How to hire a personal doctor

Imagine you’re about to make a decision that could profoundly impact your health, potentially for years to come. You’re not choosing a new diet or exercise routine - you’re selecting a personal doctor.

It sounds simple, right? After all, they’re all qualified professionals. But here’s the catch: this choice might be one of the riskiest decisions you’ll ever make.

Peter Attia, the longevity expert suggests we need four pillars to guide us: Affordability, Affability, Ability, and Advocacy. The truth is, choosing a personal doctor is a high-stakes game. Get it right, and you might significantly improve your health and longevity. Get it wrong, and you could fall victim to unnecessary treatments, missed diagnoses, or worse. It’s a decision that demands more than a casual Yelp review or a friend’s recommendation.

I liked the systematic approach to shortlist a personal doctor by Peter Attia. Sharing it here as a reference:

• How long have you been practicing?
• How do you think about balancing the line between prevention and treatment of disease? How much of your time with patients is spent focusing on the former versus the latter?
• How long is the average visit with your patient?
• How much time, on average, do you spend with each patient per year (i.e., in-person visits, video meetings, reviewing labs and records, phone calls, emails)?
• Which lab tests and biomarkers do you consider essential for patient management?
• What areas of medicine interest you the most, either beyond or within primary care?
• Which conferences do you try to attend each year?
• How much time, on average, do you spend per month staying informed of the latest research in medicine overall, such as reading broadly from journals like JAMA or NEJM?
• How much time, on average, do you spend per month staying informed of the latest research in your areas of focus, such as specialty journals (e.g., lipidology, nutrition, exercise physiology)?
• Are there any other things you would like prospective patients to know about you or your practice?

While shortlisting a personal doctor, Nassim Taleb also warns us of the dangers of “naive intervention” in complex systems like our health. In a world teeming with what Taleb might call “bildungsphilisters”— those who possess credentials without true understanding.