Hi, this is Nick Webb and welcome to another episode of the Healthcare Cure podcast. You know, in my career, I've had the opportunity to meet some amazing people and to learn from their journey. And that's what I love about this podcast is to be able to really spend some time with some incredible people that are actually making a difference. And there's a name that kept on coming up to me over and over again when I started my work at the university. And it was Dr. Pakia. And Dr. Pakia is not a theorist. What he talks about isn't conceptual. It isn't ideas without foundation. He's a practitioner. And you know, I read so much about the impact of technology and the and the impact of emerging trends from people who really are not seeing patients and are not living this on a humanistic level, the impact on the on the patient and the way in which we have this beautiful convergence between technology and emerging resources and the human. And that's really what I'd like to talk to Dr. Pakia about today. And, but what I'd like to first say first of all, welcome to the program, and I'd love for you to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more about your journey. 

Nick, thanks for having me on board. Pleasure to be here. It all started out about 35 - 40 years ago, off to medical school, I went after looking at different careers pathways, I was fortunate enough to be admitted to Michigan State University trained in osteopathic medicine. There did postgraduate moving back out west, I was born and raised in the greater LA area. Focused on primary care and met up with some folks in Orange County, California spent 25 years there and then private practice private group practice, practicing in a variety of different settings everything from standard ambulatory care medical office to the admitting of patients to the trauma center next door. And, and then in the outpatient or remote setting, nursing homes, rehab centers, house calls, etc. So I was fortunate to have that that type of experience prior to moving out to the desert area with a health system that was beginning the process of starting an advanced primary care model for its you know, Health System strategy started with five physicians there are about 10 years ago now with with a view toward implementing a primary care residency program as well and 10 years later, and 240 clinicians later and 90 residents in training. It's been an interesting and informative run. So that brings us up to today. Thank you for asking. 

That's terrific. You know, it's interesting, I remember you and I talking a few years back about the inevitable impact of telemedicine and, and I think, you know, we were both sort of surprised that the adoption of telemedicine was so slow and it felt like that most people when they thought about telemedicine, they saw the interaction telemedicine of having some degree of sterility between the patient and the caregiver. And it's interesting we we were lucky enough to have scripps in our in our documentary film, and you know, they were very much ramping up, they understood the inevitable benefits of being able to provide access to patients quickly. You know, if somebody has a urinary tract infection rather than sitting in the emergency room or an urgent care for hours, they could quickly see a caregiver, get diagnosed and get intervention in a way that was frictionless. And of course, that's one of the big movements as we think about these four big trends in healthcare that I talked about in my upcoming book, The Healthcare Mandate that'll be out this September, is that we see hyper consumerization patients are demanding not just efficacious, safe and beautiful care. They also want amazing experiences. They want it to be friction free, they want it to be convenient and relevant.