We believe that continuous health is achieved through teaching the leader's of tomorrow's medical community and thus through teaching our student assistants, who desire to pursue a medical career, we ensure our philosophy will carry on for generations to come.
Surveys of current older physicians keep turning up the fact that so many of us who have had children have not encouraged them to pursue a medical career. In fact we have actively told them not to become physicians! Thus, it is not surprising that Dr Melville and Dr Schultz's children pursued other careers in integrative nutrition, architecture, digital art and UX.
However, having a desire to "pass on our trade", we set out on our own personal mission of accepting other peoples adult children into our office as scribes, receptionists and back office assistants in order to give them a firm footing for their futures. After all, someone else helped our children pursue their passions! To us raising conscientious goal directed young people, takes a Community.
Our faith in "community parenting" has allowed us to help train 5 future Doctors, 12+ future Physician Assistants and 1 Nursing Administrator. They all witnessed and helped facilitate a combination of Traditional and Functional Medicine in patient care and management.
We would like to present these young people to you so if you ever see them, you will recognize them as having passed this way...............
We are so proud of all of them.
There were others, but we have lost contact and would love hearing from them so we can add them to our wall.
Troy was my first "gap year" Medical Assistant ever. Everyone else on this list owes their experience at NEWS to him. Had he not been the upstanding gentleman that he is, I would have never taken another "gap year" student and would have returned to hiring CMA's.
But I was hooked on the emotional high that every student has brought to our office and our patients soon realized they too were part of our desire to "pay it forward".
The last time I spoke with Troy he was finishing a General Surgery residency.
Reid brought a sense of humor along with his ability to "calm" my lady patients that only a "Sweet Potato" eating southerner could do.
Reid graduated from medical Spring 2019 and is doing a Texas Orthopedic residency. We wish him the best.
Bryan has been graduated from PA school for almost 3 years now. He got to experience what a hurricane like Michael can do to the panhandle of Florida. Because of it and the devastation of the hospital he was working in, he has transitioned from ER to Cardiology.
Zack came to work with us at Reid's insistence and the medical world gained a fantastic physician. He taught me that as long as you have faith in yourself, you can do anything.
Danielle graduated from PA school early 2019. She works & resides in Atlanta.
Elizabeth, petite Elizabeth was our mighty warrior that could take any job you gave her and do it better than what you could imagine.
She has graduated from PA school and I know that whatever institution managed to woo her will consider themselves blessed by her presence.
Cameron knew that he wanted internal medicine as soon as he started school. He thus took a pathway offered him to just concentrate on internal medicine and cut short his medical education by one year. He was not required to do rotations he had no interest in. How lucky is that!
I need to catch up with him.
Lauren should have graduated from PA school by now. She was always a ray of sunshine and will bring that warmth in to any institution or office she works in.
Lauren went to Peru in the fall with her PA school. I need to catch up with her to see what is next on her "Bucket List".
Madison graduated from PA school and she just loves what's she is doing.
I know you're not suppose to have favorites but Kendra was mine. She was with us for 3 years. She went from a quiet, timid college graduate to a secure articulate young woman who knew what she wanted. During that time she allowed me to place all of my trust in her and no one before or after have I felt that way about. Other students were good but she was always a step ahead.
One of the best days in PA school is getting your white coat. One of the others is graduating which she will do in 2022. I know Kendra will do well no matter what she does.
Kendra on a surgery rotation in Thailand
Kate worked part time in our office while applying to PA school.
We lost touch and are not sure where life took her.
Delany worked part time in our office while applying to PA school.
We lost touch and are not sure where life took her.
Carlie worked part time in our office while applying to PA school. We lost touch and are not sure where life took her.
Sam worked part time in our office while applying to PA school.
We lost touch and are not sure where life took her.
Then came COVID and Lauren was there to experience it all. She wanted to be an Ophthalmologist.
The first step was getting into medical school and that she did!
She will be graduating 2024. We all are proud of her. I can tell you that her calmness will come in very handy working on eyes!
Catherine's sights have been on PA school and she would be a good catch if it had not been for COVID confusing everyone. Telehealth came in and she adapted quickly. She also had the best management skills for supporting a "Type-A" physician.
I also think the PA route has been super saturated with candidates.
So hold tight and keep trying. If that is what you want.
I teach by "See one, Teach one, Do one" and Nidhi was Kendra's "Do one". She could have not done better. COVID again hit us hard but Nidhi pitched in and we all got thru the pandemic. She felt the PA doors closing and pivoted to Nursing Administration. A career she is well suited for. I wish her the best. I know she will do well.
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Rina was our closing act. We had gotten all of our patients thru COVID without anyone dying.
We were worn out and no one seemed to care. In fact, people seemed more demanding than when COVID had them shaking in their homes behind closed doors. Dr. Schultz turned 74 and Dr. Melville had had 4 eye surgeries. It just seemed time to "take down the shingle" as it goes. Rina stuck by us and made sure the final touches were placed just right. We helped get her a good physician to work for and the door shut closed.
But look, we gave back to the world 5 Doctors, 7 PA's (with a potential of 12+ PA's and 1 Nursing Administrator. That's just not too bad for a lifetime achievement.
Along the way we saved lives, made living easier and prevented every one of our patient's from dying of COVID during the worst part of the pandemic.
We also raised our own Integrative Nutritionist, Architect and an UX Designer. How good can it get? I think not much better than that!
To all of our patients who were angry with us for stopping, you need to know we don't want to watch you die and we don't want you to watch us die either. Someone younger and with less attachment can do that. It's been a long rodeo but now it's over. Thanks to all of you for the ride!
PS: We recently found out that we are going to be grandparents this coming August 2022. It's a baby girl and our Architect daughter and her husband will be the parents. We plan to live long and prosper!
PSS: Our son, the UX Designer, and his wife brought us another baby girl born 2023.
Life has been good to us.
May it be good for you too.