A Family Doctor Looks At The World

A blog featuring seventy-plus years of observations from a doctor deep in the heartland.

A Family Doctor Looks at the World

Donald R. Frey, MD

Here you’ll find my thoughts on the biggest challenges facing our nation and our world. Nothing sugar-coated or philosophical, just a realistic look at the things we confront. I welcome all comments. Whether I upset you or not isn’t important to me, so long as you’re thinking outside of your comfort zone. When I was younger, I could B.S. with the best of them. But there’s no time for that now.

So feel free scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on whatever post you’d like, or go to the menu bars in the upper right. You may be surprised, pleased, or angered. Either way, feel free to read and comment. It’s only our future that’s at stake.

Who is this guy, anyway?

Born in Leavenworth, Kansas and raised in Weston, Missouri, I’m about as midwestern as you can get. Prior to medical school, I worked as a farm laborer, substitute teacher, hospital orderly, railroad gandy (section hand), and raised tobacco (not something I’m particularly proud of today). After my time at West Platte High School, I studied Chemistry at William Jewell College, and did my medical education at the University of Missouri-Columbia. After residency training in family medicine, I practiced as a family doc in a community of 4,000, directed programs to train newly minted doctors in rural family medicine, served as a hospital vice-president, and eventually became a medical school Professor, Department Chair, University Vice President, health system Chief Academic Officer, and Senior Vice Provost. I’ve stepped away from all of that now.

Through it all, I’ve delivered new life into the world, sat by the bedside when life passed away, delivered good news and bad, and laughed and cried with my patients more times than I want to remember.

In retrospect, I may not have seen it all, but I’ve seen enough to know what I’m talking about. Everything I plan to post will reflect the issues of today, both the pressing and the mundane, and will be based on over 70 years of experiences and observations. We indeed live in a troubling time, and nothing about the future–for our nation, our world, and certainly each of us as individuals–is guaranteed.

What About Health Care?

If you think a physician would be concerned about the future of American health care, you’d be right. Our system of care is unavailable to those who need it most, overly promoted to those who need it least, cruel, inefficient, and worst of all, criminally expensive. I was concerned enough I wrote a book about it. “Pay Me Now or Pay Me Later: One Physician’s Guided Tour Through an Insane Asylum Called American Health Care” is now available.

Click here to check it out.

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