In the US, many healthcare providers have the unfortunate tendency to treat health issues only after they've progressed into something recognized as a disease or condition. Preventative care is rarely considered, leaving many patients stuck in needless discomfort. Noticing the opportunity to change healthcare for the better, experienced Family Nurse Practitioner Czarina Enriquez started her own practice dubbed "The A-List Clinic" to help people get better before they begin to feel worse.
Czarina's primary motivating force for starting and moving The A-List Clinic forward is the recognition of the need for personalized weight loss regimens. Being overweight can often make additional health issues more likely to come up, such as diabetes and hypertension. Since obesity is generally a chronic issue, however, it isn't typically very useful to wave the issue away with suggestions like dieting and exercise.
While these practices are important, as Czarina points out, obesity is often more complicated than people treat it, as the condition can potentially be caused by a host of other problems like lack of sleep, genetic disorders, stress, and much more. As such, obesity deserves to be addressed more holistically, incorporating some dieting and exercise but supplemented with additional measures.
Among more traditional methods of weight loss, The A-List Clinic also employs weight loss medications such as Semaglutide and Tirzepatide, available for patients in both California and Nevada. Although these medications have become somewhat of a trend recently, Czarina recognizes that users shouldn't self-medicate with them, which is where she and her team's expertise as medical professionals come into play.
Czarina Enriquez is partnering with the marketing company Just Get Known to expand access to quality yet affordable care. This collaboration will help The A-List Clinic reach a wider audience, making its personalized weight loss and preventative care services more accessible to those who need them most.
At The A-List Clinic, patients are monitored by a provider (MD, NP, etc.) while on weight loss medications, as there are side effects, and the dosing must be titrated a specific way. Of course, this is just one method by which Czarina prioritizes the well-being of her clinic's patients above all else.
Misinformation is becoming ever more common due to the speed and ease of spreading it online. Czarina combats this information through The A-List Clinic's website, as well as her podcast, The Weigh-In Podcast, wherein she discusses issues and misinformation circulating around the healthcare field. One such misconception Czarina corrected was the idea that weight loss medications are, on the whole, unsafe to use.
Czarina countered this statement, explaining that "despite semaglutide and other weight loss medications being in the news a lot recently, they have been tested and used safely for several years now. They are more common than people may assume, and they can help a lot of people."
The A-List Clinic also believes in transparency and accessibility, especially for women, as they tend to receive the most social derision for being overweight. "A lot of my clients are women who haven't been able to lose weight since being pregnant or those who started having issues after menopause," Czarina explains. "Women are grossly misunderstood and judged for wanting to lose weight, but I want to make sure everyone feels comfortable in this space regardless of how they got here."
Losing weight is never easy, but it can certainly be made easier and more comfortable with the right help. Clinical options for weight loss are held out of reach all too often by providers who refuse to recognize obesity as a condition worth taking seriously, which is what makes The A-List Clinic's approach to weight loss so refreshing and destigmatizing.