Getting to Know Dr. Shannon Tapia
Hi, and thank you for exploring Direct Senior Care. I'm Dr. Tapia and I am a fellowship trained board certified Geriatrician. As a consulting physician, I'm going to get to know you......it's only fair you should know a bit about me.
I'm originally from Denver, CO. Medicine, and in fact Geriatrics, is in my blood. My father is also a Geriatrician, and without a doubt tagging along with him and acting as a companion for some of his patients as a young child undoubtedly impacted my passion and drive for improving the lives of the elderly. My dad, Dr. Donald Murphy, is pictured above. I attended the University of Notre Dame for college, and then Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago for medical school. I did my residency and fellowship in the rolling hills of Lancaster PA at Lancaster General Hospital. We came to Lubbock TX for my now X-husband's job and found it to be a wonderful place to raise our son.
After much soul searching and listening to stories of patients and families in the Lubbock area, I finally made the leap of starting my own unique practice which places the patient first. In medical school, I intentionally chose Family Medicine instead of Internal Medicine despite knowing I would be a Geriatrician (I delivered a lot of babies in my training) because of its emphasis on the whole-person, outpatient care and prevention and philosophy. It took a few years of practicing within Medicare and the system for me to fully appreciate how detrimental the system is to patients as they age. I discovered fairly quickly that in order to practice medicine the right way for Geriatric patients within this area.....the way that places patients and their families first and foremost ahead of a bottom line or corporate pressures and allows time for healing relationship I would have to do it on my own. So here I am.
I no longer am able to provide primary care house calls. However I have discovered that often all families need is a solid whole-person approach consult to help address problems that quick office visits can't solve or even scratch the surface of.