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Meet Devan Doherty

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Meet Devan Doherty

May 26, 2022
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We were lucky to catch up with Devan Doherty recently and have shared our conversation below.

Devan , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Over the course of your career, have you seen or experienced your field completely flip-flop or change course on something?

Thank-you all for letting me share some things about myself and my career! I’ll start by saying that my immediate response to your question is yes but giving a bit of background information will help understand my answer.

I’ve been working in healthcare as the Clinical Coordinator at Right Relief Health – or RRH as it’s often abbreviated – for almost 13 years. Right Relief is a private, family owned and run practice located in Watkinsville, GA which is about 10 minutes away from Athens, GA, home to the University of Georgia.

About five years ago, my dad – Dr. Dennis C. Doherty – who is the Owner and Founder of Right Relief Health in addition to being Board Certified in several different specialties, decided to shift the primary focus of care to Addiction Medicine. This was a major ‘change course’ for the practice. Even though the ‘opioid epidemic’ is popularly represented as a more recent issue to plague so many Americans, this is not actually the case. Still, it has gotten drastically worse overall and the disease of addiction is a real illness. This is where myself and Right Relief come in to play today.

At Right Relief Health, care is office-based, utilizing medication-assisted treatment or MAT. Per the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, ‘medication-assisted treatment is the use of medications, in combination with counseling and behavioral therapies, to provide a “whole-patient” approach to the treatment of substance use disorders’.

This is a definite shift from the ‘traditional treatment programs’ or in-patient rehabilitation centers. These facilities are almost always completely abstinence-based treatment programs in which care is the same for every person despite the ‘drug of choice’ nor are other issues effecting individuals addressed. It is most commonplace for these programs to provide care for a set duration of time and individuals are precluded from working, making necessary and concomitant environmental changes, they cannot be with family and so on.

Because medicine is ever-evolving, particular advances in the context of addiction have allowed us to be more equipped than ever to utilize effective and successful modalities to treat individuals suffering from alcohol/substance use disorders. These advances are within the use of FDA-approved medications for care. Studies regarding MAT have proven that such yields better outcomes than treatment without the use of medications and higher, long-term success rates.

Plus, providing that ‘whole patient’ approach that is intertwined with medication-assisted treatment is exactly what we do, tailoring care for every person. Once stability regarding substance/alcohol use is achieved we also make sure to address underlying issues such as anxiety, depression and more.

The way I look at is how can you really help someone if you don’t know the whole picture or what else is going on in a person’s life? Familiar issues, financial stressors, co-morbidities and more are all part of knowing and understanding a patient.

Right Relief Health has undoubtedly made an industry ‘u-turn’… better yet, I’ll call it a ‘180’ because we aren’t turning back but instead care provided is allowing people to become whole again. In essence, I see RRH as part of a paradigm shift in healthcare.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?
When I started school at the University of Georgia I was pre-nursing but like a large majority of Freshmen or Sophomores, I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to stay on the current science-based path or change my major to something more ‘creative’. In fact, I did change my major and received my Bachelor’s Degree in Public Relations from the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication with a Minor in Sociology.
After internships in Public Relations during summers of my college years, my favorite being in Nashville, working with a band called Little Big Town, after graduation I didn’t even apply for a job in PR. My dad, Dr. Doherty – Dennis as he prefers patients call him by his first name – suffered from stage IV cancer but being the fighter he is, he became part of the 1%… this being the survival rate doctors gave him after he was diagnosed.
With all the adversities my dad faced, it seemed to me that the best thing to do would be to help my family and the practice in general.
Despite not having what may be considered the traditional healthcare background, I integrated in to the field and am involved with all aspects of daily operations. The clinical experience I have obtained at RRH is invaluable and I will forever credit my dad with being the real teacher who continues to make sure I really do learn something new every day.
Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?
I firmly believe that succeeding is based on having a genuine passion about what you do on a daily basis which is pretty much analogous to not considering something just a ‘job’ but a ‘career’… what matters is the life-long pursuit.
While there are plenty of wonderful doctors and other healthcare professionals who are brilliant in their respective specialties along with many who have the bedside manner that I believe everyone should, it’s unfortunate that most medical care has become almost ‘robotic or at the very least, ‘informal’.
The disease of addiction is complex and rarely understood. After hearing countless stories from patients who previously attended traditional, in-patient rehabilitation or went to other physicians and were told they have issues all because of character flaws or ‘internal deficits’, were constantly made to feel guilty or ashamed nor did anything yield positive results, etc. it is understandable for people to lose faith in ever getting the right medical help not to mention even initiating the pursuit.
Success is achieved when you treat every person – or patient – like you would your neighbor, family member or friend. If you think about it, the likelihood of you having an extended relative of your own or an individual in your life that struggles with this same problem is very high. It makes such a difference when you are kind to people, take time to explain things and remember that every human being deserves to be treated with respect.

If you could go back in time, do you think you would have chosen a different profession or specialty?
I’m a firm believer that things always happen for a reason so I would never change the path that led me to where I am today.
There is nothing that can replace seeing people gain a sense of hope again, knowing they aren’t being judged but are walking in to a place of understanding where we share their goals of achieving successful treatment outcomes. I especially cannot put in to words how rewarding it feels when people realize they can – and indeed are – on the right track to getting their life back and achieving goals they haven’t been able to reach.
Lastly, I’m grateful to be able to use my Public Relations and Sociology background in a variety of ways. Giving the practice a larger internet presence with our website (www.rightreliefhealth.com) and making Right Relief Health accessible via social media platforms for example, is a great way to communicate and inform people that there are affordable, alternative options that are in no way a compromise in care; it’s just a different path to take.

I may have never thought I’d be in my current profession but am privileged to do something that gives me hope that each day parity is closer to us all, that we will reach the treatment gap of millions of Americans who need proper addiction medicine care and that we will decrease the statistic that comprises far too many individuals who have lost their lives to such a grossly, under-treated disease that is equal to any other chronic illness.

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