Keeping Austin Well: Donna Lee Talks With “Downtown Doctor” Dr. Georgeanne Freeman About Osteopathy and Holistic Medicine

Speaker 1: 

Welcome back to the Armor Men’s Health Hour with Dr. Mistry and Donna Lee.

Donna Lee: 

Welcome back to the Armor Men’s Health Hour. This is Donna Lee, and Dr. Mistry has stepped away, so I wanted to bring in our special guest. We’ve had her on in the past, but welcome back, Dr. Freeman.

Dr. Freeman: 

Thanks. Hi!

Donna Lee: 

How are you today?

Dr. Freeman: 

Never better.

Donna Lee: 

Thank you so much for coming back. We appreciate it. I thought it would be great to bring you back in and talk all about things Dr. Freeman: Downtown Doctor. I think that the word “diva” should be in there because you are very diva.

Dr. Freeman: 

I am diva. That’s true. The eye shadow, the glitter…yeah, all the things.

Donna Lee: 

So tell me about your history. I want people to know, especially if they’re downtown. How you got into medicine, what was your favorite part? I know you were going to talk about being an osteopath. Tell me, tell me, tell me!

Dr. Freeman: 

I’m board certified in family medicine. I got into medicine late in life, so to speak. I had already graduated from college. Undergrad, I was not premed. I was a ski instructor and professional mountain bike racer, living in a teepee in Crested Butte, Colorado.

Donna Lee: 

What? How fascinating!

Dr. Freeman: 

And I started thinking, what can I do to engage my brain and have a career that would be mentally and intellectually stimulating? Because as much as I love a great ski day, that was getting a little, wearing a little thin on the excitement level.

Donna Lee: 

And your dad was a doctor.

Dr. Freeman: 

My dad was a doctor and he’s a retired orthopedic surgeon. I don’t give him any credit for me wanting to be a doctor because the hours that he worked and the way he didn’t have any life outside of medicine was of no interest to me. Now we have come full circle. And as you know, I talk with my lovely daddy every night and we enjoy talking about ortho cases or really anything medicine. And so that’s, that’s a really fun bonding thing that is not politics and not a heated subject. So if we’re talking about something and we start to get heated, one of us has learned to say…

Donna Lee: 

You’ll say “medicine.”

Dr. Freeman: 

“Hey, so this tenosynovitis on a lady’s hand,” because he was a hand specialist. He was like, “Oh, okay, great. We’re switching gears. Fine.” So the Downtown Doctor clinic is an urgent care walk in clinic, because I have a history of training in emergency medicine. People can also establish care for us to be their primary care doctor.

Donna Lee: 

I didn’t know that before. So that’s good to know. I thought it was more just urgent care. I imagine you’re treating a whole bunch of fun downtown millennials.

Dr. Freeman: 

A lot of downtown millennials, most of our patients are in their thirties. That’s our main demographic. People are living downtown more and more, as you know. Every time a condo gets built, we pop a cork on a bottle of champagne because if you’ve got a pulse, you need a doctor. And we’re super convenient.

Donna Lee: 

And there’s not a lot of doctors downtown.

Dr. Freeman: 

I think I’m the only one.

Donna Lee: 

I feel like that.

Dr. Freeman: 

I’m the only one you need to know about.

Donna Lee: 

We’ll just put that out there. I just don’t see that many clinics. Yours is the best one for sure. You’re located where?

Dr. Freeman: 

We’re right at West Lynn and Fifth. So if you know where Jeffrey’s is, I like to say, if you tuck and roll at Jeffrey’s, 12th and West Lynn, shout out to Larry McGuire, you’re welcome, you’ll roll right into my doors. Our doors face the Land Rover dealership, we’re across from El Arroyo–a lot of people are familiar with that fun sign that El Arroyo does every day.

Donna Lee: 

That’s right.

Dr. Freeman: 

Lots of free covered parking, which is a real bonus. I’m a doctor of osteopathy. So if you look at my name, it’ll say Georgeanne Freeman, DO. And you might ask yourself, “Why doesn’t it say MD. Because we know she is a board certified family medicine medical doctor?” And the reason is an osteopath is a little different than an MD. We have the same training. We have to take the same courses. We pass the same board exams. I did an MD residency training at the University of Washington in Seattle. At osteopathic medical school, osteopathic medical school is a little different from MD medical school in that we have an extra class in something called osteopathy. And y’all out there, because I know you’re smart, know that osteo means bone, and so you’re probably thinking, “What does it have to do with the bones? I mean, of course the bones, every doctor’s involved in that.” We are a chiropractor/MD combination. So we know how to do manipulation for the body, much like a chiropractor. I would say a chiropractor/,physical therapist combo and throw a little massage therapy in there.

Donna Lee: 

Kind of like a superhero.

Dr. Freeman: 

Kind of like a superhero.

Donna Lee: 

Hence the cape!

Dr. Freeman: 

That’s right. Y’all out there in radioland can’t see that I’m wearing a very sparkly cape. And I look like a young Sophia Loren. So let’s just get that embellishment going right away. So you feel better? Yeah. So osteopaths, we tend to be holistic. We tend to be naturally oriented. At the same time, we also have the card in our back pocket to prescribe any medications that any medical doctor would, order any testing. I do minor surgical procedures in the clinic. I’m very adept with Botox and the fillers like Juvederm, really good with lips and cheeks. We also do Botox for headaches, which is a therapeutic modality for folks who suffer with migraine headaches. We see a lot of people with migraine headaches because we also do IVs in the clinic, which is super unusual. I’ve never heard of another primary care clinic that does IVs in the clinic. So if you get dehydrated, whether that’s from your hangover and you’re partying, might be having a little bit of that downtown, or you’re super athletic. And there’s a lot of overlap from people I know you might drink a little too much.

