Meet Angela Andrews Md | Health & Fitness Enthusiast and Doctor

We had the good fortune of connecting with Angela Andrews Md and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Angela, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I was personally and professionally dissatisfied with the practice of primary care and the reimbursement model that incentivizes sick care over keeping people well.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
The most proud of the fact that I did not allow obstacles to deter me from Pursuing my passions. I began my career as an engineer, which, if you believe it or not, that was my back up plan to medical school because I didn’t think that I’d be able to get in. Unfortunately engineering proved to be unsatisfying, so I returned to my original career plan and pursued MEDICINE. It took two years to complete the necessary requirements and apply while working full-time at General Electric in a demanding project manager role. After completing medical school and residency I thought I’d surely arrived, but it didn’t take long to realize that the medicine was not much less disappointing the actual than the actual practice of engineering. In a similar fashion we were held to unrealistic deadlines , metrics, tossed around by many layers of management, with multiple degrees of separation between the producer or provider in the in customer or the patient. Efforts to improve processes and efficiency, facilitate knowledge and make a great final product (deliver “quality” care) were feeble at best. There are too many levels of misdirection between the start and the end of the process. This is a drastic oversimplification of my reasons, but having noticed a similar pattern and dissatisfaction. I finally decided that it was time for me to take a stab at doing it myself by opening my own practice. I have been investigating direct primary care as an option in learning from others in the movement through books, podcast and conferences for at least three years before launching my own practice . I had defined early out in the process and written down in a notebook that before I could launch my own practice, my student loans, but have to be paid off at the time. I anticipate it would take at least another 3 to 5 years, but I was delightfully surprised when my student loans were forgiven at least three years earlier than I anticipated that , I took this as my sign that I was trying to move forward and I did. On the cake is that I did not accomplish all of this from a place of security and with a cushy safety net. No, I grew up in poverty, lower middle class at best. First generation college student, let alone, professional student my family survived homelessness. I’ve taken on the duty of primary caregiver and parental role much earlier in life than anyone should.. The specs and many more personal setbacks fled my fire rather than extinguish it.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Honestly, I’m a little bit of a homebody. When we purchased our home we intended for it to be both be a place of I Retreat for us and for our friends and family. So whenever we host someone at home, we do most of our eating and gathering here we love to cook food, and we make virtually everything from scratch if we do spend any time outside of the house or take guest anywhere it’s too local places like GR noir for wine and jazz or local brewpub that we have not been to yet. if we aren’t sitting outside the backyard around the bonfire, we may take one of the many trails or parks in West Michigan. So depending on the time of the year we might walk, bike ride or spend time at one of our beaches on the Lakeshore.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
The people and influences are too great and far-reaching to list. I suppose the most recent and perhaps the most relevant to helping me realize my vision is my husband. He reminds me daily that I don’t have to do things alone. His faith in me, belief in my purpose, and support of my vision have made it possible to make this leap with a young child at home, not certainty of success. Furthermore, I have to credit God, my Lord, and Savior, for planting this purpose in me and lighting that path, though I may not always clearly know where it leads.

Website: https://Sohdpc.com

Instagram: Angela LifestyleMD

Linkedin: https://LinkedIn.com/in/angelarenaandrews

Image Credits
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