About Our Practice

Welcome to modern medical science in an old time doctor's office

...where caring is NOT business

We welcome ALL patients...

• Uninsured and self-employed individuals
• Infants and children of all ages
• Adolescents, adults and all ages
• Women with pregnancy and prenatal needs
• Those wrestling with mental health and addiction
• Homebound individuals

We encourage health not illness with...

• Free Clinic *
• House calls
• Office hours
• Surgery and specialty care
• Substance abuse & Suboxone care
• 24-hour coverage by experienced clinicians
• Affordable care for anyone without regard to insurance
• Barter and donations gladly accepted

Principles...

• We want to help you
• Patient empowerment, mutual honesty and respect
• Straight talk and honest answers
• The fairest most affordable healthcare in Franklin County
• The latest most up-to-date university medicine with
• The low-tech personal care you really need
• Wholistic & complementary medicine where it works

Office policies...

• Limit profit to preserve ideals - we are a not-for-profit health center
• We do our honest best to help you to help yourself
• Tell us your disappointment and frustration so that we can improve our service
• Request refills at your doctor's visit
• See us first BEFORE asking for unnecessary consults elsewhere
• Be patient until we return your phone call as soon as possible
• Be open minded - because we have studied natural, alternative and spiritual healings we choose to use Western medicine with wisdom and caution to great effect

*Free Clinic is at 4pm Mon, Tues, and Thurs for patients without insurance only

We will support your health however possible, but we cannot live your life for you...

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• Take care of yourself. Healthy living, loving, diet and exercise are our way to health and happiness.

• See your doctor regularly so that we - like every little hometown heartfelt operation we so love - can still be here for you when you need us more.

• Our health is a flower in our community garden: we must tend it well for everyone to grow

In the words of an old wise man, Per Fugelli, MD -

“ The last word will be a warning against public health fundamentalism. We must take care not to force people into the postmodern prison of health perfection and body fetishism. Freedom of health should be our vision, medical tolerance our trademark… Dostoevsky’s hero in Memoirs from the house of the dead … flies to the underworld because it offers the only form of freedom still available.

We must be alert to this medico-moralistic police state silently emerging, hidden behind the holy mantra: health. A foreboding of a Brave New World with gene technicians, psycho-molecule-designers and communication engineers leading every citizen into a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing.

In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World [22] only one man has escaped the medico-political standardization program securing the masses optimum lifestyle and maximum health. He is called the Savage. At the end of the novel the Savage opposes the Controller of the Brave New World, Mustafa Mond. The Controller praises current society with no passion, suffering and deviation from sweet nothingness.

‘‘But I like inconveniences,’’ says the Savage.

‘‘We don’t,’’ said the Controller. ‘‘We prefer to do things comfortably.’’

‘‘But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin.’’

‘‘In fact’’ said Mustafa Mond, ‘‘You’re claiming the right to be unhappy.’’

‘‘All right, then’’ said the Savage defiantly, ‘‘I’m claiming the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.’’

There was a long silence. ‘‘I claim them all,’’ said the Savage at last.

Mustafa Mond shrugged his shoulders. ‘‘You’re welcome,’’ he said.

So, let us always be on the side of the Savage. “

——

Patient Education and Counseling 60 (2006) 267–271. The Zero-vision: Potential side effects of communicating health perfection and zero risk. Per Fugelli. University of Oslo.