In this episode of Clinician Real Talk, Tai Samuels shares her deeply human journey into healthcare — one that began with childhood curiosity, unfolded through motherhood and career detours, and ultimately led her to a life of purpose caring for older adults. Tai reflects on what it means to truly see patients, especially those living with cognitive decline, chronic illness, or vulnerability. She explores how empathy, presence, and teamwork transform care delivery — and how Optum’s team‑based, value‑driven model allows clinicians to meet patients where they are while practicing at the top of their license.
Tai Samuels’ story is one of persistence, adaptability, and connection. From a formative Montessori lesson about the spine at age three to discovering her professional purpose through a CNA program, Tai followed curiosity toward service at every stage of life.
In this conversation, she shares meaningful patient stories that highlight the emotional realities of geriatrics and primary care. Tai discusses the intentional “reset” she practices before each visit, the importance of listening for what patients may not say out loud, and how anticipating patient needs as a team leads to better outcomes. She also reflects on how Optum’s support, leadership pathways, and clinician‑first culture empower advanced practice clinicians to grow, lead, and thrive in value‑based care.
Key Topics & Time Stamps
00:00–02:30 — Childhood curiosity and early inspiration
02:30–04:30 — Career detours, CNA training, and finding purpose
04:30–06:30 — Why geriatrics and seniors resonate deeply
06:30–08:30 — Patient stories and cognitive care
08:30–10:30 — Presence, listening, and short visits
10:30–12:30 — Self‑care and sustaining compassion
12:30–15:00 — Team‑based care improving outcomes
15:00–17:30 — Collaboration across settings
17:30–20:00 — Leadership growth and mentorship
20:00–30:00 — Value‑based care and Optum’s clinician model
Episode Highlights
Resources & Links
Take our quiz:
https://lp.optum.com/value-based-care-quiz.html
Optum Care partnership:
https://business.optum.com/en/providers/care-partnerships.html
Resource Library:
https://business.optum.com/en/providers/elevating-clinical-practice.html
ADIA MORRIS: Welcome to Clinician Real Talk, where we spotlight the people behind the practice. These are unfiltered conversations about purpose, persistence, and what it means to deliver care that changes lives. Today we sit down with Tai Samuels, advanced practice clinician director for adult geriatrics at Optum, California. She's a clinician, mentor, and advocate whose journey from curious child to compassionate leader shows what it means to grow up inside medicine. Tai, welcome to the show.
DR. TAI SAMUELS: Thank you.
ADIA MORRIS: So good to have you here.
DR. TAI SAMUELS: Thanks for having me.
ADIA MORRIS: So your fascination with the human body began when you were three years old. So walk us through that first spark. What grabbed your imagination so early?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: I remember the story pretty vividly. I was three years old, went to a Montessori school, and we were talking about the spine. And the preschool teacher at the time, she said, Tai, come up, come up to the to the front. I went up, she spun me around and she lifted my shirt up and she went down each individual vertebrae. And I remember it distinctly. And then she asked everyone, what is this? And then, your back, and everything. It's your spine. I remember this, and she said, what time do you eat breakfast? Everybody was like 8:00, 7:00. And she’s like, seven. There are seven cervical vertebrae. And then she said, and what time do you eat lunch? Twelve. That's right. There's 12 thoracic vertebrae. And then what time do you eat dinner? Five. That's right, there's five—And so we went through the whole thing, and I remember it distinctly. And ever since then, I always wanted to do health care.
ADIA MORRIS: Wow. that's an amazing story. What an amazing educator.
DR. TAI SAMUELS: Yes, yes. And I don't know where she got all this information herself, but she was amazing, and that's when it started for me.
