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Dr. Chelsea Garcia, Port of Spain (2025)

03/09/2025

During my time back in Ireland, I had the privilege of visiting St. Francis Hospice in Dublin, a place long recognized for its excellence in palliative and end-of-life care.
🤍Hospices like St. Francis remind me what’s possible when compassion, clinical excellence, and community come together. Their model is not only about medical care, but about dignity, presence, and creating an environment where patients and families feel supported through some of life’s hardest moments.
As someone building systems of care in Trinidad & Tobago, I find these opportunities invaluable. Each visit gives me fresh perspective and deepens my commitment to bringing the best of global practice home to the Caribbean, adapting it with respect to our culture, our people, and our needs.
👁️At LivHealth, our vision has always been to offer care that truly meets people where they are. Learning from world-class institutions like St. Francis Hospice strengthens our mission and inspires the path forward.
🙏Grateful for the lessons shared, and excited for how they will continue to shape the future of palliative care at home.

29/08/2025

🇮🇪 Went back to Ireland, and what a full-circle moment it was!
From my Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland reunion ball to horseback riding in the Wicklow mountains, every moment has been a reminder of how far this journey has taken me.
Ten years ago we were all just trying to survive long shifts, endless exams, and sleepless nights. Now, we’re consultants spread across countries, specialties, and time zones… dressed up, laughing, dancing, remembering who we were, and celebrating who we’ve become.
🤍 Even more than the places, it’s the people… the friends, mentors, and family who’ve walked alongside me and made this trip even more meaningful. Each of us has walked a hard, winding road to get here; sacrifices, setbacks, perseverance, and growth. 🧠What I’ve learned, is that everyone will have their challenges, none more insignificant than another.
However this trip wasn’t about the struggle... It was about the joy, the friendships that endured, and the quiet pride of knowing we made it! 🙏
✨ I know now that life won’t ever be about “doing it all.” It’s about doing what matters most, with intention and with love.
If you’re still in the thick of your own struggle, hear me when I say, “hold on!” There is so much beauty on the other side, and it’s all so worth it.
I’m grateful for this season, for my patients who’ve let me into their stories, and for all of you who continue to cheer me on.
🤍Here’s to the doctors, the dreamers, the decade that shaped us …. and to a beautiful future ahead.

21/08/2025

Hi everyone 💜

This Sunday is the ALL KINDA TING Summer Family Bazaar 🎉
It will be a full day of family fun with food, music, arcade games & much more!

Part of the proceeds will support families cared for by the The LivHealth Charitable Foundation🙏🏽✨

📍 The Anchorage, Chaguaramas
🗓️ Sunday 24th August, 2025
⏰ 12PM - 5PM

Tickets available: https://islandetickets.com/event/Allkindatingsummer

Come bring the kids and friends and enjoy yourself while giving back to our community 💛

14/08/2025

“Mum, I’m a decade!” my daughter exclaims proudly.
“Yes you are,” I smile, holding back a wave of emotion.

My mind floods with memories of her beginning.
Back when I didn’t know how I’d make it all work:
Financially.
Emotionally.
Professionally.

I remember what they said.
That I was throwing my future away.
That I was crazy.
But deep down, I knew.
She wasn’t the end of my path,
She was the beginning of everything.

She gave me purpose when I was drowning.
She made me fight harder.
She made me softer.
She made me whole.

My family says I spoil her.
How could I not?
She’s a living reminder that I made the right choice,
even when the world said I was making the wrong one.

When I look at her, she is my reason.
My strength.
I don’t need anyone to cheer me on.
She’s my biggest cheerleader, and I am hers.

When I look into her eyes,
I see everything we’ve overcome.
With resilience
With faith
With fire
We did it.

For every story I shared, she was right there beside me.
Followed by my son, who didn’t just add to our story,
but completed us.

It has been no easy road.
But we made it to the other side.

