Dr. Tam Interview
Meet Dr. Ruby Tam! After a very long and successful career at Northwest Family Physicians, she has formed a free clinic for ME/CFS patients! She can be reached at: https://www.mecfsclinicmn.org/
She is a Board-certified Family Medicine physician with a special interest in Obstetrics, Depression and Anxiety. She also has an interest in ME/CFS.
Most of us know how difficult it is to find a physician that understands the difficulties of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS.) Finding one that can diagnose the condition is even harder. This month I had an opportunity to talk with Dr. Tam and while I have met with her multiple occasions throughout the past decade, the focus has always been on me, the patient. Understanding her background and what lead her to a career of medicine in Minnesota was on my mind and she was gracious enough to let me focus on her this time.
Dr. Tam was born in Hong Kong and attended the University of Minnesota Morris for college. Her original career goals did not include medicine, yet science was in her plans all along. She graduated with a degree in chemical engineering and moved to California where she worked as an analytical chemist for nearly a decade.
It was during this period of work in chemistry that she felt inspired to move into a career where she could make a difference in peoples’ lives. She went back to school to finish pre-requisite classes in Biology and applied to Medical school, starting at Des Moines University at the age of 36.
When asked about what it was like to start a new path of education in her mid-30’s, she said that it did not worry her at all. In fact, she was inspired by her mother who worked full time in Hong Kong, raised two (2) children and finished her bachelor and master’s degree in her 40’s. If her mother could do it, she knew that she could too.
Dr. Tam graduated from Des Moines University and completed her residency at Methodist Hospital, University of Minnesota. So how did she select Family Medicine as a career focus? She said that she likes that she can care about the whole patient. With interests in gynecology, psychology and neurology, Dr. Tam thought that family medicine would be a well-rounded way to help the most people. Her role requires her to know lots of information “horizontally” within the field of medicine. She felt that there would be no limit to what she can do to help people of all age groups.
For those of you that have met with Dr. Tam, you will know that she is a good at asking questions. In fact, she says “I think I’m a little nosy – which is why it works. I’m really interested in people’s lives.” Having spent time with her as an ME/CFS patient, I feel that she is thorough, she focusses on the details and genuinely cares. Also, her follow up is amazing. In fact, she was the first physician in over a decade that called me at the end of the day to see how I was feeling after a particularly tough appointment in her clinic.
I wondered about her experience with ME/CFS. Prior to treating me, she treated one person before me with similar symptoms. That individual gave her a book about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Common to many of us, the patient had self-diagnosed his illness. Dr. Tam stated, “After I knew about your (Suzanne Wheeler) diagnosis, I started reading about it (ME/CFS) to try to understand more about the medications that I was prescribed from Stanford University Chronic Fatigue clinic.” She said that “If I needed to prescribe prescriptions to patients, I had to be able to say why the drug is used for this particular condition.” Dr. Tam continued to get more interested in ME/CFS, researching the illness on her own to figure out why it happens. She sees more and more individuals with symptoms of ME/CFS. Some people who come to her are really educated about the illness, while some people are chronically ill and have not heard about it before.
Her personal commitment to helping patients with this disease is evident through her continued self-study. In fact, she was invited to join Dr. Lucinda Bateman’s team for a few days to shadow some of her patients in her clinic out West. While COVID-19 interrupted the trip, they collaborated via a Zoom meeting. Dr. Tam included other Physician Assistants (PA) that would potentially see ME/CFS patients at Northwest Family Physicians.
I asked Dr. Tam what she does for fun when she is not working. She states is an avid skier and races Giant Slalom at Buck Hill and Highland ski resorts locally. Her favorite place to ski is Jackson Hole, WY. In the summer she rollerblades and cycles, but also enjoys canoeing, camping, baking and some cooking.
If you have not met Dr. Tam yet, I highly recommend that you connect with her to learn more about her history with ME/CFS. Her commitment to learning more about ME/CFS is extraordinary, but she is also a resource for many other illnesses facing our family members of all ages.