ADIA MORRIS: That's awesome. So when college came around, fast forward a few years, when college came around, life took a few detours. Computer science, motherhood, a CNA class. Can you share a moment as a young mom or CNA that changed how you understood vulnerability in your patients?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: So I have to go back a little bit because I was in college right during the Y2K. Everyone was thinking computers were going to crash and everything. And as much as I liked healthcare at the time, my parents said, no, no, no, no, go into computers. That is the way. And so there I am, sitting in a computer science class learning C++, and I hated it, every second of it, to be honest with you. I hated it. And so I found myself questioning about life in general and what I should actually really do, because I wanted something with purpose. And so, long story short, I ended up pregnant at 20. And I went to one of my counselors and said, I'm in this computer science program. I really just, I don't like it. And she said, well, what do you like? And I said, healthcare. And she said, okay, well, healthcare, what about healthcare? I said, I don't know, because at the time, I didn't know. I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't know I was going to be. She said, have you ever considered a career in nursing? And I hadn't because I didn't know any nurses. My family is Caribbean background. We know doctors, we know attorneys. I didn't know anything about nursing. And so she said, why don't you take a CNA class and see if that's something that you'd want to do. And I said, okay, I'll do that. So I went and signed up for CNA class, and it basically was like the yellow brick road opened up for me and I realized, this is where I'm supposed to be.
ADIA MORRIS: That's amazing.
DR. TAI SAMUELS: So that's kind of how it started, to make a long story short. That was it. That was the start of my career in healthcare.
ADIA MORRIS: Awesome. So you've always felt drawn to older adults. Why do you think caring for seniors resonates so deeply with you?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: So when I was in high school, I did a lot of volunteering at a senior centers and things like that, and activities, and they always had a story to tell about their life, about their history, about their purpose, and it all resonated with me because it was a learning tool. And I think that's kind of what happened when I went into healthcare to begin with. In that CNA class, I was in a nursing home and those same stories about how people actually came to their purpose, and that's kind of what happened with me with the CNA program and talking to the counselor. And so I just connected with them on a deeper level for me.
ADIA MORRIS: Can you share a story of something that stayed with you, something that reminded you of why you chose this work?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: Sure. There’s lots of stories. I have lots of patient stories that I can share. One of my first loves is always patients that have memory or cognitive issues. And there was a patient not too long ago, it was a couple of weeks ago, and his son had come in and his son lived out of state, and he had been falling a lot at home. He lived there with his older sister, and they had a caregiver and things like that. He said, my dad, he's having such a hard time. He’s not remembering anything. He tells me all these stories, he makes up all these stories every time I call him. And I said, okay. And so I said, I asked the patient, I said, what kind of work did you do? And as it turned out, he was literally a rocket scientist. And so I asked him, what did you do today, before you came into your appointment? And he had a very elaborate story. He told me about the color of his sheets, he made his bed. And his son is there shaking his head the whole time, like, no, none of that happened, which is very true. But when you hear these kind of stories and patients with cognitive difficulties, it resonates because those details are who they are. So when providing instructions, I wrote it down and he was very thankful. I put one, two, three, four, I was very detailed with how I described everything. And even though information was really for his son, how he should take his medication, so things that he should do, it resonated with the patient and he was very happy. Even though I know he probably wouldn't remember and the information was for him, but he respected that. And that's part of why I do what I do.
ADIA MORRIS: So we'd love to hear like a story about a time where a patient came in that really just, it was really impactful for you, something really heartfelt.
DR. TAI SAMUELS: So there was a patient who we had suspected had a colon mass and needed to have a colonoscopy and kept putting it off and kept putting it off. And it wasn't really clear why. And so we said bring him in. Let's have a conversation and figure out why he's not doing the colonoscopy. He actually had scheduled it several times. And as it turned out, once we had him sit down and say, hey, what's going on? He said, I live in a rented room and I share a bathroom with someone. And he said, in order for me to do the prep, it would be very difficult for me to have to be going to the bathroom repeatedly, when I have to share the bathroom with someone. Some people may say, this is a waste of time. Why would you put a patient in the hospital for a prep? But for somebody like that, who that was their circumstances, doing that, being able to get that diagnosis early, before it actually had spread, made a huge difference. And so that those little things alone, listening, obviously to hear their individual circumstances, and then making adjustments and accommodations specifically for the individual patient, were really the difference between early diagnosis and then kind of metastatic cancer, because of something we didn't know. So it’s those kind of things.