I am a Consultant Doctor.
Working in my dream practice.
Part of a team I’m deeply proud of.
At home, in the Caribbean.
Living my purpose.
Loving my work.
Chasing my dreams, with my beautiful babies beside me.
I’ll make sure they always chase theirs.

🤍 My legacy is no longer what I build, but who I raise to believe they can build too.

12/08/2025

And after everything:
the building and bulldozing, the silence, the grief, the rage, the joy, the acceptance…
I’ve found a deeper purpose.
One that threads through all the parts of me.
The mother. The daughter. The woman who transformed from her breaking.
Allow me to reintroduce myself.

👇👇👇

My name is Dr. Chelsea Garcia, and I wear a few white coats:
I’m trained in Internal Medicine, Palliative Care, and Hospice.
But more than anything, I’m a builder.

A builder of care models that start where patients live.
A builder of teams. Of systems. Of change.
I believe in care that meets people where they are.
That sees the whole person (not just their illness).
That honours both life and death.
That offers dignity, even in the hardest moments.

I’ve adapted what I’ve learned across the world and brought it home to Trinidad and Tobago.
Because this little island, flaws and all, is everything to me.
And I have big plans for her.
Plans that centre love, equity, and humanity.
Plans that honour every version of me that endured to get here.

This is my reintroduction.
Not just as a doctor, but as a mother, an aunt, a daughter, a friend and a force.
A woman who stands for herself, protects what she loves, and came home to be a force for others too.

I am Dr. Chelsea Garcia.

10/08/2025

📚They didn’t teach me business in medical school.

They didn’t teach me how to make a business plan, how to lead a team, how to make payroll, or navigate conflict while still showing up for others with grace.

Yet I knew if I wanted to help more people, not just a handful, but thousands, I had to learn fast.

Over the last five years, I laid the foundation to my dream one brick at a time
➡️ A palliative force to help support our nation's people.
➡️ A team whose home visits take us the equivalent of 8 times around the globe each year.
➡️ A community that is cared for in every direction.

It wasn’t easy.
There were lessons no textbook could have prepared me for:

When to protect my peace.
When to let go of those who dim the light.
How to lead from purpose, not ego.
How to hold the vision through the noise.
How to stay profitable when I wanted to give it all away for free

Whispers were always the hardest to hear.

I never expected comfort.
I know the role I play walking with people through some of the hardest moments of their lives.

As a palliative doctor, I carry that weight with intention and care.
My skin is thick...But I’ll be honest, I didn’t need praise, I just hoped for grace.

Building something new is never easy. Especially when both the stakes and expectations are so high. Even when I yelled it in the silence of my home, giving up was never an option.

✨ I didn’t come this far, to only come this far.

Still, I’m learning.
Every single day.
This is the part they don’t see. But I do.
And I’ll keep showing up for the people who need us most.

While I wasn’t trained in business, I was built to care, and that’s what built LivHealth.
Not strategy.
Not shortcuts.
Heart.

& as I move into the final pieces of this series, I just have one more thing left to say…

08/08/2025

I had experienced Covid in Florida and left just as the state was starting to emerge from the deep chaos.

I moved home to Trinidad with my little family, hopeful and relieved, but what I was entering was a country that had not yet met Covid in the same way.

I came home looking forward to maternity leave, planning to take a full year off from clinical medicine after 14 years of nonstop care.
I needed to rest. To reset.
That was the promise...

Then Covid hit Trinidad.
And I had the strange, surreal experience of living through two versions of the same storm.

Once again, patients needed me.
And once again, I answered the call.

There was resentment, I won’t lie.
I had made a promise to myself, to my family... to stop, just for a little while.

But there it was again: the choice between them and me. Between family and duty. Between rest and responsibility.

While the world debated what was “real” and what wasn’t; arguing over politics, conspiracy, vaccines, masks, I didn’t have the luxury of opinions. I had patients in beds, fighting for breath. There was no time to argue, only time to act.

