I’ve been treating opioid addiction for as long as I’ve been a physician. Now that I have my own practice, it’s important to me to offer this type of treatment to my community here in Milwaukee. Medication-assisted treatment, or MAT, is not a cure for addiction, because that doesn’t exist. MAT lets us manage addiction as a chronic disease. The goals of MAT are to keep people alive by preventing overdoses, and to allow them to have a life that doesn’t revolve around drugs.

If you spend a lot of time hanging around doctors, you might get the idea that what makes a great doctor is someone who knows a lot and works really fast. But if you talk to patients, most of them are just hoping for a doctor that won’t traumatize them. Here’s how we designed Presence Primary Care to be a positive and safe place to get care.

A size-inclusive approach to medicine recognizes that all patients have the right to pursue their best health regardless of what they weigh, and regardless of whether they want their weight to change. I don’t need to know what you weigh to know we are going to be making plans for exercise, nutrition, restorative sleep, and mental health. I welcome patients that want to take a size-neutral approach to their health.

There were at least six Last Straws. A girl doesn’t leave a job she loves and was planning to retire from, and decide to take a chance on starting her own medical practice, because of one bad day. But if I had to put my finger on the moment I started down the road to Direct Primary Care, it would be this one.