Dr. Brooke Miller, a board-certified family physician and Senior Fellow at the Independent Medical Alliance, marks medicine’s 250th year with a portrait of the doctor he grew up with. That physician was born and raised in Miller’s small Virginia community, knew every family he treated across generations, and rarely relied on insurance as payment. Drawing on 40 years in family and emergency medicine, Miller argues that modern training has traded that kind of relationship for protocols and algorithms: one-size-fits-all care shaped by insurers, bureaucrats, and pharmaceutical companies, with little time left to sit, listen, and know a patient as an individual.
In 2022, he and his wife Ann left the corporate system to open Miller Family Health and Wellness, an independent practice in the Blue Ridge Mountains devoted to prevention and the reversal of chronic disease. A farmer and rancher himself, Miller draws a direct line between a nation’s declining health and its growing disconnection from the land, the soil, and the people who produce its food. His charge to patients is blunt: demand personalized care, seek out providers who understand nutrition and lifestyle, and take personal responsibility for becoming the master of your own health.
Check out these related resources from IMA below, followed by the full video transcript.
- Hub: Medicine at 250 Years — Restoring the Roots of American Medicine
- Post: The Home Was the First Clinic: American Medicine Before the System
- Post: When Medicine Became a Profession: Medical Schools, Licensing, and the Rise of Scientific Authority
- Post: The Flexner Turning Point: How Scientific Medicine Raised Standards and Narrowed the Field
- Post: From Snake Oil to Big Pharma: The Long Battle Between Fraud, Innovation, Regulation, and Profit
- Video: Medicine at 250 Years: Putting Patients Back in Charge
Transcript
Dr. Brooke Miller: Hello, America. Happy 250 years. I’m Dr. Brooke Miller, a board-certified physician in family medicine. Along with my wife Ann, we own and operate Miller Family Health and Wellness, a small, privately owned, independent medical practice in Washington, Virginia, nestled in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. Our practice’s focus is, just as the name implies, restoring health and wellness through prevention and reversal of chronic disease. We operate a patient-centric, patient-focused family medicine clinic, serving our small rural community and the surrounding areas.
As a Senior Fellow of the Independent Medical Alliance, a main goal is to help restore truth and trust, along with freedom and sovereignty, back into patient care.
During my 40 years of medicine, we’ve seen tremendous advances in the treatment of disease. We’ve become better at treating the sick and injured, but somehow we’ve regressed in the human aspect of patient care, as well as preventing and reversing chronic disease. Sadly, we now live in one of the sickest developed countries in the world.
Medical schools and residencies continue to turn out physicians that are highly trained to follow protocols and algorithms. One size fits all. Medicine based on guidelines generated by bureaucrats, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies. Very little time is taken to teach nutrition, with little emphasis on lifestyle and dietary modifications. All too often, care is unduly influenced by checking boxes and maximizing reimbursement. Many physicians no longer possess the confidence and skill to critically think, nor the time to sit, to listen, and to get to know their patients as individuals. While we’ve made advances in sick care, we are failing our patients in terms of compassion and the reversal and prevention of chronic disease.
As a young boy, I had a doctor who was born and raised in our community. He took care of the entire family. He knew each one of us, as well as our parents and grandparents. Few, if any, relied on insurance as payment. He was compassionate and a prominent member of our community. He not only took care of us, he cared for us.
In 2022, Ann and I took the giant leap, exiting the corporate medical system and starting our independent medical practice. We were determined to make a difference in our patients’ lives and our community. This takes time during each visit to listen, to educate, and to motivate patients to take the steps they need to in order to achieve their goals of health, wellness, and happiness. Each patient is treated as a sovereign individual with the will, the intelligence, and the right to determine their medical care, free from mandates and outside pressures.
I grew up in this small-town community. On the very same land we now live, ranch, and raise cattle. I live on a diversified farm with cattle, hogs, sheep, chickens, and horses. I learned the importance of hard work, self-reliance, personal responsibility, and, by the grace of God, freedom and liberty.
Much like independent medical practices, which have been negatively affected by the pressures of corporate medicine, insurance companies, and bureaucratic overreach, family farms and ranches have been devastated by the elimination of free markets by corporate monopolies, the decay of private property rights from government edicts, and harmful regulation. Sadly, due to economic pressure, many of the next generation are leaving family farms and ranches. It’s not coincidental that the more disconnected we get from the land and agriculture, the sicker we become. Tragically, today a large percentage of our population shares little to no connection to the land, the soil, and those that produce our food. Many fail to see that health and wellness start at the table.
As a family and emergency physician, I’ve seen the consequences of misguided dietary choices, where people choose the convenience of processed and ultra-processed foods over real, unadulterated foods. Too many seek food as entertainment to the palate without concern for real, long-term health consequences. As a nation, we are sicker, over-medicated, and more dependent than ever before. We spend more in health care dollars, yet have poorer outcomes. As the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Indeed, this is true with health care.
Today, both doctors and patients are unhappy with the current state of medical care. It has become too impersonal, too cold, too sterile, and too rushed. We’ve lost patient confidence and trust. To regain that trust, we must treat patients as sovereign individuals, free from mandates and outside pressures. We must remember our oath and why we entered medicine. Resist medical tyranny. This will require sacrifice, individual strength, courage, and honor, just as the signers of the Declaration of Independence demonstrated 250 years ago.
As patients, I urge you to demand more: more personalized, individualized care from your provider. Seek out providers that understand the importance of diet, stress reduction, sleep, exercise, metabolic health, boosting the immune system, and lifestyle. If they don’t take the time to listen and hear your concerns, or teach you ways to improve your health through non-pharmacologic means, find one that will. Support independent medical practices where your doctor listens to and works for you, not a corporate or government entity. Get to know those that produce healthy whole foods, farmers and ranchers, people you can develop a relationship with and trust.
Be intentional in your daily life. Take personal responsibility. Educate yourself and heal your body and mind through healthy food choices, lifestyle modifications, and personal habits. Become the master of your destiny. Good health and wellness will surely follow.
God bless you all, and may God bless this nation. Thank you.