While the world posted banana bread and home workouts, we were trying to save lives while navigating short resources, long hours, and the noise outside the hospital walls. It was a quiet kind of heartbreak. The kind you don’t get to talk about because there’s always another patient waiting.

And then, there was the judgment.

People angry because they didn’t like the rules, or didn’t believe in the science. Many lashed out; at me, at the system, at anything. But I wasn’t trying to be right. I was just trying to help.

Surge after surge, the medical community gave their all.
Even when no one clapped anymore.
Even when our sacrifice felt invisible.
This carried on for longer than anyone could have anticipated.

It wasn’t until years later I was on a beach in Tobago, cocktail in hand, finally exhaling,
when one of my patients walked up to me.
“Doctor, if it wasn’t for you, I’d be dead.”

And there she sat, with her entire family.

That was the moment I knew
I made the right decision.
But it came with its costs.

The cost of broken promises to myself.
The cost of time I can’t get back with my new-born.
The cost of carrying everyone’s grief, while still holding my own.

But even now, I wouldn’t undo it.
Because while I had given so much of myself,
I had also kept so many others
Alive. Connected. Heard.

06/08/2025

“End it with the Covid talk. Let’s go,” I told my nurse. We had a full list of patients to see.

I’ll never forget the day she was going on and on about this virus they called Covid.

I was six months pregnant with my son and truly enjoying hospital consult palliative care in America.

I was in a good place. I felt useful. Fulfilled.
Life outside the hospital felt steady too.
The hurdles had been cleared, and for the first time in a long time, things felt aligned.

But then it hit.
Like an apocalypse.

From one day to the next, the hospital was flooded. Cruise ships arriving. Covid-positive patients everywhere. We didn’t know what we were treating, or how to treat it.

Being trained in both internal medicine and palliative care, we were the ones called for the complicated cases, the hard conversations.I remember speaking to a patient’s wife over the phone. She wasn’t allowed to see her husband. No one was. He was on a ventilator in a terrible condition. “Doctor,” she said, “we just went on a cruise. How could this happen?”

It wasn’t just the Covid patients who suffered.
Those without Covid couldn’t get the care they needed.

I remember talking to my 19-year-old patient over the phone. She was dying of cancer and couldn’t say goodbye to her parents. “Jackie,” I spoke, trying to bring comfort through a device,
words never enough to replace her family.

What broke me was a patient’s daughter. Her father was dying. My job was to call her with updates. She cried, “Doctor, my father is dying, and you’re telling me I can’t see him? Do you know how much I love my father? I will break down your doors!” She vented in frustration. She was angry at me, but I didn’t make the rules. I was just a soldier, following orders.

I pleaded her case to my boss. I wanted to grant her a pass to enter. His answer: “Chelsea, we are in a pandemic… take your emotions out of it!”

I resonated with her.
If I were in her place, nothing would have stopped me either.
She said goodbye to him through an iPad.
And I will never forget her.
Because that day broke something in me.

It was hard.
But I had my son, Declan, in my belly.
I was not alone.

He paced every hospital corridor with me.
He was my friend. My companion. My quiet strength.

And in the middle of all this madness - he was born.

04/08/2025

I see people at their worst, hear their darkest secrets, stand beside them as they leave this world.

I bear witness to profound suffering, heartbreaking regret, unexpected peace, and lives both deeply wounded and beautifully lived.

Medicine brings you into spaces most never enter. You care for people, not just in spite of what they’ve done, but sometimes because no one else will.

One such night, I was on call and summoned to care for a dying patient. When I entered the room, I saw a face I knew…the patient’s son. He was my friend’s ra**st.

I had walked beside her through the trauma he caused. I had seen what he took from her, how she fought to rebuild. Everything in me wanted to turn around and walk out. But his mother … she was innocent, in pain, and she needed me.

So I stayed. I cared for her. I eased her pain. I did my duty as a doctor.
I gathered the family when I knew the end was near and gently told them to say their goodbyes.