ADIA MORRIS: And how easy was it to make that change, that adjustment?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: It was pretty, pretty quick. I mean, a colonoscopy prep is a day. So being able to say, let’s get him in for the day so that he can do the prep and we can figure out what's going on, made a difference for him.
ADIA MORRIS: And everyone on the team was able to adjust and work with that.
DR. TAI SAMUELS: And make adjustments.
ADIA MORRIS: Amazing. So after 25 years in healthcare, what fuels you? Is it results, connections? What is it?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: It's always the connections, the stories.
ADIA MORRISI: Tell me more about that.
DR. TAI SAMUELS: It’s always, we have busy days. Healthcare, it’s not easy, a lot of hard stories. There's good stories as well. But being able to connect with the patients, meet them where they are. And with every encounter that I have, like before I go into the room, I have to make myself reset. Because sometimes I'll go into a room and the energy is very high, depending upon what the circumstances are for the patient. Sometimes I go in and the energy is very low. And so I have to reset, and I have to feel that so I can meet the patient where they are, opposed to them meeting me where I am. I have to meet them. And that connection is what kind of establishes rapport, some of the patients, I've never seen before, and allows them to kind of disclose so that I can really help them.
ADIA MORRIS: Awesome. What does that reset look like, really, just in a few words?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: Kind of recentering and realizing it's not for me, it's for them. That's why I'm doing what I do.
ADIA MORRIS: That's a very good way to think about it. How do you keep that sense of presence alive in addition to that reset, especially on hard days?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: Remembering why I'm here. Obviously, it's for me and I love doing what I do. It's for my family. It’s to extend, kind of, the care and commitment to patients, so that they understand that sometimes I'm not able to cure them. Sometimes patients come in and they really are hoping for a cure. But being honest with them and admitting sometimes I don't know. I'm not quite sure what's going on with you, but we're going to try to figure it out, type of thing. I think that's kind of the heart of it.
ADIA MORRIS: So talk about every patient deserving to feel seen and heard, even in a 20-minute visit. You mentioned people wanting a cure. How does that need to feel seen and heard come up, even in a short visit?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: Even in a short visit, it comes through in their stories, for the most part. I think that's, when I think back even to myself when I was a young CNA trying to figure out what I wanted to do, and I remember the counselor sat there and listened to my story, even the story I told you about me as a toddler in the Montessori program. So listening to their story is really what connects us, and understanding what they're really there for. Because oftentimes patients come in for one thing, and they don't always say it explicitly. Sometimes they'll say, oh, no, I have a cold. And I'll have to say, is there anything else? Are you sure? Is there anything else? And then they'll say, actually, there is, and then we'll get to it. But sometimes you have to hear those things and not just rush out of the room. So like, even in the 20 minutes, sometimes it's not just 20 minutes. Sometimes it can turn into a longer visit. Sometimes it's a shorter visit. And so you give and take in certain circumstances. But that's kind of what it's about.
ADIA MORRIS: What practices help you create that kind of space?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: Really, the centering, as I mentioned before, before I go into the room, and recognizing that I'm there for them and not there for me. I'm there to, as a vessel, to a certain degree, to help hear what the person is coming in to get assistance with. You have to know, though, too, you bring a lot of this with you. At the end of the day, once you've processed, okay, I've seen this patient, I've seen that patient. And you have to care for yourself, though. And I think that's important as healthcare providers, recognizing that even through the hard days, we have to, it's important to do self-care, exercise, feeling grounded, to be able to show up and do this day after day after day, even after 25 years.
ADIA MORRIS: As a leader in value-based care, how is Optum helping clinicians shift and equipping them with the new tools and mindset they need to deliver better value through personalized, coordinated and higher value care?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: So I think a lot of the fee-for-service models, we think of you come in for a problem, take care of that one problem. And value-based care, you come in for a problem, yes, but what else do you need? Is there anything else that we can do to keep you healthy? So it's not just about that one thing. It's about you as a whole person.
