I believe that medicine’s potential is much more than the version we see in the world today. A doctor should be an educator with the goal of bringing patients to a place of deeper understanding of who they are in the world. To me, medicine is ultimately about self-empowerment through self-knowledge and growth.
Read more
As a Family Doctor with over 15 years of experience providing care for patients, I feel fortunate to have found a profession where I can be of service to others and to live out my life’s work. Service to others was instilled in me at a young age, and a career in medicine was a natural fit for me with my academic strengths. I received a strong foundation in medicine at Georgetown University and found my path to Family Medicine while I was there. I decided to go against the grain by going West for residency to become a Family Doctor when most of my classmates went into specialized careers. I saw that generalists had the best relationships with their patients which formed the basis for healing. So, I left the east coast and went to Colorado to learn how to be a Family Doctor. The big sky and the natural beauty of the West were lessons in and of themselves.
From there, my wife and I moved to the Berkshires to raise our children near the comforts of family. I can remember a few years after opening my private practice in Stockbridge driving home from work one winter evening and really being struck with the impulse to make my practice reflect my personal ideals in medicine. I can remember the exact turn in the road where it hit me. I had been a professional student for all those years training to be a doctor. Now I was finished with that and had a successful practice, but I had yet to look for anything other than what my teachers presented to me. This moment shifted my attention to what I thought was important in medicine. I yearned for more than addressing patients’ symptoms; my instincts told me there was much more to healing. There was no going back from that point forward.
I am attracted to the idea of finding the root cause of an illness, and years of experience has shown me that an individualized approach is best. In the early years of my practice, I started to try to minimize the use of medications and began recommending healthy eating, exercise, limiting toxins, and paying attention to the mental-emotional aspects of life. This led to an exploration of holistic approaches including natural medicines and other integrative models. I now have the understanding that new ways of thinking can have real, beneficial results for my patients.
Patients deeply appreciate having a place to bring their concerns where they know they will be heard and where they know they can trust that their doctor will take seriously the task of creating a clear approach to healing that works for the individual. They know we try to find the correct approach, the golden middle – the right balance between doing too much and not doing enough, the approach that encourages healing and looks at the person as a whole being rather than a symptom.
My family and I are happy to have made our home here in the Berkshires. My three children and two dogs love the pace and familiarity of small town country life. The access to the greenery, the trails and all that nature has to offer are essential to health. We try to get out in it regularly. I have an appreciation of music, and I’m convinced that playing and studying the piano makes me a better physician. I think to really know the healing arts you must practice some form of artistry.
