Claudia Schwarz is the Vice President of Clinical Outreach at J. Flowers Health Institute. She’s a clinician who had her own private practice for years before becoming a consultant and eventually pursuing business development.
Today, Claudia joins the show to discuss her own work experience with J. Flowers Health Institute and her personal experience as a patient. Claudia chronicles the care she received there and how that has transformed and inspired her to promote and advocate J. Flowers Health Institute to everyone who will listen. Dr. James Flowers and Claudia touch on how J. Flowers is helping to provide care not only in medicine but in mental health, psychiatric, and addiction, among other human conditions.
Key Takeaways
01:22 – Claudia Schwartz joins the show to discuss her background and experience as a clinician, what got her involved in the field of marriage and family therapy, and what brought her to J. Flowers Health Institute
05:05 – From clinician to educational consultant to business development
08:32 – Claudia opens up about a recent personal medical complication
16:04 – The mental and emotional toll of getting a pacemaker
17:58 – Dr. Flowers thanks Claudia for her vulnerability and transparency
21:18 – Dr. Flowers thanks Claudia for joining today’s show and lets listeners know where they can connect with J. Flowers Health Institute
Resources Mentioned
JFlowers Health Institute – https://jflowershealth.com/
JFlowers Health Institute Contact – (713) 783-6655
Subscribe on your favorite player: https://understanding-the-human-condition.captivate.fm/listen
Claudia’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/claudia-schwarz-aa9a22169/
**The views and opinions expressed by our guests are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect those of J. Flowers Health Institute. Any content provided by our co-host(s) or guests is their opinion and is not intended to reflect the philosophy and policies of J. Flowers Health Institute itself. Nor is it intended to malign any recovery method, religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
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Claudia Schwarz – From Advocate To Patient [Episode 78]
I’m so excited to have Claudia Schwarz with us. Claudia’s worked with us at J. Flowers Health Institute and is the Vice President of Clinical Outreach. She covers the world but her main priority is covering the United States. Claudia, you had a trip to Switzerland, Italy, and Spain and you had to cancel it. I’m sorry. We’re going to talk a little bit about that and why you can’t cancel that trip. First of all, sorry, you had to cancel. Those are all incredible places. I know you’ll get to go again soon, but the first thing I want to do is have you introduce yourself to our amazing audience.
Claudia’s Background
I’ve been a clinician for many years. I’m a marriage and family therapist. I had a private practice for a long time. From there, I decided to go into consulting, therapeutic and educational consulting. I became a professional member of ICA, so I could understand the different levels of care, different programs and resources for families across the United States. I did that for several years, which is how I got to know J. Flowers Health Institute from our firms and when they referred clients here. I already knew how amazing this institute was.
When you all reached out to me, “Would you like to try clinical outreach?” At first, I thought, “I’m a therapist.” That’s my background and a consultant. What would my role be? To have the opportunity to talk about what we do and share what we do from a clinical perspective. It was an amazing opportunity and I’m so grateful because I’ve been for years now and I love what I do. I love being able to share the message.
We’re so happy to have you because you do an outstanding job and you represent J. Flowers Health. Thank you for that. What got you into the field? I know you have a husband who’s a surgeon, I believe.
Dental.
You also have beautiful children. Tell us about your family. What made you become or how did you decide to become a marriage and family therapist?
My husband and I have been married almost 30 years. We have boys. Years ago, my background was a neuroscience. I thought I wanted to be a researcher because I was so interested in biopsychology and how the brain works. My husband and I had some difficulties having children and there were some tragedy of that. We ended up in a marriage and family therapist couples counseling session just because it was so difficult of a time for us.
Sitting there, she helped us see that we were more on the same page than we realized. We were just coming out at from different directions. She was able to help us heal and figure out how to move forward. It was my husband who said that to me. He was looking around her office and said, “You should be doing this. You’re so great with people and you love the one-on-one. You shouldn’t be stuck behind the desk on the computer all day.” It shifted my focus because I hadn’t thought about it before but that day in that office, I said, “I do want to do this. I want to help somebody the way we were helped by this person.” That marriage and family therapist is what started me on my journey and I never looked back.
Claudia’s Career Journey
Many of the mental health professionals that you know and I know in our field, even in the world of addiction are in their field because of their history. You had a natural egress into marriage and family therapy and that’s amazing. How did you go from a clinician to be an educational consultant?
I ended up moving. My private practice was in Las Vegas and when my father-in-law died, we moved to LA to be closer to my husband’s mother and take care of her. When we made that shift, I didn’t want to start over again and start a brand-new private practice. Someone offered me the opportunity to go into consulting and I thought, this is great because I can use my clinical background but it was something new and different. I love a challenge and felt like it was time to reinvent myself a little bit. That’s how I started the consulting world.
