When the Ankers arrived in Curtis Park in the middle of the night after driving from Los Angeles with a U-Haul, their cat and two kids, they smiled and hugged each other.
“We knew we’d landed in the right place,” Dr. Thomas Anker says of the home his family occupies down the street from Omic Wellness, the medical practice he and his wife, Julia, opened a year ago on Freeport Boulevard.
“We love it here,” Sacramento native Julia concurs. “It’s such a tight-knit community with a small-town feel—we know all of our neighbors and say hi on the street. It’s those little things that make living in this area so great.”
Thomas came to know the area while in residency with the UC Davis Consortium for Medical Education. Though he began his medical practice in his hometown of Los Angeles, he knew he wanted to expand to Sacramento. When he met Sonya Frausto, owner of Ten Acres Pharmacy, the two hit it off and Thomas decided to locate his Northern California practice in the back of the independent pharmacy.
“We’re trying to create a high-quality, intimate practice where patients feel they’re listened to and cared for thoroughly,” says Thomas, who specializes in individualized family medicine with a concentration in integrative medicine.
“The integrative portion comes about so I can offer an array of interventions—not just pharmaceuticals, but also small steps in between illness and the pharmacy like herbs, vitamins, nutrition and other lifestyle factors for patients who are interested. Everybody appreciates an open mind to all therapeutics.”
Though in-person connections are paramount, the pandemic made it clear that offering telemedicine is imperative. Thomas loves that he can serve local patients alongside those who live throughout California. “We offer everything a normal face-to-face office visit would offer via telemedicine and get nearly the same ability of care—minus, of course, the physical exam,” he says.
The name “Omic” was inspired by Thomas’ first area of study: genomics, or the study of a person’s genes, which is considered the foundation of wellness.
Early in his medical studies, Thomas was advised to major in genetics because that was the future of medicine. Although he doesn’t consider himself a geneticist, Thomas says understanding how genetics play into disease is incredibly useful. He hopes to make genetics a bigger focus of his practice in the future, when the timing is right.
“Being a physician and starting this practice is all about putting good medicine first,” he says. “If I offer something (like genetic testing), I want to offer it for a good reason and a good outcome. Medicine needs to catch up with genetic testing—the utility is not quite there yet. It can be fun and interesting, but it’s also costly, so unless there’s a good reason to do something in my office, I don’t do it. I’m making ethics a foundation of this practice.”
Family is fundamental at Omic. Julia is responsible for the efforts that keep the business running and attract new patients. Thomas’ mother Beatriz works as office manager, answering phones and scheduling patients. The Ankers’ two kids, ages 3 and 5, know the name “Omic Wellness” and visit Dad at work, which maintains what Julia calls the “super family-oriented vibe” they strive for.
“As Omic grows, we’re doing this for two people: the patients and the physicians,” Thomas says. “We want to offer a great place for high-quality medicine, but also a place where physicians can practice and feel fulfilled, happy, inspired and motivated again to take good care of patients and feel healthy themselves.
“There’s a lot of burnout right now and a lot of suicide, even in residency. I’m hoping to create something that not just takes better care of patients but also better care of the physicians who take care of those patients. I want to be a platform of inspiration.”
For more information, visit Omic Wellness at 2930 Freeport Blvd. or omicwellness.com.
Jessica Laskey can be reached at jessrlaskey@gmail.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