ADIA MORRIS: And it sounds like that you have the time to do that exploration, right?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: Yes, we do have time.
ADIA MORRIS: What gives you the time?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: We do have the time. And I'm not even going to just say time. We have the team. So we have the care managers, we have the team of physicians, NPs, PAs, medical assistants at the sites that all work together. So it's not just one person doing it, it's all of us working together to make sure that the patients have what they need at Optum.
ADIA MORRIS: Awesome. So let's talk a little bit about teamwork. When you see a well-coordinated team function, what does that look like?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: Oh, I have a great story, actually. It happened not too long ago. It was the last patient of the day. He had come in, he was in his walker and his legs were very swollen. And one leg, I could see, had some weeping and some drainage. He came in and he was, I could see he was having a hard time. He was in pain. But he came in and he said, oh, I've never seen you before, because I mentioned I've seen patients, a lot of them have never seen me before and I've never seen them. And he had a smile. He said, are you new? And I said, no, I'm not new. I'm filling in today. And he said, oh, where's my regular doctor? And I said, he's on paternity leave. And he said, I didn't know he was expecting. Which made me laugh because his doctor is a man, so it was kind of funny. Anyway, so, listen to what was going on with him and then I know I needed to get some dressings for his legs and stuff. And when I opened the door, the medical assistant was literally right there, and she was like, oh, did you need to dress his leg? And I was like, I do, actually. Perfect. And she's like, I already told the LVN and she's getting supplies. And I was like, well, that's amazing. They’re on it over here, because I go to different offices. And so, the LVN, she came right around the corner before I could even close the door. And then there happened to be a pharmacy downstairs and I told him, we need to get a prescription for you. And he said I came on transportation. And I said, okay, there's actually a pharmacy downstairs. Do you want me to send it to the pharmacy? He said, that would be perfect. I didn't even think of that. And we were able to get the medication sent downstairs and the LVN, before I even had finished, she was like, did you want home health? I said yes. She was like, I saw you put the order in. I'm going to call them and see if they can see him next week. And so, I didn't see him next week, but we arranged for him to have an appointment. And so next week, I look back just to see had everything fallen into place the way I expected, and it had. Home health had gone out on that Monday, he had his appointment on a Thursday, and I was like, this is perfect. This is what this is all about. And it all worked out because everyone anticipated what the next person needed. And so that's truly what collaboration is. And even if someone doesn't know, being available to say, hey, I don't know. What can I do to make this smooth for the patient?
ADIA MORRIS: Amazing. Can you share a story where collaboration between clinicians completely changed a patient outcome? So that person, it seems like folks were on it right away. Tell me another story about how the outcome may have changed.
DR. TAI SAMUELS: So I have a patient where I actually needed to have her at the hospital, really significant anemia. And contacted one of the hospitals and let them know, this patient is very anemic. She's going to come in, she's going to go to the emergency room at this particular facility. And they said, yeah, we're here. We’ll keep an eye out for her. She was discharged within two days. They knew she was coming. They contacted the ER doc, let the ER doc know. We just need to type and cross. This is what's happening. I had given the full story. It was a fibroids, and she was having some menorrhagia. It worked out and the patient was great. Discharged, got back to work and she was like, thank you. So sometimes it's just those little things that help the patient. Because patients have to go to work too. She's like, I just need a transfusion. So that, it worked out perfectly.
ADIA MORRIS: Awesome. How do moments like that change the clinician experience?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: I think coordination and being able to connect directly with every member of the health care team makes a huge difference. Because a lot of times it's time. Even though we're at work, patients have to go to work too. If you put yourself in a patient's shoes, even though you're sick, we have other responsibilities. Family, work, elderly parents. So making sure that everything is coordinated in a timely fashion makes all the difference for everyone because patients get the care they need and their outcomes or their health outcomes are better.
ADIA MORRIS: Do you think those interactions where everyone leans in help clinicians reconnect to the why behind what they do?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I think we all love to have a good story outcome, when a patient gets what they need and the time they need it. There are circumstances where even in the best care, coordinated situations, things don't always work out. But even being able to anticipate that and prepare the patient, like we're going to do this, this and this, this is what we expect, good or bad, so that they understand what the limitations could potentially be makes a big difference too.
