2003-11-02T20:24:00.000-08:00

Welcome

Good evening folks! This is my first posting on my new J.D.-M.D. blog. First, a little bit about me: I'm a third year law student at SMU and currently applying to medical school. I started out as pre-med in college but became so dissatisfied with the current medical paradigm— dominated by pharmaceutical and insurance companies— that I went to law school in order to become a politician and "change the system." In my first year of law school, I discovered Dr. Peter D'Adamo's Blood Type Theory. Dr. D's work inspired me to go to medical school and pursue my lifelong dream of changing the face of medicine. I'm still very interested in government and health policy, but I now understand that it's far more effective to work from within the system than against it.

I plan to found an Integrative Medicine Research Institute and Wellness Retreat in the hill country west of Austin. My work at the Institute will allow me to conduct my primary care practice, while pursuing clinical research on the effects of dietary modification and integrative therapies on health and disease care. The Wellness Retreat will provide a “clean zone” in which patients can recover from the stresses of modern life and learn to attenuate the effects of that stress in the future. We will have classes and training to establish the practices of healthy living— healthy eating habits, customized physical activity regimens, restful and regular sleep, and personalized stress-relieving techniques.

I will spend at least some of my time every other year lobbying for greater state support for innovative medical legislation. Ultimately, I plan to get state funding to open a new college of medicine in Austin. The college will be a leading center for integrative medical education, care, and research. Our research focus will be rigorous, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies on the efficacy of integrative therapies. As an expression of my commitment and dedication to sharing my knowledge with future physicians, I will not only teach at the college, but also host clinical internships and rotations at the Institute. I support broad inclusion and equal access to the health care system at all levels and am committed to serving the medically underserved. Accordingly, the Institute and college hospital will feature a progressive pricing scale and complimentary care for the indigent and working poor.

I decided to start this blog as a means of recording my daily observations and web research, thereby providing an easy platform for my friends and colleagues to keep track of what I am doing without getting deluged with emails from me every time they open their inboxes! I also hope that this record of my research efforts will not only provide a living memory of my work but will also serve as a platform or "nexus" for my first published work.

Be well,

Ryan Darius Partovi, J.D. (cand.)
Health & Environmental Law and Public Policy
SMU Dedman School of Law