Justin’s Journey to Precision Medicine
Growing up, I loved spending time outdoors and playing sports. In high school I developed a love for resistance training, which to this day, is the cornerstone for my health, both physically and mentally, and inspired my interest in the optimal care of the human body.
I attended college at Oklahoma State University, graduating magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in Physiology, and attended medical school at the University of Oklahoma.
I completed my residency in Emergency Medicine at Denver Health and was selected as Chief Resident in my senior year. After a decade of working in the emergency room and caring for people in their critical time of need, I wondered if I could do more to prevent people from ending up in the ER in the first place.
This led me to complete a fellowship in Precision and Genomic Medicine, a new frontier in medicine.
Why Precision Medicine?
I realized early on after becoming an attending physician in the emergency department that the majority of the patients who came into the emergency department were there for an acute exacerbation of their chronic disease. A number of chronic diseases are preventable, and unfortunately, often the result of a lack of resources or a deficit in knowledge of healthy lifestyle choices, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress management.
While I am extremely grateful for the ability and opportunity to care for patients in their emergency situations, I started to feel that I was just putting a bandaid over a hole in a dam that would break open again at any moment.
I felt I could better serve my patients if I could actually develop a relationship with them and work with them personally to achieve an optimized health plan together before they develop a chronic disease.
With precision medicine, which is personalized and proactive, we have the opportunity to make patients aware of potential health risks and guide them through a nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress management, and disease prevention plan. We can get to the root of our patients’ symptoms and give them the knowledge to empower them to take control of their health. By doing this we can change behavior, habits and to the best of our ability, working together as a team, prevent chronic disease, and optimize performance.
My pursuit of a long health span
My journey to precision medicine really began after becoming a father. The year before the birth of my first child, I lost my father to pancreatic cancer. Throughout his life, he also had a heart attack in his mid-50s, prostate cancer, and melanoma. I feared I was doomed to a similar fate because of my genetics. This fear led me on the path to fully optimize my health over the years to reduce my risk of a premature death as much as I could.
My pursuit of a long health span in hopes of being there for my family and their family AND their family led me to diving deep into longevity medicine as well as time-restricted feeding, different ways of eating, various forms of strength training, and most recently ultrarunning.
A patient-centered approach
Through years of self-exploration of nutrition, exercise, and study, I discovered precision medicine which has become my passion. I feel it is the future of medicine and what every patient deserves - personalized, proactive medical care focusing on the individual and lifestyle interventions, taking into account their disease risks, genetics, and goals. By looking at your genetics, specific labs, and creating an optimized health plan, we can drastically improve your health, surpass your athletic goals and prevent many chronic diseases.
With precision medicine, I apply my medical training and life experiences to help my patients achieve their goals, whether it’s running a 100 mile race in the Rocky Mountains, PR’ing a deadlift they thought was impossible, decreasing a long medication list or breaking the cycle of diabetes in their family and living to play with their great-grandchildren with dignity.
I look forward to partnering with you and being your guide on this adventure.
