About
Christian · Physician · Observer · Writer · Maker · Abundance OptimistI'm a Lutheran (LCMS) and serve as an elder at Peace Lutheran Church in McMurray, Pennsylvania. Faith comes first. Everything else here is what I've done with the time I was given.
kaizen: continuous improvement, small steps every day.
kintsugi: mending broken pottery with gold, so the repair becomes part of its beauty.
Seiryoku Zen'yō: maximum efficiency with minimum effort. Jita Kyōei: mutual welfare and benefit. (Jigoro Kano)
"Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you." Isaiah 60:1
The cross in the sketch is the Jerusalem cross: the large cross for Christ, the four small crosses for the four Gospels carried to the four corners of the earth, and the five crosses together for Christ's five wounds.
Most weeks you'll find me in the basement of my church, training in Judo with Spirit Forge Martial Arts. I carry a camera to notice life as it happens, sometimes to tell a story the way a journalist would, sometimes just to make something beautiful. I also journal and write, sitting with what I've lived and seen, to tend mind, body, and soul.
I was drawn to science, medicine, and technology young. In the mid-1980s, family members struggled with illness and some died, and I was hurt myself. That injury led me to a lifelong mentor, Dr. Alan C. Renton, a plastic surgeon. He would give the shirt off his back to help someone. He had many interesting and diverse hobbies, a powerful intellect, and a wonderful down-to-earth sense of humor. In the summer of 1991 I was in the first class of the Pennsylvania Governor's School of Excellence for the Health Care Professions (SEHCP) at the University of Pittsburgh. That summer I knew I wanted to become a doctor.
At Emory University I earned a B.S. in Biology and a B.S. in Anthropology and Human Biology. I worked as a lab technician in the BioCore Facility of the Infectious Diseases Division at the U.S. CDC in Atlanta. I had excellent mentors, especially Dr. Melvin J. Konner and Dr. George J. Armelagos in Anthropology. Dr. Armelagos was a polymath in his field, and I gained a friend for life. I served as his teaching and research assistant in skeletal biology, did my honors research with him, and stayed on afterward doing ancient DNA research, extracting mitochondrial DNA from 2,000-year-old Nubian remains.
Anthropology shaped how I see medicine. Rudolf Virchow, a founder of cellular pathology, social medicine, and modern anthropology, put it best in 1849:
"If medicine is the science of the healthy as well as of the ill human being (which is what it ought to be), what other science is better suited to propose laws as the basis of the social structure, in order to make effective those which are inherent in man himself? Once medicine is established as anthropology, and once the interests of the privileged no longer determine the course of public events, the physiologist and the practitioner will be counted among the elder statesmen who support the social structure. Medicine is a social science in its very bone and marrow."
Rudolf Virchow, 1849, trans. L. J. Rather, Disease, Life, and Man (1958)
To me, medicine is anthropology.
I completed Emory's combined M.D./M.P.H. program, with my M.P.H. in Epidemiology from the Rollins School of Public Health. I trained in Family Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, then returned to Emory for a fellowship in Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology. I've since worked as a hospitalist, a primary care physician, and an urgent care physician.
I've been learning computers since the 1980s and have used GNU/Linux since 2007. I've been a member of the Free Software Foundation since 2008, because I believe people should own their machines and their privacy.
These days I use AI and advocate for it. I think it's a force multiplier, a patient teacher, and a powerful way to build skills. One of my goals here is to help others build real collaborations between AI agents, models, and other people who are similarly equipped. I believe spiritually centered people can help usher in an era of human abundance, and I'm optimistic about it. We help create the future we want to share, so help us God.
That's the short version. The rest of this site is the long one.