Donna Lee: 

How fast, how does that work? If somebody comes in dehydrated from working out or running or drinking or whatever, you sit down in a chair in your office and you pop an IV in and then 30 minutes later, you feel fine?

Dr. Freeman: 

I ask folks to give us an hour. I like to under promise and over deliver. And I also want people to be relaxed. So what people find is they come in because they’re dehydrated or they’re having a lot of cramping. They’re not really sure what’s going on. They may not know that they’re dehydrated, but we may diagnose that, and then we talk about an IV. Then we lay him back in these NASA created zero gravity chairs. And I like to put a little weighted lavender infused eye pillow on the eyes. And a lot of times people say, “I love the IV, but I also just love that I got to check out for about 40 minutes in my busy day.” People will actually fall asleep for a few minutes and we wake them up. And if there’s drool, we don’t judge. We just hand them a tissue discretely and they feel better and we feel better, so it’s a win win.

Donna Lee: 

You giggle a little later. You gotta, remember that guy who came in and drooled after his lavender infusion. So how many patients do you see a day, and do you have other providers in your space?

Dr. Freeman: 

Yeah, I sure do. I’ve got a lovely nurse practitioner, Rose Duran, and each of us see about 20 patients a day, which means that we have time with our patients and we really enjoy that. We’re not interested in being a mill. There are plenty of corporate clinics in the Austin area or any urban area where if people want to have that big box experience, they can have that. If people want more of a personal approach and to really get to know their providers in a fun environment, they are welcome to check us out. The Downtown Doctor downtown. We still have fun. I, well, I’m not going to say how old I am because Southern ladies aren’t supposed to do that. I’ll say that I’m over 30 and I absolutely love coming to work every day, and I know a lot of doctors don’t feel that way. I wish every doctor still felt that way. I’m super grateful for that. In large part, that’s our patients. We have a super fun clientele. I have a fabulous team.

Donna Lee: 

You have a nice group. I’ve been in there before dropping off cards and they don’t know who I am, and I don’t announce, “I’m with a doctor’s office and I’m testing you!” But I, you know, when you do that as a provider or somebody working in the medical clinic, you kind of check out the staff and what’s going on. And when I went in a few times to drop off cards and just say thank you for the referrals, your staff’s been super nice.

Dr. Freeman: 

And drug reps will become my patients, and I feel like that is just the biggest compliment, and other doctors and nurses, because when you’re in the healthcare field, you do have that eye and you know what to look for and listen for in a good place.

Donna Lee: 

So what about like x-rays, imaging on site? Do y’all do that there?

Dr. Freeman: 

We don’t do imaging on site Touchstone and ARA are really close by. I have a good relationship with them. They love us because we’re small. If I order something stat, literally someone comes in and I’m suspecting, let’s say a fracture of the leg, I can send them, they can come back. They’re usually back within two hours to the clinic. I go over the results with the patient and I can just manage that. Same with labs. I like people going to a place for imaging where all they do is imaging, because I think the images are better. I think that the interpretation is better because you actually get a radiologist interpreting it. I may look at them cursory and first, but I know that a radiologist is going to overread that behind me. And with the labs as well, if you go to a draw station like CPL or Quest, those folks, all they do is phlebotomy. So they’re really good at it. And…

Donna Lee: 

That’s their jam.

Dr. Freeman: 

That’s their jam. So I’m not interested in bringing that in house.

Donna Lee: 

Right? So what’s your favorite stuff? Do you, I mean, I imagine it’s all your favorite, but I love that you can manage a chronically ill person probably at one appointment and then the next one needs hydration, and then you have a lady walk in saying, “I heard you do Botox.” Is that kinda like some of your patient population?

Dr. Freeman: 

Absolutely. I’m the quintessential family medicine doctor. We have six exam rooms. I just love all day, every day, I don’t know what’s behind door number one, it’s going to be different than what’s behind door number two. We may have somebody have having chest pain, possibly a heart attack, then we have somebody with high blood pressure, we’ve got your diabetic, then we’ve got a Botox. I do have a passion though for the osteopathy. I absolutely love musculoskeletal issues and helping people feel better with their neck pain and their back pain with my hands on them, not prescribing opioids, not even usually needing imaging. Just here’s the problem, let’s fix it with my hands and patients really appreciate that, too.

Donna Lee: 

That’s awesome. That’s wonderful. Tell us your website and your phone number.

Dr. Freeman: 

Thanks. Yeah, it’s www.freemanmedicalclinic.com, and our phone number is (512) 391-9400.

Donna Lee: 

I like the way you said, “512.” Southern lady over there.

Dr. Freeman: 

Native Texan, just like you.

Donna Lee: 

Thank you so much for being here, Dr. Freeman. We appreciate it.

Dr. Freeman: 

Oh, you’re welcome. It was really fun.

Speaker 3: 

Dr. Mistry wants to hear from you. Email questions to armormenshealth@gmail.com. We’ll be right back with the Armor Men’s Health Hour.