Colin Kopes-Kerr, MD

Bio

A DIFFERENT DRUM

I started an internship in Pediatrics at Children's Hospital National Medical Center in 1977, and after only a year left to get training in Public Health, then Law, and finally settled into a small town general practice in Winters, CA, where I practice between 1979 and 1983. In the beginning I was just covering the pediatric side of the practice, but over time I gradually saw more and more of the adults in the practice while covering for my partners. The peculiar thing was that, the more I saw adults and the rest of the family of the children I was serving, the better and more effective my pediatric practice became. This led me to decide, when it was time to go back to complete my board certification, that I would do it in Family Medicine, which I did in Cleveland at Case Western Reserve University.
When I graduated as a Board Certified Family Physician I went into an academic practice with the East Carolina University School of Medicine in Greenville, NC. I have been in and out of academic practice (mostly in) for the rest of my career. In 2005, I moved from my position of Vice Chairman and Family Medicine Residency Program Director at the State University of New York--Stony Brook to Sacramento to join a family practice there. I brought my wife, Diane, and three children (Anna, 4; Liam, 9; and Jamie, 10) with the hope that they would lose the Long Island accent and attitude and enjoy the play-outside-every-day weather and beautiful parks of northern California. We moved to Santa Rosa in early 2007 where I took a position as Program Director for the Sutter Medical Center Family Medicine Residency for the last two and a half-years before joining the Family Medicine Service at Kaiser to work alongside many of the TPMG physicians who had contributed so enormously to the work of the residency program while I was there (with special thanks to Walt Mills, Carlos Garcia, Harrison Wright, Jamie Wright, Cheryl Green, Steve Rich, and Bob Schultz among many others).

My Medical Specialty

More details about my specialty:

I love Family Medicine because the people I serve represent my whole community. I get to see the new babies, the brothers and sisters, the teens breaking out on their own, and complete extended families as they complete the cycle of life.
A doctor's visit should be mostly a good conversation between old friends. We'll get to all the exam that needs to be done and the tests that need to be ordered, but first I want to hear your story and get to know as much about you and your family as I can. I'll share my experience and my stories. Together we'll figure out what you need and in what order. The big picture is much more important and more interesting than the details. Let's make sure we get that done right.
But quality takes time, and that means visits may run a bit longer (and also waits).
I love Family Medicine also because it is the most intellectually challenging of all the specialties. I have wanted to make a contribution by boiling down the explosion in medical information to its most practical and cost-effective nuggets--a goal that is also at the core of the Kaiser mission. You can see samples of what I have written on my personal website at www.Kopes-eticHealth.com.

My specialty interests and affiliations within my field:

My #1 interest is in Preventive Medicine. My highest goal is to reach young parents and children with the simple things they can do early and continuously through life to stay health and never need to be treated for diseases like hypertension or heart disease or chronic lung disease.
Did you know that 93% of all type 2 diabetes, 80% of all heart disease, 70% of hypertension and all strokes, 50% of heart failure, and 40% of all cancers can be prevented just by applying 5 health lifestyle steps to your life:
1. Not smoking
2. 5 Servings of fruits and vegetables a day
3. 10 minutes of relaxation or meditation daily.
4. Maintaining your weight so that your BMI is < 30. (It is over 30 where the heart disease problems really increase.)
5. Exercising (just brisk walking will do) for an average of 20 minutes a day or for a total of 150 minutes each week.
Let's talk about this when you come in.
My #2 interest is in using the modern breakthroughs in technology and information science to deliver the most comprehensive and up-to-date care possible.
I have made national presentations for organizations such as the American Academy of Family Physicians and the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine and for many hospital Departments of Family Medicine around the country for many years.

Current projects or research:

I have two major projects in progress. The first of these involve partnering with the Santa Rosa Junior College and their Community Health Worker program to train local young men and women to be neighborhood ambassadors of health and to work as a team with practicing Family Physicians and Family Medicine Residents. I hope to expand this work to my practice at Kaiser. I believe that, as we fix our health care system on a national level, having community health workers in every neighborhood will be key to providing the information and education that the public needs and to bringing down the costs of overall health care.
My second major project is to use healthy lifestyle promotion in my practice as the key to living longer and healthier and to carry out basic comprehensive cardiac risk assessment for all my adult patients. (Tip: The key to avoiding heart disease is a healthy lifestyle; a healthy lifestyle is also the key to avoiding most other disease.)
My third ongoing project is the development of a clinical assessment tool to help manage bowel health in older persons and persons at risk due to certain medications.