ADIA MORRIS: So it sounds like you kind of grew up as a clinician at Optum. What made this place different from day one?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: I literally did grow up here. I started here as a student and got hired on as a nurse practitioner. At the beginning of my career, I really didn't know what direction I wanted to go in. As I mentioned, I didn't even know what nurses did. And so as I was able to kind of learn, okay, nurses do this, nurse practitioners do this, but nurse practitioners can also do all of this. All of this is different for different people. For some people it is just having a wider breadth of clinical knowledge. For other people, it's leadership, mentorship, guidance, advocacy. And for me, it was kind of all of those things. So that was the fun thing, is that I was able to do all of those things within this organization, and they allowed me to. They allowed me the freedom to do it.
ADIA MORRIS: It sounds like you're a, I want to see the whole pie kind of person.
DR. TAI SAMUELS: Mm-hmm.
ADIA MORRIS: So you helped build mentorship programs and the Advanced Practice Council. Why was creating those spaces so important?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: I think NPs and PAs are kind of like the unsung hero, to a certain degree, in health care. A lot of times people think we're just filling in instead of actually being an important clinical role within the system. I am taking business school right now and I'm learning about complements and substitutes, and I realized that we're complements. There's synergy between working with physicians, NPs, and PAs in a collaborative, team-based environment. And we each have our own kind of scope and role and we work so well together.
ADIA MORRIS: You stay busy, it sounds like.
DR. TAI SAMUELS: I love it.
ADIA MORRIS: Can you share a story of a clinician you've mentored who discovered new confidence or direction through that work?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: Sure. As I mentioned, I started going to school myself to do a business program. She’s a friend of mine, she kept saying, I don't know what I want to do. I know I want to go on. She already had a master's in public health, she's a PA. She’s like, what should I do, Tai? And I told her, I was like, you have to figure it out, just like I had to figure it out. You have to decide what interests you have. And eventually she did, and she decided to go on and do a doctoral program in business, herself. So we're kind of doing it together, in a way, and we share learnings of school and things. So it was nice to see her along that journey, figuring out what her ultimate why is and what her end goal is and if school was right for her. It took a little bit, for both of us, actually, to kind of decide. But being able to go on that journey together was nice.
ADIA MORRIS: Awesome. What was it like for you emotionally to watch your friends step into their power?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: It was really fulfilling, honestly, for me, just because we had talked about it so much, and she was trying to decide what is the right path. I didn’t tell her, like, this is what you should do, even though she's amazing, she's smart and I could see that. But seeing her make the decision, because ultimately someone has to make the decision for themselves in terms of what they want to do.
ADIA MORRIS: So you’ve shared how your definition of success has evolved, from task completion to system impact. What does success mean to you today?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: So it’s still an evolution, I would say, in terms of what it ultimately means. When I started out as a CNA, it was just very task oriented. We're changing a diaper, we're getting a patient up in the morning, to making some clinical decisions as a nurse. And now, in the role that I have, kind of walking people through my story and saying, it's for you to decide how you want to deliver care, whether it's just to each individual patient you see, or whether it's to the population as a whole. And so for me, right now, the way I'm looking at it, I'm looking at it with the wide lens and how I can help more NPs, PAs recognize that we are complementary to the health care system and how to deliver care to patients on a broader scale.
ADIA MORRIS: How is Optum uniquely positioned to help advanced practice clinicians, such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants, grow, thrive, and advance their careers further?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: There’s a lot of things going on. Number one, we have an advanced practice council, which basically is the voice of nurse practitioners and physician assistants that we work collaboratively with the physician executive team so that they hear from us. And they want to. They advocate for that. They give us time and space to be able to meet, so they can hear what's going on and what would better serve us to be able to better serve the patients. And that means a lot. And they're willing to hire us. It's not to say that no one else is, but they're hiring us in team-based models that support our ability to practice. They hire new graduates, which some organizations don't. And they have training programs, fellowship programs that are embedded into many of our organizations, that allow us to learn and grow and grow up in Optum, like I did.
