Dreams Do Not Come True On Their Own

For those of you that follow my blog you may have noticed it has been over a month since I have posted any new material. I want to apologize for the hiatus and let you know what has been going on behind the scenes. As some of you may know, it has been my dream for many years to start my own practice that focuses on lifestyle modification and root cause resolution of disease to move patients toward optimal health.  In August of last year I officially started my Integrative Medicine fellowship through the University of Arizona  and in September of last year I attended my first Functional Medicine conference. Although I had been spending a lot of my free time the year prior learning the concepts of functional and integrative medicine on my own, it was during these organized events that really opened my mind to a new way of practicing medicine. Certain aspects of medicine I never really enjoyed in medical school were all of the sudden fascinating to me.  

Medical conditions that used to seem hopeless or frustrate me were explained in a whole new light that allowed me to look deeper than the surface symptoms and find ways to evaluate and treat these conditions that I never knew were possible. However, the more I learned about this type of medicine the more frustrated I became with how I was originally taught to practice and how broken our health care delivery system has become. I knew I had to make a change I just didn’t know how or when I would do it.

After a particularly frustrating week rounding in the hospital in December I decided to go out and “window shop” for office space. I had no idea that I would find the future home of Premier Integrative Health (I didn’t even know it would be called Premier Integrative Health) that day. I had always loved the River Market area so I decided to start my search there. I initially went to look at a specific property I had heard about which did not turn out to be a good fit. I decided to drive around the area and that’s when I saw a small ‘For Rent’ sign on a rather obscure door. I called the number and and a guy named Ed answered the phone and started to describe the property to me. I told him it sounded way bigger than what I was looking for and likely out of my price range but he encouraged me to go take a look.

When I opened the door I knew instantly that this was the space I had dreamed of.  Every cell in my body was telling me this was the place I was meant to be. When I told Ed what I planned to do with the place he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse and that’s when I realized that this was really happening. I was now in possession of 1800 sq ft of beautiful office space with no formal training on how to start a medical practice. I started reading everything I could find regarding starting a successful integrative medicine practice. I listened to hours upon hours of podcast regarding  becoming a “doctor entrepreneur.” I reached out to integrative and functional medicine practitioners all over the country to ask them how they made the transition. It is truly hard to fathom everything that goes in to starting a medical practice from the ground up. However, at the same time very interesting things started to happen. The right people seemed to be coming into my life at just the right time. With every need that arose, a solution seem to just present itself to me. I truly felt like the stars were aligning and God had purposefully sent me down this path.As the weeks went on things were starting to get a little intense.

In addition to starting my practice I am continuing to work towards certification in both integrative and functional medicine as well continuing to work full time as a hospitalist to support my family.  It has been a very crazy yet character building time. I have been very blessed along the way to have the support and understanding of my amazing wife and family. I have had a tremendous amount of encouragement from my friends and other allied health professionals that I am on the right path and to keep moving forward.I am happy to say that I saw my first several patients last week and it was very rewarding to be able to spend as much time as I needed with them to hear their story and figure out what their true health goals are. I couldn’t be more excited for what the future holds.

I feel like things are starting to fall in to place and I hope to get back to writing more posts and sharing the information that I think will shape the future of healthcare.  I am blessed to be on this journey and I would be honored to partner with you on your path to optimal health. If you would like to learn more about our practice you can get a ton of information from our web page or feel free to call or send us an email.

Thank you for following,

Bradley Dyer, DO