You were an amazing consultant because we got to work with you at J. Flowers Health Institute and referred back and forth. That was a great experience and then you came on as business development. You had some trepidation about that and we said, “You’re going to be amazing. You’re going to be brilliant,” and you have been for a few years. You’ve traveled the world. Mostly in the United States doing business development. Talk a little a bit about your experience in doing what you do in business development.
My whole goal is to bring the message of what we do to people who haven’t heard of us, people that have heard of us or that work with us to strengthen those relationships because for us, we’re all about collaboration. We want to work with other programs. We want to work with other clinicians side-by-side so that we can all service the clients the best that way that we can. I enjoy meeting new people. I enjoy hearing different perspectives on how to treat people because it’s not just a one-size-fits-all.
“We’re all about collaboration. We want to work with other programs. We want to work with other clinicians side-by-side so that we can service clients the best way that we can.”
We look at so many different avenues of how to help someone and we’re such a holistic approach. Not many programs are like that. I take pride in saying we’re the only medical and mental health model diagnostic evaluation program in the country and we do it well. That message needs to get out there to people. I love when I can go in and have someone say, “We haven’t heard of you,” and say, “Let me tell you. Let’s sit down.” At the same time, my philosophy is always to get to know the person first.
I don’t jump in and just start talking about what we do. I want to know where is this person coming from, what do they do and how would they respond to us but also, can we use them as a resource. We always want to know good professional people who are at the top of their game just like we are. That’s the fun part of the job. It’s being able to just meet with a lot of different people and I enjoy that so much. I love the traveling. Every part of the country has its own culture and that’s interesting too, because when we have so many diverse clients coming to us, we need to know where’s the best next up after they leave us. It’s important to get to know those people in places.
What’s the next conference that you’re attending?
The AIS Conference.
Which is?
AIS is the Association of Intervention Specialists and it’s in San Antonio.
That’d be easy drive or flight. Either one. Are you going to drive?
I’m driving over straight from here.
This is the first year I haven’t gone to that in years. That will be a great conference. After that, are you going to Seattle?
I am, to the IECA. It’s the Independent Educational Consultants Association. That’s the same place in Seattle where you’re presenting.
Personal Medical Complication
I am so excited to get back to Seattle. I haven’t been there in quite a while and I spent as a long period of my life there. That’s an amazing city, so I’m looking forward to being back and seeing all of our friends up there and doing that conference together. That’ll be great. Claudia, if you don’t mind, I’d love for the audience to know about your own personal experience in health. You’re an amazingly healthy woman. You work out. You go skiing and run. You do all types of physical activity. You’re in great shape and yet you had a medical complication. That was a completely unknown arena. Tell our audience what happened and your experience and what you’ve done.
It’s interest thing because I am very health conscious. I go to the doctor and get my yearly exams. I do everything proactively that I possibly can. I went to see a cardiologist because the age I’m at, I thought, I need to check and make sure my heart is okay. Let’s see where we’re at. He put me on a heart monitor. He had done EKGs and all. Everything looked very normal but again, proactively, let’s just make sure because there’s some heart disease in my family. We wanted to make sure I was where I needed to be. I wore a heart monitor for a week and I was at a conference in Aspen. I had been skiing all day. I won the Nastar Ski race in my age group. I just had a phenomenal at 13,000 feet.
You were doing some vigorous exercise at 13,000 feet at Aspen.
I could breathe great. Many people around me were passing out. They couldn’t breathe right. It was difficult at that high altitude and the cardiologist called me 8:30 at night. He said, “I got the results from your heart monitor and we have some grave concerns that your heartbeat has been stopping. One was for six seconds. One, I believe, was eleven seconds and that’s on the verge of passing out or worse. You need to get back to LA and we need to put a pacemaker in you.” Those were his exact words and this is coming from a top surgeon at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. Right away, the anxiety crept in.
That may had made your heart stop right there.
It did. My husband as well. He was with me and the doctor was on speakerphone. My husband who’s a surgeon as well said, “They want to put a pacemaker in right away?” We came back and they had my surgery scheduled before I even had the consultation with the cardiologist. I said, “I am not doing it until I speak to the cardiologist,” which I did. My husband also accompanied me to make sure we had a second set of ears listening. They said, “This is what’s happening and we need to do that because we don’t want you to die.” Basically, is what they had said to me.
