About me

Imagine walking out of a clinic and knowing that your voice was heard throughout the entirety of your wellness visit, and that you have an active role in designing and utilizing your health plan alongside your health care team. If this were your experience with healthcare, then would it be something you would avoid, or instead be something you would actively seek out due to feeling heard, involved, and able to have a direct impact on your own health?

 

My name is Rachel Ancar (she/they), and this is the healthcare alliance I hope to inspire as a future Physician and Health Policy Designer. I believe that by directly involving the patient who is seeking health care into their own treatment plan, we can better the health and wellness of all people and design a more creative, human-centered healthcare alliance.

 

In 2020, I witnessed the value of strong, trusting patient-physician relationships as I shadowed the physician who would become my stepfather’s oncologist. I found that overcoming the obstacles of his diagnosis and subsequent care only drove me closer to medicine. As my stepfather underwent treatment for his cancer, I realized he would succumb to his disease. I knew that I needed to follow through and be present for him and the rest of my family just as he had been present for me. Having an active role in designing his care and treatment plan helped me to envision my role as a future physician, but it led me to wonder why his own voice was not utilized throughout his treatment plan. This thought propelled me into community-based medicine, where I learned more about human-centered care and its impact on the health of patients.

 

I want to become a physician that positively impacts a patient’s quality of life by fully understanding the bio-psycho-social-economic possibilities that can have a direct impact on a patient's health. When physicians listen to patients, they can change how a patient feels about their ability to manage their health which can impact their relationship with their physician. I witnessed this duality of care while volunteering at a free clinic in 2020 and 20221, which gave me the capability to find my passion within healthcare and showed me what career I could be most impactful going into. These experiences allowed my purpose for going into medicine blossom within me and they have informed my work ever since.

 

Helping to ease my stepfather’s anxiety and the pain associated with his chemotherapy showed me what it meant to practice creative, patient-centered care. A patient’s quality of life can be improved by connecting with them on a deeper level through the arts rather than just medically treating them. These moments with my stepfather motivated me to use my passion for art to speak about diverse health experiences for the betterment of public and community health. I realized that through my art, I could tell stories about mental health and I could make a difference in someone’s life by acknowledging the parts of health that are frequently met with bias and judgment. Seeing my stepfather’s fears ease before he passed taught me the true impact that creative care could have on health and a person’s quality of life. Having cared for my stepfather drives me to become a physician who uses both my passions for design and medicine to increase a patient's quality of life by incorporating diverse narratives alongside evidence-based treatment plans.

 

It's become apparent to me through my own experiences as a healthcare worker that revolutionizing the way in which we deliver health care for better outcomes takes a village. That's why I started using social media to build connections within the medical community with the hopes of starting my own healthcare alliance. I imagine a new way of delivering health care to those who need it most, specifically the populations that currently experience a lack of accessible, equitable, and high-quality, human-centered care in the United States. Through my platform, @theartsymed, I aim to advocate, and offer support and guidance for those on their journey to and in health care.

The future of health is not in my hands alone--it is in everyone’s hands, including your own. Learn more about myself, how to support my cause, and about our growing community on Instagram and TikTok, and email me [theartsymed@gmail.com] if you have any inquiries!