Dr. Julie Watkins-Torry is the assistant medical director at Sutter Delta Medical Center Emergency Department and a Vituity board-certified emergency medicine physician. She earned her medical degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine and completed her residency in emergency medicine from the University of California San Diego. She also completed Vituity's administrative fellowship in Emeryville, California, focusing on leadership skill development. Dr. Watkins-Torry often jokes that she grew up in a nursing home. Her mom worked as an administrator in skilled nursing facilities, and her childhood days were filled with activities like bingo and beachball therapy. She got to know the patients, some of whom had suffered strokes or diabetes-related amputations or had limited speech due to dementia or strokes. “You learn that there’s a rich and intricate story behind everyone that they can’t always communicate,” she says. These cherished patients who gave her so much as a child hold a special place in her heart, and she continues to appreciate the opportunity to serve older adults. Dr. Watkins-Torry grew up largely in Missouri. She studied abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina while she was an undergraduate at University of Southern California, and she continues to learn and improve her Spanish language skills. She is married and has three children. Her twin toddlers keep her busy when she is not working. Her first child passed away in 2018. Dr. Watkins-Torry attributes her survival after child loss to the love and support of family and community, as well as to the grief therapy she feels fortunate to have received. She has studied grief support so she can better help patients and community members who have experienced loss. “It’s become a passion of mine to not only recognize when people are living with grief, but also support them through it,” Dr. Watkins-Torry says. "I believe that grief from traumatic loss is survivable and endurable if patients receive adequate love and support." With a focus on appreciating every moment, Dr. Watkins-Torry likes to run and spend time with her family. As a result of her own health journey, she has become an advocate of a low-carb/ketogenic way of eating as a tool to reverse and prevent some chronic diseases. She practices a ketogenic lifestyle herself and advocates carbohydrate restriction and intermittent fasting for patients with sugar and carbohydrate-related diseases including type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, fatty liver disease. She has engaged in advanced studies of this nutritional intervention. Dr. Watkins-Torry was recently honored to be awarded "Best Patient Care Role Model" by the emergency department's physician assistants and nurse practitioners, which is given to clinicians who go above and beyond in their care for patients and their patients' families. As a doctor, she says her mission is to “act as a cheerleader and advocate, while guiding patients to a place where they’re a little bit healthier.” 
|