Great health resources that I refer to:

I regularly try to update reviews of great books on medicine and health care on my website (www.Kopes-eticHealth.com, "Book Reviews"). The books that have had the greatest impact on my personal philosophy and practice of medicine are:
Elliott Friedson, The Sociology of Medicine
Ivan Illich, Medical Nemesis
Lewis Thomas, Lives of a Cell
Bellah, Habits of the Heart
Jonas, Medical Mystery
Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains (The Story of Paul Farmer)
Brownlee, Overtreated
Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food,
Halvorson, Health Care Reform Now

An interesting story from my training:

The event that had the greatest impact on me personally and my career occurred in my first month of training as a new intern in Pediatrics. A 5 year old boy who had brain injury due to an accident at birth was admitted to my care with very, very severe anemia, odd changes of his fingernails called 'clubbing' and malnutrition. Purely due to serendipity and the fact that I read a lot, I had read a case report of a similar set of 3 patients in a journal called AJDC. I thought it would be helpful clinically to my senior attending physicians on the case. In fact, unfortunately, it was resented and not used because it came from the junior member of the team. The child did not receive the surgery recommended by the article and died a few days later. This event left with me the indelible impression that something was wrong with the system of care and has led me on a path to do what I can to put readily available information to better use in the care of patients.

Photos from My Training Years or of Practicing Medicine in My Field:

My Practice Perspective -- Essay Acknowledged at the 2007 Northeast Regional STFM Conference

My First Practice, Winters CA 1979

My Recommended 7 Steps to Health

The Simple 5-Step Formula for Health

The Formula for Health

Interests

Currently reading:
Craig Mullaney, The Unforgiving Moment

My favorite book or author:
Medical Nemesis, Ivan Illich

Great movie:
ET

Hobby Photos & Links:

Dr. Kopes-Kerr's Website: www.Kopes-eticHealth.com

The Peculiar Views of Dr. Kopes-Kerr on Life and Medicine
An Archive of my Medical Newsletter, FP Revolution, since 2007

Family & Friends

People in my life:

I met my wife, Diane, at a Community Building Workshop in Ridgefield, CT in June of 1995. This was one of the series of workshops inspired by Scott Peck's "A Road Less Traveled" and his other work on civility. It just happened to occur at a time when each of us were finally past a prior failed relationship and were not looking for another person to solve our problems. I guess that is the key. Diane is a chemical engineer, trained at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken NJ. She had transitioned from the technical side of the business to the commercial side and was then working as a Manager of Industrial Gases (specializing in Hydrogen) for Air Products and Chemicals Inc. in Allentown PA. She had been doing this for 19 years when I met her.
Finally, after we were married, both of us, somewhat later in life than most, settled down to raising a family. We were not able to have children of our own, but were able to adopt three very special infants at birth through the assistance of a wonderful adoption agency in Pennsylvania. Of course, ever since our lives have been crazy.
Diane just loves it here in Santa Rosa. She has wanted to live in northern California since early in her career when she used to call on Silicon Valley companies to sell them industrial glasses. We have found a wonderful home in Wild Oak Village by Oakmont and a wonderful community in Kenwood, where all of our children go to school and where Diane is currently President of the Kenwood Parents Association.

My children and people I care about:

What an incredibly diverse world our children represent. Anna, now almost 5, who is partly Jamaican and partly from the Dominican Republic, is our point of grace, who is going to grow up to be either a princess or a ballerina. Liam is 9 and is all boy all the time. What a bundle of energy and activity. He aspires to be a soccer great and a master of the Universe on Adventure Quest Worlds, an online adventure game. Jamie, who is going on 10, is our aesthete, who loves everything, but especially music and writing as well as computer games and soccer.

An interesting story about my family or friends:

As you can see from the photos, due to our late start on our eclectic family, we're older and wiser, calmer and more philosophical, and a lot more tired than most elementary school parents. Diane wonderfully looks like she could be their older college-age sister, while I am often mistaken for their grandfather. Life is funny. Getting older is what it is all about.

Photos of my Family & Friends:

Life on the Beach 2009

Anna at the Father-Daughter Dance

Diane at the Court House

Dad and the Kids

Tasha is also adopted. The calmest most wonderful Siberian Husky who ever lived. She must have had a previous life as a cat because her favorite perch is curled up quietly on a couch next to you. She doesn't bark. She doesn't complain. She tolerates infants and toddlers sitting on her. She loves everything you do. She is the most go with the flow pet we have ever shared a home with. We hope our children our children learn from her wisdom.

Pet Photos:

Tasha

Travel

An adventure I've had:

I have been able to provide my peculiar brand of medical common sense in places as diverse at the Philippines and the highlands of Guatemala (Comolapa). Every time I come back from such a trip, I can't help wondering why we make medical care so complicated here. I read books like the story of Paul Farmer, Mountains Beyond Mountains, and just know we could do more for all for less.

Favorite place in the world:

Home in Santa Rosa, CA. I've been many places--Italy, France, England, the Philippines, Mexico, Central America, and have studied many more as an undergraduate major in Classical Archeology (the art and culture of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Italy), home is the best, and we've never had a nicer one than where we are right now, edging right up to Annadel Park behind us.

One of my recent trips:

Our most recent vacation was to the Grand Canyon, which we both wanted our children to see. My personal passion for this place is that it puts you in proper perspective to our planet and the universe--physically insignificant with the latent power to change it all. It is always deeply inspiring.

Travel Photos:

Medical Mission to the Philippines

A Photo of One of My Favorite Places:

Home Near the Park

Trip Photos:

Grand Canyon Vacation