve got a little bump, which is a bunion. Or maybe you’ve got some growths, some extra moles that weren’t there before. Just knowing what your own anatomy looks like can help guide you on when it’s a problem. Some people have skin cancer under the nail, but they don’t know it ’cause they’re not looking. They don’t know what to look for. So just the general screening, either by yourself or going to a professional to do it, so you have a baseline. So the baseline, knowing your body. Number three, when you take a shower make sure your feet are dry after before putting on a pair of socks. ‘Cause if your feet are kind of moist, kind of wet and you put on a sock, you’re just trapping that moisture. And that’s how you can get athlete’s foot and cracks between the skin and your feet can get really weird and then your nails can get really funky. So that’s the top three things that I can think of to have healthy, happy feet. Three is simple. We can all do it every day. And some people need assistance. So having a partner or somebody else, a caretaker do a quick evaluation on the top, on the bottom, and in between the toes just to make sure there’s no extra growth or things that are get trapped in between. Or even a Lego stuck on the bottom of your foot.
• Shemeika: Does that happen?
• Dr. Tea: That happens. Any callouses that show up needs to be evaluated. Heel pain, Ankle sprain, ingrown toenail, toenail fungus, weird stuff that grows on your foot. Your toes are just looking weird. Maybe a previous surgery that didn’t have optimal outcomes. Fat injections. If you feel like your foot just needs a little bit more cushion because you’re wearing high heels, that is a really great option, I have to say.
• Shemeika: I’m gonna do that when I’m ready. But you said that mine are good for now.
• Dr. Tea: Yeah, I love finding solutions for what people are unwilling to give up. Like I know people like dress shoes. I get it. So I have solutions for that.
• Shemeika: What is a hammer toe?
• Dr. Tea: Hammer toe. This is your foot. When your toes bend, that’s a hammer ’cause it’s hammering on the ground.
• Shemeika: Oh, like they can’t go straight flat. How do they get that way?
• Dr. Tea: They curl for a lot of reasons. Some people wear shoes that don’t fit the length of their foot, so they’re crowding their toes. Some people have a bunion where it pushes on the other toes so that those toes don’t know what to do. So they start to curl up. Some people have medical conditions that causes the nerves to act kind of funny. So the muscle get imbalanced and then that can bend it. That can happen in people who have stroke, circulation problems, diabetes, and so on, rheumatoid arthritis. So a lot of reasons for hammer toe. And when we’re older, I guess back in the day, they were never really given options to correct a hammer toe other than major surgery, which required a surgery center, anesthesia, and all the stuff, pins and needles and stuff. But now, I treat these in right here in this chair. I’ve treated hundreds of people with hammer toe deformities with the smallest incision under local anesthesia to get that straightened. When a hammer toe gets ignored, couple things can happen. You’re walking on the wrong side of your nail so it hurts, or the nail pops off. Or you can get bruising or callousing, thickness of the skin, or it can create an open sore and an infection happens and an amputation becomes a problem. So straightening those out, really nice thing to do. Very easy to do. And I actually love doing that procedure for our older population because it’s a minor procedure. Versus what we used to do was major reconstruction that required a pin sticking out of the toe, cutting the joint, straightening it out. That’s still a great option. But I think most people prefer just something really minimally invasive. No downtime. You can stay independent. I’m actually getting one.
• Shemeika: You are? So what are you gonna do about it?
• Dr. Tea: Yeah. I guess I have to do a surgery on myself.
• Shemeika: Are you serious? Wait, you can’t do that?
• Dr. Tea: I can’t? I can reach. I don’t know, we’re not there yet. Maybe if I’m older.
• Shemeika: Are you serious? I don’t think that I could cut myself.
• Dr. Tea: Well, no one else does it here, so I don’t know who I would like…
• Shemeika: Trust? You trust yourself. But could you think you could like, oh sorry, pull your foot and like? You could put an incision there?
• Dr. Tea: Yeah, I think I can figure it out.
• Shemeika: Okay, if you need treatment or solutions for any of those things or anything else, Dr. Tea’s your gal at Pacific Point Podiatry.
• Dr. Tea: I’m really good at second opinions. And yes, you got it. You can find me here, Pacific Point podiatry off the Rio Del Mar exit.

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