ADIA MORRIS: How does empowering physicians, NPs and PAs to practice sustainably translate to better patient care?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: Sure. One thing I can say about Optum is that they have been instrumental in advocating and hiring NPs and PAs to practice at the top of their license, allowing them to deliver primary care, specialty care, and then even setting up a lot of pathways for education for them to learn more. There's a lot of programs that are available clinically, with our provider development institute. So allowing them to enhance the skills that they learned in school, advocating for us to work collaboratively with our physician colleagues to deliver care. There's a huge shortage of physicians, as we all know. So hiring more and more NPS and PAs to practice, allows us to deliver care to more patients, a higher level of care too.
ADIA MORRIS: Where do you see the balance between innovation and humanity in modern care delivery?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: There was a saying I heard that AI isn't going to take over jobs. Humans with AI will help to enhance jobs. And I think Optum has definitely embraced that technology, so we can actually connect one on one with the patients without having to go type, type, type, just give me a second, I can’t log in, type of thing. We can literally walk in the room armed, ready to sit down and look at a patient face to face and figure out like what's going on, without being distracted by the technology. It's enhanced our ability to provide the care.
ADIA MORRIS: That’s amazing. That AI Scribe, I keep hearing about it.
DR. TAI SAMUELS: Oh, it's amazing.
ADIA MORRIS: You've spent your career advocating for NPs and PAs as essential members of the care team. What do you wish the broader health care community understood about their role?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: What I will say is that a lot of people are very confused about our role. What do we do, what can we do? Do we have enough training? Are we able to meet their needs? And the answer is yes to all of the above. Yes, we have the training. Yes, we can meet their needs. We can prescribe, we can treat, we can diagnose, we can put in a referral. We can take care of them, and that's what we were trained to do, is care for care for patients. And there's primary care. A lot of us are trained in primary care. They’re specialty as well. I'm in primary care and I think that's where the biggest needs are. Primary care, I look at, is like the gatekeepers of medicine, to a certain degree, because we can see like, do you need the specialist? Is it something that we can’t manage or we shouldn't be managing or that has a higher level of specialization that's required? So I think that's the main message, is that we can care for them.
ADIA MORRIS: You’ve talked about how Optum listens, really listens to clinicians. What does that look like in action?
DR. TAI SAMUELS: Clinicians see patients. So in Optum listening to clinicians, they're listening to patients and what they need, and how we can better serve them and care for them to provide the high level of care that they need.
ADIA MORRIS: The information is flowing both ways, then.
DR. TAI SAMUELS: It is.
ADIA MORRIS: So talk about an example where clinician feedback directly influenced how Optum delivers care or designs workflows.
DR. TAI SAMUELS: Sure, sure. I think there's been a lot of conversation about administrative burden. That's our inbox, that's our notes. And there's plenty of times when I log on at night and I'll see, hey, someone's already login in as well. They're taking care of stuff too. There's a message back to me from someone after hours. So part of utilizing technology is to reduce some of that administrative burden. Because the administrative burden is required. A lot of the refills and the notes and everything that helps the communication keep flowing. But there are simpler ways of doing it, and I think that they're hearing that, and it allows us to deliver better care.
ADIA MORRIS: I want to thank you so much for being here with us today, telling us about your story, your beginning, your origin story, so to speak. And I appreciate everything you've shared.
DR. TAI SAMUELS: Thank you. I appreciate it.
ADIA MORRIS: Tai's journey reminds us that every clinician story is a story of courage, of choosing curiosity, connection, and care again and again. If you're a clinician looking for a model that supports your independence, simplifies your workflow, and helps you bring care where it's needed most, this is your sign. Take the Quick Readiness quiz in the show notes to see how prepared you are to thrive in value-based care. And subscribe to Clinician Real Talk for more real conversations with clinicians making real impact. Keep leading with purpose and care. See you next time.