I grew up in Kennebunk, Maine, graduated from KHS and UM, Orono.  We have been blessed to have most of our children and grandchildren along with my sisters and their families remaining close to us locally.  After medical school, I settled in Fryeburg, Maine and practiced there for over 20 years.  That was a great experience – rural medicine, miles from any major medical center, dealing with whatever happened!  My first wife and I had 3 kids.  Later, I married Debbie, who came with 2 kids of her own and then we had a son.  We lived on a wonderful patch of ground, about 100+ acres, and were very much interested in growing our own stuff – a very large vegetable garden, putting food by, raising our own meat animals, beef critters, pigs, sheep, and chickens, our own hay, firewood, and maple syrup.  Debbie, a Nurse Practitioner, and I were both employed; I don’t know how we had time for all that.  We’ve been in practice back in Kennebunk for the last 25 years or so, still very much interested in maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

My story in medicine began in my college years after trying multiple other courses of study, starting as a cadet at the U.S.Coast Guard Academy, followed  by several other scholastic majors before deciding on pre-med.  Having been born into and raised with osteopathic medicine for my family’s care, it was natural for me to attend an osteopathic medical school: Kirksville (MO) College of Osteopathic Medicine. After completion of formal training and clinical internship / residency training, I have been in general family practice for several decades, first in a small group and most of the time in rural solo practice. 

Despite the advancements of conventional medicine, I have long had the feeling that something was missing!   Over the last 15-20 years, I have been aware of talk of functional medicine, but “those guys were the odd-balls over there in the corner”.   The concept piqued some interest in me, but I stuck with conventional medical practice until I ran into some writings by Dr. Jeff Bland, known by some as the “father of functional medicine”.  When I learned the Center for Functional Medicine was an integral part of Cleveland Clinic, a very prestigious medical institution; I decided to look deeper.   As I learned more, I discovered some of the pieces I had felt were missing as mentioned above.  I enrolled in the training provided by the Institute for Functional Medicine, and I am now accredited as an IFM Certified Functional Medicine Physician.

That training has benefited me personally in recent years.  I have needed to submit to heart surgery for aortic valve replacement among other “dustings and cleanings” while the surgeons were in there.   I figured that surgery would be a major insult/injury to much of my body, so I decided to practice the principles I’d learned on myself so as to lay down on that surgical table in the best possible shape I could be.  My post-op recovery was excellent.  About a year later, I found that I had stage 4 esophageal cancer, too widespread to consider surgery or radiation.  With enduring faith in God’s promises, good basic health based on functional medicine principles, and chemotherapy, the cancer quickly was beatenk and over the past 2 years I’ve had multiple PET scans showing no evidence of cancer.  I feel great and I’ve recovered most of my strength and vitality – I admit that my endurance is a bit less than 30 years ago.

I am determined to use my knowledge and experience in helping others find the path to their own maximal health.  As taught in my early osteopathic training: The human body contains within itself, all the means to regulate and heal itself; our job as physicians is to assist those means and not overwhelm them – a basic tenet that is echoed in Functional Medicine.