I watched as the son embraced his mother with a tenderness that shook me.
The depth of his grief, the rawness of his love - it was real.

When she died, and I called the time of death, he turned to me, devastated, and embraced me.
And I…I hugged him back.

I was stunned by my own instinct.

I felt compassion. I felt grief. I didn’t feel the hatred I thought I was supposed to feel.
I supported him in his loss, and I did so because I was the doctor in the room, not the friend, not the witness, not the judge.

But when I got home, with my white coat off, I allowed myself to feel the weight of that moment. I felt the conflict, the anger, the quiet disgust. I stepped into the shower and tried to scrub it off … not just his touch, but the confusion, the shame of not knowing what was “right.”

I can never tell my friend.
I’m bound not just by confidentiality, but by the knowledge that she wouldn’t understand.
And honestly, I wouldn’t expect her to.

This is where medicine and morality collide, and where compassion doesn’t always feel clean. This is the uncomfortable, holy ground many healthcare workers walk on: holding space for healing while confronting past trauma, even when those conflicts seem impossible to reconcile.

There is good and bad in all humans.
And while that does not in any way excuse harm, especially the kind that leaves lifelong scars, it creates a strange, complicated space to live in… to see both sides.

This is what my white coat covers: the heartbreak and the healing, the anger and the grace, the part of me that is a doctor, and the part of me that is still just a human, trying to hold both truth and compassion in the same trembling hands.

01/08/2025

Did he die because I needed a cup of coffee?

It was a Saturday, and I was the senior doctor on call for our team. I arrived at the hospital at 5 a.m. No breakfast. No coffee. Not even a sip of water.
Just me and an intern, facing a long list of hospitalized patients.

We pushed through the morning chaos. By 11 a.m., post-rounds, my body begged for a break.
I was ready for my first coffee, maybe even an early lunch before the flood of Emergency Department patients began.

Just then my consultant pulled me aside:
“Chelsea, we’re short a doctor on the other team. Can you help out there too?”
Of course. Why not?

And just like that, the day turned into a relentless blur:
Patient after patient.
Emergency after emergency.
Rapid Response. Code Blue.

Every time I thought I had put out all the fires, another one started.
Next up: A man who had fallen at home and lay on the floor for days before his brother found him. Severely dehydrated. We couldn’t get an IV in. No central line either. So I drilled a hole in his shin to deliver fluids; the last resort.

Medications. Monitoring. And finally… he stabilized.
Vitals looked good. He just needed time now.

It was 3 p.m.
I had been working for ten hours straight. I hadn’t used the bathroom. I hadn’t eaten. I was running on fumes. Surely, now, I could have that coffee.

I sat in the cafeteria. First sip. Relief.
Beep beep. My phone rang. The nurse for the man in the ED. I ignored it. I needed ten minutes if I was going to survive the rest of this shift. Two minutes later, another call. Then: Code Blue. Overhead.

“Doctor, he’s crashing.”
I ran. Resuscitation began. Shock. Shock. Clear.
Twenty minutes later, I knew. He was gone.
“Time of death: 3:45 p.m.”

I walked out and looked his brother in the eyes.
“I’m so sorry… your brother has died.”
His brother collapsed into my arms.
And in that moment, all I could think was:
Did he die because I needed a cup of coffee?

But here’s what I know:
He would have died regardless of whether I drank that coffee or not.
His condition was critical, his body already shutting down.

And yet, this is the constant tension we live with in medicine; this impossible, invisible weight.
The guilt of choosing ourselves for even five minutes.

The way we’re conditioned to sacrifice until there’s nothing left.
This is a classic example of how, as doctors, we feel so deeply conflicted when forced to choose between our own needs and the needs of others...

30/07/2025

It was a busy shift in the Emergency Department.

My friend’s bachelorette was coming up, and during a rare lull between patients, I tried to steal 10 minutes to place the order for her outfits.

