Author Bio
The real David Roberts, M.D., (the author’s name is a nom de plume) graduated from The University of Michigan Medical School in the 1970s, and completed his Internal Medicine residency training in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the early 1980s. He began the practice of Internal Medicine as a Board Certified Internal Medicine specialist in 1981. The period of the book described herein takes place between 1981 and 1986, the first five years of his practice.
From 1986 to 1995, he served as the Internal Medicine Residency Program Director at his large, Midwestern community hospital. During these nine years, he was very involved in training hundreds of new doctors just graduated from medical school, for the three years of their Internal Medicine residency training, preparing them to go out into practice or on to a specialty such as Cardiology or Gastroenterology. During this time, he spent thirty to seventy percent of his time continuing in the practice of medicine, his first love.
In 1990, he began giving presentations on interesting and unusual patients at the Michigan American College of Physicians (ACP) annual meetings. These presentations became extremely popular, and now are usually the highest rated sessions at the conference. The sessions are entitled “Thieves’ Market,” because the audience (the thieves) attempts to “steal” the diagnosis by shouting it aloud before it is revealed on the screen. In 2000, he was invited to the national ACP to carry on the tradition there each year as well. Each of Dr. Roberts’ cases is presented in a mystery format, with him sequentially revealing the patient’s medical history, examination findings, laboratory, and x-ray studies. Having given more than fifty of these presentations, usually to audiences of 200 or more, David has learned the basic mechanics of creating interesting patient “mysteries” that keep an audience hanging until the end. Over the past twenty years, these 100-plus Thieves’ Market patient cases he has developed have become an important part of the foundation for his writing career.
On the academic front, in 1990, he expanded his medical credentials by becoming Board certified with added qualifications in Geriatrics, the care of the elderly. Expanding his focus on these patients enabled him to learn firsthand about the pleasures and perils of growing older. Also In 1992, he returned to school at the U of M School of Public Health, obtaining a Master’s of Health Services Administration in 1995.
David’s role as a healthcare executive began in 1996, when he was named the Vice-President for Primary Care in a joint venture between two large Midwestern Catholic health care systems. From there, he went on to roles as the Chief Medical Officer of a Health Maintenance Organization in the Midwest, and then in the Southwest, where he moved in 1998. Soon after the move, he became the president of New Mexico’s largest health plan and HMO, bringing a patient centered focus to what is perceived to be a profit-seeking industry. During this period, he became well known throughout his state for his lively and entertaining public speaking on healthcare policy, with audiences that included business groups, Boards of Directors, the State Legislature, other government officials, and statewide leadership training programs. He held his health plan president position for eight years, and then became the Chief Operating Officer for a $2 billion Southwestern healthcare organization.
One of the greatest honors of his career, and most relevant as a source of expertise for this book, he was named one of America’s Best Doctors in 1997, and every year since then. He has also been named a “Top Doc” and the Number 1 Geriatrics Specialist every year since returning to practice in the Albuquerque metropolitan area, where he currently sees patients three days per week .
In 2009, David began to sense that healthcare, even in the face of the enormous national political focus, was unwilling to “change from within.” After twenty-four years in healthcare leadership and executive roles, he carefully weighed the options for a significant career change. Building on his deep love for his patients, and his thirty years of continuous medical practice, he decided to leave his executive role, return to the care of his patients, and begin to write their stories. From this decision comes the first of his planned series of six books, Practice Makes Perfect: How One Doctor Discovered the Meaning of Lives.
An active public speaker, David continues both his national medical presentations as well as regional and local engagements.
