This is a small private practice not a large clinic or hospital.  Think more of family structure than corporate structure.

We work as a family and are somewhat informal.  Sometimes folks bring dogs or children to clinic (they can’t interfere with patient care) and they are welcome.

We work 4.5 days a week.  Monday thru Thursday can run long and late but we try hard to end early Friday afternoon. Quality of life is important and we try to resource that. The surgeon? He works 7 days a week.

The first and last question in every interaction has to be : “what is the right thing for the patient?” We treat every patient like family.  Sometimes that means being really nice, sometimes it means being firm and saying no, sometimes it just means listening.  We keep little gift cards in the clinic that all employees are empowered to give if they perceive we have fallen short of our goals. Appropriate patient satisfaction is important to us. This means we want you to be happy with and in charge of your care, but we won’t do unethical things or participate in what we know to be bad patient care just to make you happy.

The USA has a multi trillion dollar health care system so that Americans can be healthy.  Having traveled the globe I would say it is the best in the world. While most patients are in the system to get healthier, there are some patients who are in the system to take advantage of it. We do NOT support inflated WC claims, extended WC out-of-work activity, fraudulent disability claims or addictive narcotics requests even if the patient is disappointed by that. While we strive very hard to make people happy, integrity is more important than popularity. And, candidly, the choices mentioned above all lead to worsened health outcomes, and we want you to be healthier.

Everyone is a quality improvement specialist.  If you have an idea to make us better, lets try it! If it works, you’re a hero. If not, we tried. We love new ideas.

There is NEVER a right way to do the wrong thing.

If you have an inclusive definition of your job in life (what can I do to help out?) you will do well here.  If an exclusive definition (that’s not my job) you won’t. Getting better as a patient requires participation. You are going to have to work (and work hard) to get better. Life is a participatory event. If you actively participate in and think your way through your health care experience, you will get better faster than if you are a passive participant. We won’t life coach you thru every little thing, you will grow and become stronger by making some decisions on your own. This means you need to know your medications, follow instructions, do your own learning and education, and do your own health optimization (this concept is covered later)

We had no COVID infections from our clinic, and yet we never put up plexiglass barriers, never required masks and never checked vitals. We relied on common sense and the established cold & flu measures that have existed for decades. We emphasized social distance, hand washing and self determination. It turned out fine. If quarantines, elaborate protocols, masks and repeated booster shots are your agenda, this may not be your best choice. Yes, we may have to deal with COVID or similar again. Panic & hysteria in the search for perfect outcomes just about always lead to problems, whereas a calm, reasonable approach with an acceptance of some shortcomings generally leads to better results.

This is your health and your life. We are simply facilitators with a unique set of training and skills to help you in achieving your health care goals. We are a team. I will do my best to follow your instructions, please try hard to follow mine. For my part, I will try hard to keep my instructions general and simple, with room for the wiggles of daily life.

Health optimization. This means you do the common sense things that make you healthier, and you show personal initiative in doing so. And you should try to do so with effort rather than chemicals. In other words, you can lose weight with a drug, you can also eat less and exercise more. You can take a medicine to help with anxiety & depression, you can also sometimes restructure your life to reduce stress. You can stop smoking. You can develop a common sense age appropriate exercise program and work it every day. You can get 6-8 hours of sleep a night. You can put your body in a place where it can do what the human body does best: heal itself. Not doing those things puts you in opposition to your treatment plan. Doing these things puts us both on the same team moving in the same direction.

If you nodded your head in agreement to most of this, you are in the right place. If reading this made you mad…..there may be happier venues for you to pursue. Either way, we are here to facilitate and help you in your journey to wellness!