Angela Willis MD

Well... I am moving forward :)

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I have loved Primary Care even before I began training in Medicine. It has been a passion of mine to care for patients and their chronic illnesses for all of these years. But something has been missing.... Wellness. 

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I have longed for a time in my medical career where I could focus on fixing the problem, not medicating it. But that is not what we are trained for - we are taught Diagnosis, Management, Prescribing, Monitoring... but not really trained on fixing the problem. That is because in our world, we have really gotten away from the concept of health, and focused more on management. Which medications, which treatments, which options to choose from. And that serves us well in some situations. 

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But knowing that most of the chronic medical problems in our country are actually SELF-INDUCED is a huge issue. And one that most of us in Medicine find ourselves ill prepared for. Because most of your Doctors are not healthy - we work long hours, we are under tremendous stress, we eat when we can, go to the bathroom when we can... and we take care of everyone else while we put ourselves to the side. It is who we are by nature and how we got into this business in the first place! LOL

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But we are not always examples of how to be healthy. And finding that out during a personal journey of my own has led me to realize that my focus now is not on Management, but on Resolution. Finding the why, and fixing it, so that perhaps we can stop the problem all together. Or at least, keep it under control. And for so many chronic illnesses... we can do that. But we cannot do that in a regular insurance based office. There isn't time to spend educating the patient because there are so many patients to see. There is no time to expand the appointments because we have to see so many patients in a day to pay the high overhead. There just isn't time...

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So for the last few years, as many of you know, I have been studying the concept of Functional or Integrative Medicine. That is the concept of finding the root cause of the problem... and resolving it. Trying to do that via health, diet, lifestyle, mindfullness, and supplements. And if medication is still needed, we can do that as well. It has been a passion of mine for some time now. But life and a growing practice have kept me from completing my program of studies, and I kept putting it off and putting it off...

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And then came COVID. And it changed everything. It made us fearful. It made us cautious. It changed how we live our lives from our home life to work life, from how we interact with family and friends. It. Changed. Everything. In our office as well as the other primary care offices in our building, we have had to limit or disallow sick patients from coming into the building to prevent further spread of COVID. We treated by phone/video or sent the patient for urgent or emergency care. We all did this knowing that it would tremendously impact us all financially from a medical business perspective, but it is what had to be done to try to save lives. And we did it willingly. 

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But, bills still have to be paid as we all know. And every one of us has sacrificed during this time of fear and uncertainty. And I am no exception. As hard as I have tried, I could not keep things going financially. We looked tirelessly for someone to buy the practice and take over your care, but despite interest, everyone is scared to take the chance financially. There are just too many unknowns. So we have no choice but to close our doors. So, we are going to make sure you have time to find a new PCP and no matter what, your records will be available to you and we can still see you for the next few months. 

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I will be busy... after the physical office space closes, I will be at home, with my son. I will be doing video visits for you for a few months, getting medical records out, and studying the rest of my coursework in Functional/Integrative Medicine. And when I am done with that training, I will be opening an online virtual office in that type of Medicine to help people get healthy and to give myself some time to get healthy as well. My new office will not be an insurance based office. But I will be very active in Social Media and on the Internet/Website and will be doing a lot of free and low cost educational sessions to help all of us get on a path to Wellness, as well as membership in my new practice model. I hope I get to see you there in some format, and this website will remain active to keep you up to date on those new adventures. We will miss you and hope to see you soon... 

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Sincerely, 

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Angela Willis MD