DOCTORS DIVERSIFY
Reclaiming The Medical Profession:
How Whole Health Rheumatology and Direct Specialty Care Address the Whole Person
by Olga Pinkston, MD, FACR, DipABLM
The moment I knew I wasn’ t alone in my frustration came during my first in-person week of integrative medicine fellowship in 2023. Walking into that room, I found myself surrounded by 160 other physicians— colleagues from internal medicine, pediatrics, critical care, gynecology-oncology, radiation oncology and countless other specialties. We were all there for the same reason: seeking ways to provide more for our patients. Many of us were burned out by the system, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic, yearning to practice medicine on our own terms while maintaining our commitment to evidence-based care, not quackery. In that room full of dedicated physicians, I realized we weren’ t giving up on medicine— we were fighting to reclaim it. My fellowship class is not alone in this frustration. More than 45 % 1 of physicians now report symptoms of burnout, and an increasing number are either leaving traditional health care employment or quitting medicine entirely. However, I’ ve discovered that most physicians do not want to abandon medicine; they want to reclaim it. Physicians across the country are leveraging their unique training to pioneer innovative care models, launch health care technologies, influence policy and create patient-centered alternatives to a system that has lost its way. This transformation isn’ t happening despite our medical training; it’ s happening because of it. The same analytical thinking, systems approach and patient advocacy skills that make us effective clinicians also make us uniquely qualified to solve health care’ s most pressing challenges. We just need the courage to step outside the traditional box.
My journey began in the summer of 2015 when I arrived in Jacksonville, Florida, to start my rheumatology fellowship at Mayo Clinic. Moving from Kentucky to Florida, I was unprepared for how dramatically the physician’ s lens would shift. I’ d been managing young adults with heroin use complications, nearly universal heart disease and poorly controlled diabetes complicated by the inability to afford medications, plus addiction and unemployment issues alongside smoking rates nearly double the national average. Suddenly, I was caring for Mayo Clinic( continued on page 12) August 2025 11