My trip to Europe was supposed to be two days later and I said, “This is an emergency,” and they said, “Yes, you need to have this.” It just didn’t sit right with us because we asked, “Should we be doing some other testing? Should we do an MRI?” This was our question. No one offered that to us. They just wanted to just have me go under the knife. My husband said to me, “You need to call Dr. Flowers. You work for J. Flowers Health Institute. I think that’s where you should be.” I called you immediately in tears and upset. You said, “No, get on the next plane. Come to Houston. You need to see our doctors.”
My husband came with me. I was here for two weeks as a client of J. Flowers and got to be exposed to the most amazing professionals. I had already known how great they were based on our clients, mingling with them, knowing and getting to know some of these specialists. The care that I got here, I can’t even say second to none. There’s just nobody else that can get this care, I believe, because from the very first day when I saw the cardiologist, after spending an hour with us, talking to me just about history, this and that.
“The care that I got here [at J. Flowers Health Institute] was, I can’t even say second to none. There’s just nobody else that can give this care, I believe. They left no stone unturned, as is what we do here at J. Flowers.”
This is the actual cardiologist. Not just the nurse, which is usually what happens. He had the phone picked up. He was calling the next specialist saying, “You need to go down the street. It’s another hospital but this specialist should see you.” I had testing lined up. It was just two weeks of constant testing and monitoring. They left no stone unturned as is what we do here at J. Flowers.
He said, “You have a very healthy heart. We can’t explain what’s happening with these pauses in your heartbeat, but it doesn’t warrant having a pacemaker when we’re not a 100% sure.” None of them felt good about it. I watched them all collaborate with different specialists to make sure that they were doing the right thing by not putting the pacemaker in. As it turned out, I flew home after two weeks. They put me on a live monitor so that they could monitor me for another two weeks.
Let me pause you for just a second, if you don’t mind sure. I want to give a shout out to Dr. Emerson Perin, your cardiologist at Texas Heart Institute, which is amazing. He is the cardiologist of choice for us at J. Flowers Health Institute. He’s brilliant and amazing. He has done a phenomenal job with you and aligning you with the right heart specialist to each test that you had. I think that it went so far as you are on the operating table at one point. They were putting you under anesthesia and they stopped. The surgeon said, “I don’t feel comfortable moving forward with a pacemaker. I want to run more tests.”
That was after I’d already had a boatload of tests and we had decided. Collectively, they wanted included in this decision-making. They said, “You meet the criteria for a pacemaker, but you’re a strange case. It does and it doesn’t,” just because the rest of my heart was so healthy.
Muscular and healthy.
All of that. No clogged arteries. No sign. Nothing enlarge. No sign of heart disease. My heart and my blood pressure is very low. That was another key thing, too. I’ve always had low blood pressure but they said, “This is truly a little bit too low. Let’s work on this and maybe see if that’s maybe not part of the cause and what can we do about that.” They’re looking at other avenues but at one point, they said, “If we want to be safe, let’s do the pacemaker.”
I was scheduled. I was on the operating table and all of that. I finally wrapped in my head around it, I’m going to have this now and he pulled back. He consulted with another doctor in another state even. Another specialist in addition to the specials here in Texas to make sure and they all agreed, “Let’s do more testing. Let’s wait it out. Let’s pause.”
I wore that live monitor for two weeks. I just came back. I had a minor surgery the implants. A permanent heart monitor, which is what I have. Much less invasive but they can see it in real time and know that if I have episodes or it becomes dangerous, I will be right back on a plane to have a pacemaker when and if I should need it because he said, “It’s possible that you may only need this if this pause is never get more than 3 to 5 seconds.”
Is it an app on your phone?
It is. The technology is amazing. I spoke to a few other. I consulted with some cardiologists too and they said that it’s very cutting edge what you have. It is a real-time monitor and they will know instantly if something’s going right with my heart as well I.
Here’s my concern, have cleared you to drive yet?
Yes, they have. I hadn’t been before. The last few weeks were rough not driving. I’m very independent, especially living in LA. It was not easy.
It’s not like in Boston or New York City.
Now with the monitor, I should be able to do just about anything. They told me I could get back to ski and run. I can do all of those things.
If something were to go wrong, it alerts you and the physician at this time.
Yes.
Mental And Emotional Toll
That’s fantastic. With all of that said, what we talked about oftentimes on understanding the show, is the human condition. Here you are this amazingly healthy woman living your life and all of a sudden, you’re told in California, you need a pacemaker. Here, we’re looking at a pacemaker. How did that affect your mental state?
