Since starting my career in 2002, I heard so many stories of patients left confused by hospital visits, frustrated by their experiences at clinics, and general feelings of being lost when they couldn’t get anyone to talk to them. In 2012, I found myself in the shoes of the patient. As I struggled to find a diagnosis for the pain I was having in my leg, I found that trying to get in front of a doctor to get answers was extremely frustrating and nearly an impossible task.  By 2012, the pain had been progressing for 11 years, and no one (except me) was very interested in solving my problem. I was eventually able to navigate towards health and recovery, but I emerged from the experience with a newfound purpose: I wanted to become the doctor I needed. I wanted to be an advocate for my patients and accessible to my patients.

Without easy access to my primary care doctor, I had to order my own tests to get information – something I would not have been able to do if I were not a physician myself.  This was after having seen nine specialists (all self-referred) and undergoing an unnecessary surgery on my leg at Johns Hopkins. I finally made my own diagnosis through tests I ordered on my own and was able to direct myself to the appropriate surgeon. Since then, I’ve had two more surgeries on an emergent basis because I could not get in to talk to the doctor when I first began having a problem.  On top of this, I found the medical bills surprising and astronomical. The lack of transparency in billing  was shocking. This is only one of several frustrating experiences I had as a patient, but it left me with a mission to change how I am doing things. I knew that if I, as a doctor, found navigating the system frustrating and expensive, it is even worse for patients who are not on the inside of the system. I needed to make a change to serve my patients the way I needed to be served by my  physician, and when I discovered the Direct Primary Care (DPC) model, I knew it was right.