Pampa Medical Group is excited to announce the newest member of their team of family physicians, Dr. Scott Wallace who will specialize in osteopathic medicine.
Dr. Wallace’s medical experience began during his time in the military, serving as a combat medic in the Army National Guard, but according to him, the medical field wasn’t exactly his first choice, and it was by an interesting discovery about himself that changed the course of his potential career.
“When I was in my 20s and getting ready to decide what I wanted to do for a full career and I was taking some undergraduate classes in college and tutoring high school students, the recruiter for the National Guard who was there locally with me, his son was one of the kids that I tutored,” he said. “I really liked working with him and I thought his job looked fun, and at the time I was actually taking computer network courses, so I thought that was what I wanted to do for the National Guard. Turns out, I’m colorblind, so there was a limit in which jobs I could do. One of the options I was left with was to be a combat medic. So I enlisted, became a combat medic, and loved it.”
“It was just so interesting, and I would say it’s a lot like being a paramedic or an EMT. A lot of times it was cuts and scrapes and that sort of thing, but they train you in all the other exciting specialty things like taking care of bullet wounds. I never had to do anything wildly exciting other than train on those which was still great. I did have one deployment in 2011 to Baghdad, Iraq, but through all that it was just minor illnesses that I helped take care of. Thankfully there was nothing too scary on my end,” he laughed.
Dr. Wallace worked within the Army National Guard for the next 15 years and through that process, he worked his way up through different kinds of medicine, and it was family medicine that appealed to him the most, specializing in osteopathic care for patients of all ages.
“Osteopathic does a little bit of a hands-on approach. Philosophically, your body is in charge of its own healing and my job as an osteopathic doctor is to help facilitate that. I kind of consider it a soft chiropractic as far as what I can do, where I’m able to do some hands-on things to help relieve muscle tension and the micro-movements of bones and things like that to help relieve pain. Most of the time the job function is exactly the same as what a regular allopathic or MD doctor does, all the same certification otherwise.”
“Initially I thought I wanted to do emergency medicine, so I actually did some postgraduate training in emergency medicine before I realized that wasn’t the stress that I wanted every day. So I went back and revisted specialties, and family medicine is full-spectrum, meaning I see everybody from the time they’re born to the time they pass away. It really just depends on which age groups you want to see, and I like seeing everybody. That’s what really directed me to this.”
Dr. Wallace would earn his bachelor’s degree at the Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine in Las Cruces, New Mexico and earn his Family Medicine residency and additional training in Ohio, and over the course of nine years after his graduation, his medical training would take him all over the southern and midwest portion of the country, ultimately landing him straight into the heart of the Texas panhandle.
“We came here by the best accident,” he laughed. “My wife and I were looking for something in this region because it falls right in between where all of our family lives. And originally I had gotten a recruiting text message for Canadian. We had everything all set up for me to go out and visit and do the interview, but they ended up closing one of the two positions that was open. Well the recruiting company said, ‘hey, we’ve got this really cool group that’s about an hour down the road, would you be interested in seeing them?’ I said sure, and the moment we came in and started talking to people, my wife and I knew this was the right place. The community and the people here at the hospital are just fantastic.”
Dr. Wallace will officially begin taking patients on July 27 and is now accepting appointment requests. He will be completely devoted to outpatient primary care, providing comprehensive and preventative care to patients and bringing a whole-person approach by looking beyond the symptoms and understanding each unique patient’s lifestyle, whether it be for high blood pressure, diabetes, or more in-depth neuromusculoskeletal issues. He says for anything else that may require a specialist, he would be happy to provide a referral, but not before doing what he can, the best he can in his office first.
For more information or to schedule an appointment, call 806-665-0801 and select Option 1. His office will be located in the Pampa Medical Group portion of the hospital located at 3023 Perryton Parkway.
We welcome Dr. Wallace and his family to Pampa and look forward to many great years of compassionate care for our community!
