DR. DAYS

The El Paso community is celebrating two decades of happy kids and ‘Healthy Days’ with a physician who has dedicated her career to the human side of medicine and service. At Healthy Days Pediatrics, patients and parents are welcomed into a culture of care that is improving health and wellness for generations of local families.

Dr. Alison Days is a Board-Certified Pediatrician who is reflecting on more than 20 years of caring for El Paso County kids. Prior to practicing as a physician, her academic achievements prepared her for a successful career in public service. She earned a B.A. in Human Biology from Brown University before going to medical school at Yale University, then later graduating with a Master of Public Health from the University of Texas Houston.

Dr. Days came to El Paso in 2002 as part of a two-year commitment with the National Health Service Corps then fell in love with the community -- and her husband -- and made the decision to make her home in the Borderland.

“I only needed two years in El Paso and have been here for 20!” she laughs.

She says she’s enjoyed putting down roots in El Paso, but has always enjoyed exploration. She took a gap year of research, travel, and adventure before embarking on her medical school journey.

“I felt like I’d been doing sort of a straight shot. First college then med school, and I wanted to do something different for a little while. I had worked for a summer for the National Institute of Health in the Infectious Disease Division, and they invited me to work for them after college,” she says.

Dr. Days worked for the NIH for nine months that included travel to Ecuador to assist on parasitic disease studies, then backpacked through Europe with friends, and worked for an inner city school program before starting medical school.

She had an inkling pediatrics was her calling and was drawn to caring for patients from infancy through adolescence.

“I really enjoyed pediatrics and wanted to be in pediatrics in the first place. Besides just loving children, I really liked the idea that you can have someone as a patient from birth to to graduation,” she says.

Dr. Days completed her residency in the Bronx at The Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in the Social Pediatrics Program, which is designed to train pediatricians who have a special interest in health policy, social justice, community and public health.

Her residency program also emphasized that medicine is not a singular career, but rather that the practice is based on partnership and cooperation. Dr. Days and other members of her cohort were partnered and would share calls, research studies, and cases that established a foundation of collaboration.

“We would actually do rotations within the schools, or we would see kids in a clinic in schools,” says Dr. Days. “We did rotations in jails with kids on probation, things like that. I loved it. It was a great experience and I really loved being there.”

She learned of the National Health Service Corps and that the government program covers medical school costs if physicians choose to stay in primary care.

“I applied and I got the scholarship, which paid for my last two years of medical school. When I went through my rotations, I wanted to do everything else before pediatrics because I knew it’s what I wanted to do,” she says.

The National Health Service Corps is part of the federal Health Resources and Services Administration that connects primary health care clinicians to patients in the United States with limited access to health care. El Paso County is considered an underserved region, a term often used as a pejorative for a population rather than discussed as a symptom of a complex and strained health care system where the physician-to-patient ratio is extreme despite the expertise of the doctors.

“El Paso has quality,” explains Dr. Days, “but not quantity when we’re talking about www.thecitymagazineelp.com the physician shortage. The people of this community are wonderful.”

Dr. Days was initially recruited and hired by Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso as an Assistant Professor in Pediatrics and to establish a medical clinic for children in Horizon.

She served as the Medical Director for the Child Wellness Center of Horizon, where she provided medical care to students from Region 19’s Head Start program.

In 2012, she decided to pursue Healthy Days -- literally.

Healthy Days Pediatrics opened its doors to patients from the El Paso community in April 2012, where Dr. Days continues to serve as President, Founder, and Pediatrician.

“With pediatrics, you have the ability to really influence a personality, a life, and a family from the beginning. I really liked that part,and I knew that if I were going to be staying in El Paso -- because everywhere else I’ve always lived has been for maybe two years, three years, four years max -- it would allow me to be to have that broad-range of taking care of a child for that length of time,” she says of her decision to live and practice in El Paso.

Dr. Days says one of the most special aspects of her job is caring for generations of families, while also transforming the health care landscape one patient at a time. Some of her patients are multi-generational with horizontal and vertical intersections.

“I’ll have some of my younger patients come in, who I took care of initially when they were children and their siblings,” she explains, “and now I have their kids as patients, so they’re like my grandpatients.”

After 20 years practicing in El Paso, Dr. Days has learned from each patient and continues to love the work that she does. Despite her extensive experience, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted her practice but she adapted and offered advice to parents online at the Healthy Days Pediatrics’ website.

“You can encourage your child to help stop the spread of COVID-19 by teaching them to do the same things everyone should do to stay healthy,” she writes before providing a list of hygiene tips.

Dr. Days uses her background in human biology, public health, and social pediatrics (along with a love of writing and literature) to connect with her patients and their parents on a human level.

“I think it allows you to get to know your patients and interact with them a little better in order to find common ground -- not on a high horse of medical terminology that they don’t know,” she says.

On her website, Dr. Days provides resources for parents, ranging in topics from breastfeeding concerns to holiday safety tips she writes herself that encourages parents to engage.

“As an El Paso pediatrician and mother, I understand that parents want to know about their children -- from growth and development issues to questions about why their child is sick,” she writes.

Dr. Days is married with three children, two daughters and a stepson, who she works to create a better world for through her practice and as a mother.

COVID-19 complicated both, which she handled with aplomb.

“It’s been a wild ride, too. It’s been hard. It’s been fun. Nobody expected the pandemic, which challenged us for a while,” she says.

“But I was also really grateful to have my clinic during the pandemic because it was a nice space that I could organize the way I wanted to so my kids could be here and homeschool.”

Like most El Pasoans, Dr. Days is very family-oriented and says that although a perfect work-life balance is maddening and unattainable, having it all is possible through compromise and coordination.

“You’ll go crazy if you try to be perfect, but you can prioritize things and set boundaries when you need to,” she says.

The pandemic forever changed the ways we think about mental health and put a renewed focus on the values of family and health, both physical and emotional.

“The community has always been familydriven, but I think kids are valuing their families more than they did before,” says Dr. Days.

With 20 years in El Paso, Dr. Days is still moved by her patients when they tell her their dreams, share an anecdote, or recognize her long after being a patient.

She recently lost her debit card and immediately drove to the bank for a replacement.

“The teller says to me ‘Are you Dr. Days?’ and I said ‘yes’ then he said ‘I knew it!’”

The bank representative had been Dr. Days’ patient when he was a child and remembered her for the kindness and care she provided.

“I love it and it always shocks me a little bit,” she says. “You’re in these kids’ lives for a little bit and think they won’t remember you. But they do.”