My Thoughts on Patient-Centered Care and Chronic Disease
Restoring the Heart of Medicine
Dear Friends,
I’d like to share a few thoughts today—not about controversy or courtrooms —but about something perhaps even more vital: care. True, human, patient-centered care.
If the last several years have taught us anything, it’s that the modern medical system, however technologically advanced, is profoundly unwell. I say that as a physician with deep training, a strong science background, and a heart that aches every time a patient tells me they feel unheard, unseen, or dismissed.
In short, we know the system is broken, and the patient is paying the price.
The Problem: Medicine Without a Soul
Let’s be candid: many physicians no longer serve the people who sit in front of them. They serve checklists, chart audits, corporate interests, and insurance manuals. There are many good men and women wearing white coats—of course there are—but they’re often caught in a tangled web of regulations, incentives, and fear.
As I stated recently in the interview below:
“We need to clear the clutter—the middlemen between doctor and patient. Restore the purity, the trust, the harmony.”
It is a radical proposition, but it is also common sense. Yet in too many hospitals and clinics, the doctor-patient relationship has been reduced to a transaction that is timed, coded, and tracked.
If we ran restaurants this way, nobody would eat out. If we ran schools this way, no one would learn. Why are we allowing it in medicine?
The Solution: Getting Rid of The Middleman
Patient-centered care means building healthcare around the actual person—not the protocol, not the payer, and not the politics. It means:
Offering informed consent, not coercion.
Listening before prescribing.
Advising rather than commanding.
Honoring autonomy over compliance.
It also means empowering patients to take ownership of their health, not just in crisis, but proactively. Yes, that involves education, lifestyle, and accountability. But it also requires physicians to walk alongside, not hover above, the people they serve.
In my practice, I aim to be a trusted guide, not a gatekeeper.
That’s what patient-centered care looks like. Or perhaps a better term: patient-empowered care.
What can patients do? The first and most important step is to work with doctors outside of the insurance system whenever possible.
“You work for whoever pays you.” By accepting insurance, hospitals and doctors have become subservient to their dictates. You as the patient will never have access to the best information and advice until you find someone outside this sphere of influence.
Chronic Disease: Where do we go from here?
A Word of Encouragement
If you’re a patient reading this, feeling discouraged or betrayed by your healthcare experiences—please know there is still hope. There are still doctors out there who will sit with you, think with you, and treat you as a whole human being.
Find them. Ask questions. Don’t settle. Raise your standards. Invest in yourself.
As I often say: You are the CEO of your body.
Because the most needed revolution in medicine isn’t a new drug, a new machine, or a new policy — it’s the rebirth of a sacred relationship.
Doctor. Patient. Healing.
With Humility, Hope, and Resolve,
I Remain, VeryTruly Yours,
P.S. Learn How To Remove the Spike Protein from your body
About Dr. Turner:
Michael K. Turner, M.D., is a graduate of Stanford University, Harvard Medical School and The Mayo Clinic. He practices Integrative Medicine in his own national concierge practice, providing personalized approaches (including hormones, sleep, recovery, nutrition, supplements and exercise) to help people achieve their optimal state of health. Called “genuine”, “caring”, and “the best doctor in the world” by patients, he brings a high degree of empathy, trademark optimism, and a holistic approach to patient care. He brings a passion for excellence to everything he does. He believes in living and modeling a healthy, balanced lifestyle.
What would it feel like to be as healthy as you could possibly be?
You can connect with me at www.MichaelTurnerMD.com
J. Wolfmoon's points are well taken.
Urgent Care offices, which take private payment and are far less crowded than Emergency Rooms, and less bureaucratic, in my part of the country, can fill some of the needs well.
The Urgent Care offices, plus the ongoing relationship with a caring primary physician, such as you suggest, Dr. Turner, can be basic foundations of today's medical care. That is, if such a PCP can be found.
Unfortunately, what is often found in non-urgent visits, is a prescriber who spends much of our appointment time looking at, and typing into, a desktop computer. Patients are encouraged to do much of their presentation of their information on electronic tablets. The desktops and tablets are intrusive in a way that the old paper and pen never were.
Thank you, Dr. Turner, for your ongoing efforts to proclaim the way to more healing medicine.
It’s impossible to give good care in the current medical model. It’s just not possible. I’ve opted out of the medical model and do my own research, forage herbs and monitor my own health. That’s what we have to do. Save the doctors for stuff we can’t deal with on our own like broken bones or catastrophic injuries. We have to look after ourselves and our families with our own knowledge and resources.