Need an Inspiring and Engaging Speaker for Your Next Event?
“Although I’m only a layperson in the medical field, can I just say ‘WOW.’ I learned so much from your lecture! I enjoyed every minute!”
– Lisa Ziegler
Barbara de la Torre is an artist and a board-certified physician in Family Medicine and Medical Acupuncture who promotes a health evolution in individuals in order to revolutionize healthcare for the world around them.
Before the growth of health insurance, pharma, and hospitals, people were largely responsible for their health and well-being. As a system fails, it calls for deep reflection and a giant step back to see the big picture. Barbara has taken that step by working on her own self cultivation and learning lessons from her ancestors, experience and training. She left corporate medicine to embark on a long-dreamed mission to expand beyond the clinic walls. She believes in transforming the broken healthcare system by encouraging positive change in each of us.
As an artist, Barbara has always preferred making objects with both a functional and aesthetic quality. She states, “Medicine should be no different in the pursuit of wellness. It can be both a beautiful and practical journey back home.”
Topics for Speaking Include
For Healthcare Audiences
Overcoming Barriers to Acupuncture in Mainstream Medicine: A Sociocultural History
Have you every wondered why people ask if you believe in acupuncture? It turns out that professional attitudes toward unconventional medicine come from language, culture, economic and political influences that date back at least two centuries. Solutions call for looking back as a way to move forward.
This lecture covers how orthodox and unorthodox medical systems were defined, deconstructs the anti quackery movement, and highlights the barriers that still exist today. Healthcare workers hold the keys to bridging the gap in order to fully integrate Chinese medicine into mainstream healthcare of the future.
The Doctor Can’t See You Now: It’s More than Just Burnout
My inner doctor was calling, but I wasn’t listening. I was on the same path as my mother, who was a physician and my greatest role model in medicine. She studied for a lifetime, she worked hard, and she developed brain cancer in her fifties. I tried to avoid her health setbacks, but my health crisis arrived earlier in my 40s.
This presentation is designed for people who deliver and receive healthcare. It’s not just about treating burnout in individual healthcare workers. I talk about ways to improve the healthcare system and share my personal health restoration to inspire you to listen to your inner doctor again.
More than a Couch: Transform a Clinic Space into a Therapeutic Environment
No environment is neutral. Every piece of furniture, every corner, is a manipulative form of expression, whether we are aware of this, or not.
Our home is our sanctuary. We carve out for ourselves a sense of belonging and a space that can be calm, inclusive and familiar.
In contrast, most decisions regarding design in the healthcare environment are made by a select few—the managers and designers. Both workers and patients are left to live with the consequences.
The audience will discover ancient medical philosophies from Greece and China to understand why environment should be considered part of the healing process.
For Non-Healthcare Audiences
How to Navigate the Healthcare System and Develop Your Own Health Strategy
Learn about the players of the healthcare system and why you need to be the leader of your healthcare team. If you’ve ever had to tap into one of these systems, you might wonder why you’re paying premiums for healthcare that’s next to impossible to access.
Whether it’s a pill for your ill or jumping through hoops to get the care you need, the healthcare system is not serving your needs.
The obstacles are to accessing the care you need are numerous, but there are simple ways you can be proactive. I lecture on how you can more easily navigate the healthcare system by developing your own health strategy and take charge of your health.
The Doctor Can’t See You Now: It’s More than Just Burnout
My inner doctor was calling, but I wasn’t listening. I was on the same path as my mother, who was a physician and my greatest role model in medicine. She studied for a lifetime, she worked hard, and she developed brain cancer in her fifties. I tried to avoid her health setbacks, but my health crisis arrived earlier in my 40s.
This presentation is designed for people who deliver and receive healthcare. It’s not just about treating burnout in individual healthcare workers. I talk about ways to improve the healthcare system and share my personal health restoration to inspire you to listen to your inner doctor again.
