Source: Vermilion Photojournal
Ohio Academy of Family Physicians member Aubree LaForce, MD, was recently interviewed by Colleen Carroll with the Vermilion Photojournal about her road to becoming a physician and why she returned to Vermilion, OH, to practice. Following is Dr. LaForce’s story:
While growing up many of us were told “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” But according to a 2018 study from the Annals of Family Medicine, people who remain with the same physician and maintain regular contact with their primary care doctor were found to have significantly lower total healthcare costs and hospitalizations.
But don’t take it from me, take it from a Vermilionite, Dr. AuBree LaForce.
Dr. LaForce has put in her 11 years of training and completed a yearlong fellowship to put the cherry on top, and now she’s back home and ready to treat the community that raised her.
Dr. LaForce provides sports medicine and family medicine at NOMS in Lorain, OH, she sees ages 5 and up for family medicine and all ages for sports medicine. Dr. LaForce explained she works with all body systems through sports medicine: skeletal, muscular, even nutritional, and despite its name, Dr. LaForce said sports medicine is not exclusive to athletes.
“Sports medicine is everything up until the time of surgery, so any sports injuries, fractures that don’t need surgery, sprains, strains, rehab, concussions, those kinds of things,” said Dr. LaForce. “And it’s not just somebody that plays sports. It’s your everyday athlete, it’s also your mom who has wrist pain from picking up her baby, it’s the 65 year old who gets arthritis, it’s the skier who hurts a knee.”
Helping people get back on their feet after an injury or through an illness is what Dr. LaForce says is her mission as a physician.
“I want to help people keep moving the way they want to move,” said Dr. LaForce. “I want to get people back to doing the things that they love to do everyday, whether that’s chronic illness from a family medicine perspective I can treat that, if it’s an ache-pain injury I can treat that. Getting people back moving the way they want to move and living the way they want to live is the encompassing motto of doing family medicine and sports medicine.”
Vermilion, OH, native Dr. LaForce was a varsity basketball player in high school — a pre-requisite for her and her two siblings growing up.
“My Dad played college football and mom played college tennis and cheered in college,” said Dr. LaForce. “I remember my sports were big when we were kids, my parents told us ‘you have to be on a sports team.’ My sister and I both played basketball.”
Dr. LaForce’s Aunt Connie was a high school basketball and softball coach. Dr. LaForce said given this early exposure to sports, it wasn’t a surprise she landed in sports medicine.
“I grew up in the gym, I went with her to all her practices, it’s such a large part of who I am,” said Dr. LaForce. “And so sports medicine was a no brainer for me.”
Dr. LaForce graduated from Vermilion High School in 2013 and received her bachelor’s degree from Mount Union. She followed that with a medical degree from Northeast Ohio Medical University, a residency at the Cleveland Clinic in Akron General and finally a fellowship at Summa Health in Akron.
Now she’s back, ready to treat the people she grew up with.
“God’s given me the opportunity to come back to the area and treat the community that raised me. It’s everything I wanted to do,” said Dr. LaForce.
Dr. LaForce said there were two moments that set up her decision to go into medicine. The first was when she was in middle school when her cousin was diagnosed with cancer.
“My cousin Blake was diagnosed with Leukemia as a teenager. I remember getting the call in 7th grade when I was in an after-school meeting,” said Dr. LaForce.
A year after Blake’s passing in 2009, Dr. LaForce’s basketball coach’s son, who she babysat, was diagnosed with the exact same cancer. Dr. LaForce said it didn’t diminish her yearning to help others, instead, she shared Blake’s experiences with the then 3-year-old’s family, who is now an 18-year old.
“Just using his story and what I learned, and his power and his faith, and just transforming that into how I can impact people. That was my first opportunity to take the little medical knowledge I had gained from my cousin’s experience and translate it directly to somebody else I cared about,” Dr. LaForce said. “It gave me just a tiny little glimpse of what I could do with medical knowledge and how I could help people and it was just a done deal.”
It became one of Dr. LaForce’s “why’s” that got her through the 12 years of medical training.
“It reconfirmed that it’s exactly why I was placed on this earth and God gave me the gift to be able to make it through medical school,” said Dr. LaForce. “I call it my three ‘F’s’; faith, family, and fitness is how I got through it. When I started medicine I made it a priority to always try to have these three things in check, and I could tell when one of them wasn’t in check, so coming back to my three F’s has really grounded me.”
As one might suspect of a family medicine doctor, family was one of Dr. LaForce’s strongest support beams.
“I give so much credit to my family,” said Dr. LaForce. “They were beyond supportive and it was really nice that they aren’t in medicine because that gave me an outlet. I needed to not talk about school or talk about my test or medicine, and just connect with them, every free moment I had during medical school and training I spent with my family, and they are just the light of my life.”
LaForce said family medicine was appealing because of its personal touch. When she gets a patient, she wants to keep helping the person through generations and “walk their life with them.”
“I love to understand what goes on in their lives outside of my exam room. I love getting to know people. Everyone is so interesting and has their own story and in family medicine you really get to walk their life with them, you get to see them become parents and you get to see them go through tough times and happy times and everything in between,” Dr. LaForce said. “I want to be their quarterback, and their one-stop shop to come back to help them through and to celebrate with them.”
Dr. LaForce said knowing a patient’s relationships and community circles provides a more encompassing look.
“There’s so much more that goes into somebody’s health and well-being rather than a medical diagnosis. And in family medicine, you really get to capture that because you understand their family dynamic, and you understand what’s going on in their community, their job, and all of the other factors that impact someone’s health. It looks at a person as a person rather than a disease process,” said Dr. LaForce. “That’s the joy of what I do everyday because understanding who a person is in and outside of the exam room is absolutely advantageous in treating whatever’s going on. They may not know their home environment is causing actual medical problems or what they are exposed to at work is causing medical issues. Understanding what load they carry, whether that be socioeconomic, whether that be family dynamics, whatever load they are carrying outside of the exam room definitely plays such a large part in how healthy or unhealthy they are, understanding that is huge.”
Dr. LaForce, who is currently accepting new patients, was eager to take the opportunity to practice in her hometown, citing her community as the main draw.
“The people are so special to me — their ability to rally around people, they’re hard workers, (and) they are loyal,” said Dr. LaForce. “They are the salt of the earth, they are good people. They showed up for me when I was growing up, so I want to show up for them as a professional.”