Boyer is new family medicine doc

    Melissa Memorial Hospital will soon be welcoming a new family medicine physician to its team. Daniela de Vargas Boyer, D.O., moved to Holyoke at the beginning of July and hopes to start seeing patients by the end of August.
    “I think for the most part you could call me a nontraditional student,” she said. Boyer was interested in nursing and chiropractic before entering her current specialty and earning her doctoral degree in osteopathic medicine.
    Boyer grew up in Pueblo and pursued her undergraduate education at Pueblo Community College and Colorado State University. In 2007, she received her bachelor’s degree in biology from CSU-Pueblo with a pre-med emphasis and a minor in chemistry.
    Boyer said that she was drawn to osteopathic medicine as a graduate student because of its holistic focus and its incorporation of chiropractic techniques into the standard M.D. curriculum. She received her doctorate from the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences in 2014.
    Her interest in holistic care eventually led her down the path of family medicine.
    ”I like family medicine because I get to do a lot of different things,” Boyer said. “This offers me the opportunity to do a little bit of nursing home, a little bit of clinic, a little bit of inpatient, a little bit of ER — you know, do it all.”
    Most recently, Boyer worked as a family medicine resident at Unity Health Medical Center in Searcy, Arkansas.
    She also looks forward to working in a rural hospital for the variety of responsibilities she will be able to assume, compared to hospitals in more populous areas, where physicians rarely work outside of their specialty.
    Boyer brings bilingual experience to the MMH staff and says she is working to develop a deeper knowledge of medical Spanish. She lived in Mexico for four years as a young girl and returned to visit for a few weeks after moving to Holyoke.
    She said that she had high expectations for the town after talking to locals who glowed about the sense of community and high quality of life.
    “I think it’s met all of those expectations, to be honest,” she said.
    She and her husband, Michael Boyer, have been married for 20 years. In her spare time, she enjoys singing, exploring the mountains and spending time with her two college-age sons, Elijah and Donovan.