Sowmya Josyula, MD — Circle Medical

Tell us what makes you passionate about being a healthcare provider. What keeps me in medicine is the moment a patient realizes someone is finally listening. I've spent over a decade managing chronic disease — diabetes, hypertension, obesity, metabolic conditions — and the pattern is almost always the same: by the time a patient reaches me, they've been handed prescriptions but never a plan. One of my patients had been told he was diabetic two years before he saw me. Nobody followed up. By the time he came in, his HbA1c was 14. Six weeks later, with a real conversation about his diet, his medications, and his life, it was 8 — and he was off one drug. That's the work I love. Not the prescription pad, but the relationship and the data that prove someone's life actually got better. I practice evidence-based medicine combined with certified lifestyle medicine because I'm convinced the best outcomes come from treating the whole patient, not the lab report. In your opinion, what should be the role of a primary care provider for a patient, taking into account both physical health and behavioral health needs? A primary care provider should be the one person in the system who sees the whole patient — and that means physical and behavioral health belong in the same visit, not on different floors. In my practice, I don't treat diet, sleep, stress, and medication as separate problems; they're one problem wearing different clothes. A patient with uncontrolled blood pressure is often a patient who isn't sleeping, who is anxious about work, who eats at 11 PM because that's when the day ends. If I write a prescription without asking about those things, I've treated the number, not the person. The PCP's job is to screen routinely for depression, anxiety, and chronic stress; to normalize those conversations so patients don't feel judged bringing them up; to manage what's within scope; and to coordinate warm, deliberate handoffs to behavioral health when more support is needed. Continuity is the whole point of primary care — and behavioral health is inseparable from continuity, because the trust required for a patient to disclose what's really going on is built one visit at a time. Tell us a little bit about yourself. What do you like to do in your spare time? I host two podcasts — one for patients, one for physicians on clinical reasoning. Outside of clinic. I am a serious home cook and have spent years adapting Indian meals into clinically sound plans, which sneaks back into my work. I am an Indian classical singer and dancer