It was so hard because I felt like when I think about pacemakers, I think about grandpa with his cane. I know there are people that are in their twenties that need a pacemaker because their heart is not working well. Usually, that’s somebody with significant heart disease or possibility of having a heart attack. Feeling that, it just stopped me dead in my tracks because how was this possible that I suddenly have this? It was so debilitating mentally for me. I basically shut down.
“It was so hard because I just felt like when I think about pacemakers, I think about grandpa with his cane. And feeling that, it just stopped me dead in my tracks because I thought, ‘How is this possible?’ It was so debilitating mentally for me.”
I was a zombie I think for two weeks walking around. I was so grateful to have this supportive environment because without that, I don’t know how I would have gotten through it, honestly. It was one of the most challenging things facing my mortality all of the sudden and wondering like, how did this happen?
I’m sure you and your husband had many conversations and your children.
That, too. They were also very worried. They’re still were. They’re a little less worried now that I have the monitor. They’re feeling better about it but still, it’s just concerning. When you have a disease or something that progresses, you can follow it in your little more prepared but when suddenly, out of nowhere comes that, “This is what you may have going on.” It was very hard. Still is, but even better.
You seem to be doing so well. You feel better. You sound great.
I feel so much better.
We have a hectic week and you’re keeping up with everyone. Running circles around all of us.
Trying to.
Claudia’s Vulnerability And Transparency
I just want to say thank you so much for being willing to talk about your heart. I don’t want to say heart condition but what your heart moment. We’ll call it a moment.
That sounds good.
I’m sure it’s going to be fantastic and you’re never going to have to have a pacemaker. If you do, the technology is there and it is okay.
I’m very confident now. I, at least, know now that if I do need one, I’m confident they’re making the right decision and that I do need one and that’s what will be much easier than this uncertainty I had before, “You haven’t even done any other testing yet. You want to go and do this.” I have such confidence with the doctors here. I will not do it anywhere else. I would do it here with these doctors who I know know me well, too.
I will say, too. I’ve been sharing with people that the surgeon here, he’s the electrophysiologist that put this device in, Dr. John Seger. I have to give him a plug because he’s so amazing. After the procedure, he walked me down the elevator outside to where I needed to be, where my ride was picking me up. I don’t know a lot of surgeons that are going to walk out of any operating room or anything and come and make sure that you’re okay and you’re being picked up. Usually, that’s a nurse or something.
I feel like they are so hands-on because every doctor was like that with me. Every single one. I have all their cell phone numbers. I accidentally called Dr. Perin because I was panicking. I didn’t realize it was his cell phone and he said, “No.” He talked to me for 30 minutes in middle of the day. I don’t know what he was doing during that time. He didn’t hesitate to just reassure me and answer questions. That’s why I’m happy to share this story with whoever because finally being a client of J. Flowers and being able to express what it feels like to get this care. It makes it more amazing to do this job. I feel like I can talk about it even better now because I had my own experience.
“Finally being a client of J. Flowers and being able to express what it really feels like to get this kind of care makes it more amazing to do this job. I feel like I can talk about it even better now because I’ve had my own experience.”
You’ve seen the collaboration. The Texas Medical Center started being built in 1962 on the mindset of cross institutional collaboration and bringing in the top lines and research science and medicine in the world of the Texas Medical Center. It truly is a center for excellence and you got to witness what we do with the Texas Medical Center and the physicians in the Texas Medical Center and witness firsthand how that cross institutional collaboration works.
Dr. Perin called me a dozen times just to fill me in on how you’re doing. That was reassuring for me most as your friend and working with you to know that you’re doing okay. That if something is necessary, he’s there for you. He kept us updated at J. Flowers and what all of the other physicians were doing and how they were collaborating with each other and then, ultimately, with us.
My husband who has studied his medical practice in different countries where they have different specialties for he’s an dental implant surgeon. He said he’s never seen medical care like this ever. He’s been to many top institutions throughout the world. He said just the way they communicate with each other and also, the kindness and the human level, which you don’t always experience either, particularly with surgeons. The bedside manner of everybody was phenomenal.
Connecting With J. Flowers Health Institute
I’m so happy for you. We’ll end on letting everybody know that it’s not just medicine that we work with. It’s medicine, mental health, and psychiatry, which is mental health. It’s addiction. It’s many things in the human condition that affect us. You also notice probably through your journey here that all one condition affects the rest of your body. If you don’t fix one, the rest of its not going to be okay. If you guys need help or looking for anything medically, psychologically, psychiatrically or anything else, reach out to us that JFlowersHealth.com or (713) 783-6655. Claudia, thank you so much for being here.
Thank you. It’s wonderful.
You’re welcome.
