My Journey to human touch Health

My interest in healthcare began as child and has culminated in my desire to open my own practice in Lyons, Colorado. My father died when I was eight years old, from lung cancer, and my mother became functionally disabled soon after. My brother, mother and I moved in with my grandparents, seeking a safe and stable home. But my grandma had rapidly progressive Parkinson’s disease and she needed help to get around the house, to dress, bath, and eventually to eat. She showed me what it was like to suffer but she also showed me courage, strength, kindness, patience, tenacity, empathy and love. She and her caregivers taught me the importance and reward of being of service to another person and the importance of being able to live at home and be with family. I learned that I wanted to help people.

I studied medicine at Duke University, one of the best medical schools in the world, and I studied public health at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, the second ranked program in the US. I did primary care internal medicine residency training at the University of Colorado in Denver, which is one of the top programs for primary care internal medicine. I learned a great deal about medicine, but I also learned about many of the things that are terribly broken with the US healthcare system.

After residency I practiced primary care medicine at Kaiser Permanente in Colorado. In addition to caring for my patients I helped lead our local clinic in Boulder, then helped manage the north region of KP Colorado, then preventive medicine for all of Colorado and developed some of the first and best prevention programs nationally for KP. I finally retired from Kaiser in 2018 to help launch innovative models of primary care for Iora (later acquired by One Medical) and specialty heart and lung care for NuvoAir Medical.

Even in some of the best health systems in the world I saw people neglected, disrespected, and left behind because of a lack of insurance, lack of social support, and lack of family or community support. Diagnosing illness and coming up with the right treatments turn out to be easier than navigating the healthcare system and social supports to get people what they really need, which is often time and attention from someone who cares, listens, and sticks around when things get difficult. You can get some of the best technology, tests, and treatments if you have good insurance and plenty of money. But it’s hard to find someone who will treat you with kindness and patience, taking the time to learn what you care about and how you wish to receive care.

In the summer of 2025 I launched Human Touch Health with the goal of providing personalized medical care to people in the Lyons area and via telemedicine to people across the country. Combining 20 years of experience with the human qualities I learned from my grandmother, patients I’ve cared for, and professionals I’ve worked with, I seek to provide care, empathy, careful listening, and medical skills in order to improve peoples’ lives.