Board Member Highlight Board Member Highlight Welcome to Tania Hernandez, DO, the newest member of the Board of Osteopathic Medicine and Surgery.
Dr. Hernandez was born and raised in Mexico City by her teacher mother and her police officer father. When she was 12 years old, her father went to the United States in search of a better future for their family. She said it was rough living without her father for three years, but the family was reunited and began a new life together in Monroe, Washington. Dr. Hernandez attended middle school without knowing the language or the culture. Unfortunately, there was not much support for English as a Second Language (ESL) students at that time. But she worked hard and, though it wasn't a straight path, she was accepted into medical school. All along the way she believed she was meant to have a career in family medicine.
Dr. Hernandez began her physician career working for Sea Mar Community Health Centers and transitioned a few years later to Catholic Community Services. CCS had a need for a physician to provide medication-assisted treatment to patients with opioid use disorder. Dr. Hernandez was surprised to learn how much she enjoyed helping these patients. Through her work she continued to learn more about this area of practice and eventually earned a board certification in addiction medicine.
Her next great opportunity was becoming the medical director for a methadone clinic in Arlington. She said she is fortunate to lead an incredible team of substance abuse counselors who do life-saving work with more that 800 patients. Currently she also serves as an on-call physician for the Monroe Correctional Complex, which she says helps to maintain her internal medicine skills. Her other interest in medicine is managing obesity among low-income populations through holistic approaches including evidence-based pharmacotherapy.
Dr. Hernandez is the mother of two beautiful daughters who started participating in gymnastics as soon as they could walk. Dr. Hernandez was a gymnast herself and shared her love of the sport with them. She loves to travel, and though that is on hold given current restrictions, her goal is to take more international trips before her kids go off to college.