Soumya Polavarapu, DO

Approach to care

• What does it look like for you to provide care to patients in larger bodies? How is, or isn’t, your approach different from how you care for patients in smaller bodies? If you work with children, how is or isn’t your approach different when working with children?

  A lot of the patients I care for live in larger bodies including adults and children. Caring for people in larger bodies includes doing fat liberation work personally and professionally, advocating for systemic changes and asking patients to openly give you feedback - because we are learning together. I believe there is a lot to be learned from Community knowledge.

• What is your perspective on how weight is or is not related to health?

  Weight is important for dosing certain medications and monitoring fluid status in certain conditions. I otherwise don't pay attention to it as I don't feel it changes the way I practice. I often tell patients that I am a HAES or Health At Every Size provider and I do not bring up weight unless they bring it up to me.

• Finish this sentence: “Fat people are…” 

  deserving of compassionate care and deserve to be celebrated.

• How do you, your clinic, and the healthcare system you work in use BMI (i.e BMI cutoffs for accessing certain services, BMI on charts and printouts, etc)? Is this flexible?

  We have the option to not share BMI with patient. Clinical equipment and imaging equipment in the office are able to support people who live in larger bodies.

• If a patient declines to be weighed, how do you and/or your staff proceed?

  All patients are asked if they want to be weighed, it is not forced upon the patient.

• If a patient declines to discuss weight loss, nutrition, and/or exercise, how do you proceed?

  Pivot, and ask what they would like to talk about instead.

• What does the physical accessibility of your office space look like? What kinds of accommodations are present for people in larger bodies? Are there things you wish were in place that are currently not? 

  Overall the accessibility is good, the clinic rooms have narrow seats, we have seats we can bring in if needed. Otherwise things like lobby furniture, clinical equipment, doors, toilets are all friendly for people of larger bodies.

• What do you do to allow fat people to feel comfortable and welcome in your office? 

  We are always looking to improve our space and welcome feedback and thoughts. I often meet a new patient and talk to them about my practice style and encourage them to advocate for themselves. We have staff who are welcoming, we ask if patients would like to be weighed, and we often make sure our patient's needs are met. We practice person centered care.

• If you’d like to use this space to talk about any identities (gender, race, size, sexuality, etc.) you hold and how this relates to your care, please do so.