Before I could click the order I saw a security guard running toward me, breathless.

“Doctor, there’s been an accident. Come quickly.”
I could tell by the look in his eyes something was terribly wrong.

I ran, calling two other doctors as I moved.
The guard led us outside to the road.

She was there.
Our hospital physiothera**st.
She had just finished her shift and was walking to her car when another had struck her.

Her body was mangled, ribs exposed.
She was gasping for air.

She looked into my eyes.
I held her hand, as she took her last breath.

We still tried.
The resuscitation attempt began.
Sometimes the process feels more gruelling than a 10K run, only most times the finish line offers no medal. Just the words: “Time of death.”

I was the one who called it.
But the truth is, I was there when her life actually left an hour before I said the words aloud.

Walking away in defeat, I still had three hours left on my shift.

“Doctor, bed 1 needs admission orders.”
“Doctor, have you seen bed 8 yet?”

I became robotic. I could do it. I had to.

My phone buzzed.

“Did you order the bachelorette clothes?”

I returned to my phone screen.
Click. Click. Order placed.

“Done!” I replied. “Yay! So excited!”

Coming home, I took a long shower, kissed my baby good night and crawled into bed.
I didn’t tell my family that night.

I don’t know why.
Maybe I didn’t want them to carry it.
Maybe I didn’t know how to say it.

My friend got her bachelorette package.
She never knew what I lived through the moment before clicking ‘buy.’
I showed up with joy for her, and I wonder:
Is that sane? That I can box my emotions like that?

Six hours later, I was back at the hospital.

“Good morning!” I smiled at a colleague
“Did you hear what happened last night?” she replied. She didn’t realize I was there.

I looked down at my white coat,
A stained spot of blood still on it.
This is the life of a doctor.

From death to discharge,
from trauma to bachelorette,
from holding a dying hand to holding a child.

Sometimes a bright-eyed student would tell me, “I want to be a doctor!”
I have to fight the urge to say, “Run.”

Instead, I smile and say, “Good. We need you.”

Because the truth is, we do, and I want better for the next generation of doctors.

28/07/2025

They say Caribbean women are strong,
but no one sees the cost behind that strength.

Starting Residency in the U.S meant leaving my daughter behind in Trinidad for six long weeks.
My intentions were noble, but the reality was heavy.

Every day in the ICU was a storm.
16-hour shifts, relentless decisions, and the constant ache of being without my child.
Being away from her didn’t just hurt, it hollowed me out.
If you want to torture me, take my kids away. I wouldn’t survive.

Four weeks in and sleep-deprived a male doctor sat next to me chuckling,
“Hey Chelsea, I hear you have a baby.”
I nodded.
“Y’all Caribbean women are good at abandonment. Leave your kids in the islands and come up here,” he spoke with a sarcastic tone, a smile on his face.

It was meant as a joke, but it cut deeper than any fatigue. It wasn’t just sarcasm, it was a reminder that I was judged harshly for chasing my calling while mothering from miles away.

I thought about quitting. Packing up. Flying back to Trinidad to be a housewife. But honestly, being a housewife is hard too, and I knew I didn’t have what it took for that life.

So I wiped my tears, swallowed my shame, and moved forward.
One foot in front of the other. You can do this.

Some days, it felt unbearable.
I saw a psychiatrist.
She told me I needed a strong exercise program.

Really? How was I supposed to find time to exercise on a 16-hour shift?

What I really needed was my Mummy.
And as great mummies go, there she was.
She showed up, my baby in tow, bringing the love, strength and solution only a mother can give.

That’s the real power of Caribbean women: our resilience, our sacrifices, and the village that never lets us fall.

Dr. Chelsea Garcia

03/09/2025

29/08/2025

21/08/2025

14/08/2025

12/08/2025

10/08/2025

08/08/2025

06/08/2025

04/08/2025

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30/07/2025

28/07/2025

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