Stat Call for Artists: Why Creatives Are Needed Now in Medicine More Than Ever
The healthcare system is not just broken. It’s a product of squeezing out creative and multi-systemic thinking. This is one reason why so many doctors start their journey with enthusiasm but become cynical, overworked and burned out over time. And it starts with medical education, which was born and raised on tradition and rigid thinking based on the Western scientific perspective. The world has changed dramatically since medical education had its last overhaul. Over a century, in fact!
But how can you as one person change a system? With such a pervasive bias towards a singular medical model, why bother to think outside the healthcare box? Because the restoration of a healthcare system that works for you and the preservation of your health depend on creative solutions.
The audience will walk away with ways of understanding how the history of medical education became what it is today, learn about the possibility of more than one medical model, and how artistic people can transform healthcare into something beautiful, compassionate, safe and extraordinary.
(Your Title Here)
Do you need a talk more customized for your audience? I can craft a presentation to best match your audience’s needs.
Some of My Clients Are
Testimonial – Jackie -Medical Student
Barbara has a very clear and organized presentation style. This, due to a great extent, upon the fact that she knows her subject matter inside and out. Barbara is committed to a mindset that favors creating health, rather than one that simply treats disease. This is the path of a greater physician.
Zoom Chat – Response to Virtual Attendance
Barbara was brilliant, warm, and engaging. I was just so impressed by her expertise. And I learned so much.
Attendance was the strongest I’ve seen.
Testimonial – Jessie Fan, MD
Your inner doctor is calling. Are you listening?
I speak about the inner doctor that keeps nagging at us, but we keep ignoring it. And we’re in a healthcare system that doesn’t even acknowledge it.
It’s time to change that. It’s time to form your own third opinion through understanding your current healthcare system and bridging ancient wisdom with modern medicine.
– Barbara
Barbara is the producer and host of the podcast, Third Opinion MD, which inspires people to form their own third opinion in order to best achieve and maintain health. Her speaking style is engaging, approachable, and inspiring to audiences that include people inside and outside the healthcare system. She is a lifelong creative, history-nerd, and a self-proclaimed typewriter enthusiast.
The ethical issue of narrowing medical education to one dominant standard:
Q&A from the Osler Club Meeting at University of Texas Medical Branch:
Barbara answers a question from the audience about the resistance to integrating acupuncture into medical education.
Highlights from the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture (AAMA) Conference:
Barbara spoke to physicians, from multiple specialities, on how to integrate a movement-based therapy, called qigong, into mainstream practice. Qigong is a branch of Chinese medicine that brings the patient back into the driver’s seat of their health through exercise, meditation, and breathing work. She reviews the science, studies and further research needed to make qigong a part of preventive healthcare practice.
Bio and Media Photos
VERSION: SHORT (72 WORDS)
Barbara de la Torre is a physician, thought leader, and podcaster who speaks and writes about health strategy with an integrative lens. She lectures to associations, universities, and corporations about reframing healthcare through systemic changes around self-care and individual empowerment. Barbara founded Third Opinion MD as a way to spark a wave of change in the practice of medicine, how physicians train and practice, and how people can best navigate the existing healthcare system.
VERSION: LONG (196 WORDS)
Barbara de la Torre is a physician, thought leader, and podcaster who speaks and writes about health strategy with an integrative lens. She lectures to associations, universities, and corporations about reframing healthcare through systemic changes around self-care. Barbara founded Third Opinion MD as a way to spark a wave of change in the practice of medicine, how physicians train and practice, and how people can best navigate the existing healthcare system.
Barbara is an engaging speaker who connects with her audience to leave presentations with hope and purpose. She has over 30 years of experience in both Western and Chinese medicine and holds dual Board certification in Family Medicine and Medical Acupuncture. Barbara also obtained Master Teacher intensive training in medical qigong, a movement-based therapy that focuses on self-cultivation for health and wellness. She lectures around the world on topics that include:
- strategic planning around the health of individuals and communities
- teaching important events in the history of medicine in order to build a more equitable and compassionate medicine of the future
- integrating approaches to lifestyle medicine and self-reliance to achieve and maintain health
- combining the best self-care approaches from modern medical science with ancient Chinese medicine
