Get to Know Dr. Soyona Rafatjah of Parsley Health New York

We’re so excited to welcome Dr. Soyona Rafatjah to Parsley Health’s New York City practice. Soyona Rafatjah is an Integrative and Functional medicine physician. She graduated summa cum laude from University of Michigan with a BSE in Biomedical Engineering, received her medical degree from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, and did her residency training at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, FL.

Areas she specializes in include thyroid management, bio-identical hormone replacement therapy, menopause, adrenal fatigue , digestive disorders, allergy desensitization, and autoimmune conditions. In her spare time, she enjoys being outdoors, spending time with friends and family, honing her yoga practice, world travel, dancing and embracing all forms of art.

We caught up with Dr. Rafatjah in our new NYC offices to learn a little more about what brought her to Parsley Health and what sparked her passion for medicine.

PH: What are your specialties?

SR: I don’t consider myself a specialist in anything. I consider myself to be an extreme generalist. I guess you could call it psycho-neuro-immuno-endocrin-ology. Really, we do whatever our patients need us to do. And we try to connect the dots. The body is a whole. And if we try to try to take care of one organ at a time, we’re not going to get anywhere.

PH: What does your average day look like at Parsley?

SR: On an average day, I wake up pretty early in the morning. I check messages that any of my patients might have for me and prepare notes for all the patients I’m going to see. I generally see around eight patients per day. It’s really exciting, I love meeting my new patients. Everyone has a really interesting story. There are just exceptional patients here.

PH: What inspires you?

SR: I’m inspired by talking to my colleagues, who are brilliant and extremely thought provoking. I am inspired by going to conferences, like the one I’m going to this weekend: the Integrative Health Symposium. I’m inspired by nature and how intricate and elegantly it operates; including our bodies. I’m also inspired by traveling to new and exotic places.

PH: What do you think is the future of medicine?

SR: I think the future of medicine looks a lot like what we do at Parsley Health. The combination of technology with thinking outside-of-the-box type of medicine is really where the world needs to go.

Technology makes our lives as doctors, and our patients’ lives easier. We are able to be connected to one another, on a level that is not done enough in healthcare. Medicine has become a very dogmatic type of industry. It is run by pharmaceuticals and big organizations like the AMA that have been in practice for decades, dictating what doctors should be doing.

There’s research out there, that has been around for 10-20 years that is not taught in medical schools. And it is up to us as individual physicians to look at that research ourselves and find evidence for treatments that are not being taught to us.

PH: What are the advantages that technology brings to your patient/doctor relationships?

SR: I think technology brings a lot to the patient-doctor relationship. We use it every day in terms of portal communication. It is a secure way of talking to our patients about their health concerns. We respond within 24 hours to our patients, so they can rely on that information and communication. Technology is also used by the members of our practice on a daily basis. We communicate with each other in a real-time fashion. This way, anything a patient needs, even while we are seeing the patient, can be addressed.

Technology is also helpful for the doctors themselves. Because we’re a growing practice and we have two locations in California, we’re able to keep in contact with the other members of our team through virtual communication.

PH: What made you want to join Parsley Health?

SR: I chose to join Parsley Health because I truly believe in what our founder and CEO Robin Berzin is creating. I believe that her combination of technology with exceptional healthcare is exactly what I want to be doing. Every day is new and exciting to me.