Dr. Mollie James, general surgeon, critical care specialist, and Senior Fellow at the Independent Medical Alliance, sees medicine at 250 years pulled in two directions at once. AI, advanced diagnostics, and precision care are moving fast, and patients want those answers. But as medicine gets more technical, she argues, the human element is being sterilized out of it. Patients still want a doctor who knows their name, their family, and their beliefs, not just what their labs say.

Her answer is balance: run state-of-the-art testing behind the scenes, then deliver the results with kindness and the energy of someone who genuinely cares. It’s the model she practices at The James Clinic, and the reason she founded Maverick Medical Ventures, which helps physicians leave a system she says has made the seven-minute visit the product and build independent practices where the doctor-patient relationship comes first.

Check out these related resources from IMA below, followed by the full video transcript.

Transcript

Dr. Mollie James: As we celebrate 250 years of American healthcare, we have an interesting dichotomy facing us today. On the one hand, we have AI, we have advanced technology, we have these individualized precision care options that patients are looking for more and more. And if you look at the platforms that are taking over, most of medicine is looking at how we can do more with technology.

But on the other side is really my draw, which is the human element. As we get more techy, the human element is getting sterilized out of modern medicine. And I feel like this is really where system medicine is missing the mark. Because although patients want the upsides of the technology, they still want to be known like they were before in the olden days, like the family doctor. They want you to know their name. They want you to know what they do, who their family is, what their beliefs are, not just what their labs say.

They have questions. They want to be understood. When they come in with a cancer diagnosis, they don’t just want to know what are my tumor markers and how many rounds of chemotherapy do I need. They want to know, why did I get cancer in the first place? What are the risk factors that are unique to me that I can flip and switch?

This is one of the things that we’re doing in our clinic. And I think any clinic that wants to succeed moving forward has to really fight the urge to pull into a technology-only mode. They have to find the balance. Use the best of technology behind the scenes for the testing. We have state-of-the-art testing in my office. People want those answers. They want to know a lot about their biological health. What are my numbers and all of that? But they want it delivered with kindness and humanity and that energy of sitting in the room with someone who genuinely cares about them.

Unfortunately, the system has built a model that doesn’t cater to this. They have built a model in which the medical visit, the seven-minute visit, is the product, not the doctor-patient relationship.

We’re building Maverick Medical Ventures to help people who don’t feel satisfied providing care in the system, and for patients who don’t feel like they’re getting the care in the system that they want to have. We will help doctors leave the system and build independent practices so that we can deliver that kind of care that has the tech advantage in that old-school, genuine, caring environment that most patients are looking for.

So as we round the corner on 250 years in medicine, there is a way to bring the best of both together: to let patients have all the technology that they want at their fingertips, but deliver it in a way that you ask about their grandkids, you know when they’re going to church, and you can talk to them as a human being instead of a medical record number in the chart.

More on: Dr. Mollie James | Healthcare Reform | Honest Medicine | Medical Freedom | Medicine at 250 Years