Member of the Month – April: Dr. David Hall
Practice: I have now been a hospitalist at St George Regional Hospital for 5 years, and while I miss much of what I enjoyed as a full-scope family physician–e.g. obstetrics, pediatrics, procedures, emergency and outpatient medicine, and long-term relationships with patients–there is much about being a hospitalist that I enjoy. And I feel my experience as a family physician gives me a unique perspective of the challenges my patients face as they transition back home from the hospital after an acute change in their health.
Residency: McKay-Dee Hospital Family Medicine Residency
A bit about Dr. Hall: I grew up in a farming community in the Pacific Northwest. After high school, I served a 2-year LDS mission to Argentina, after which I attended Utah State University. I was interested in many different subjects, so choosing a career path was difficult for me. But a college roommate, who had already figured out he wanted to become an orthodontist, suggested medicine. Nobody I knew was in the medical field, so I did not have a mentor or a map to follow, but I took a leap of faith and decided to go for it. After meeting and marrying my wife, I got accepted into the Oregon Health and Science University School of Medicine, where I enjoyed every subject, which made selecting a medical specialty difficult. I was leaning toward a career as a radiologist, but one day while on a surgical rotation, I overheard a conversation between a couple of surgeons discussing their careers. One of them said that what made his practice successful was that it was as far away from public transportation lines as possible, implying that those people who use public transportation are undesirable patients and less profitable to his practice. I thought about growing up with hard-working parents who did everything they could to provide for their children, but we depended at times on government programs like food stamps and Pell Grants, so that surgeon was talking about my family. Right then, I decided I would become a family physician and serve within underserved communities, as close to public transportation lines as possible. I was fortunate to receive an excellent residency training at the McKay-Dee Hospital Family Medicine Residency and was well-prepared when I journeyed with my young family to begin my career in rural John Day, Oregon as a small-town family physician. There, I learned what a family physician means to a small town and the importance of becoming part of the community, and that if you take care of people in a small town, they will take care of you. When we moved there, we had 3 young children, and after a few years, we felt inspired to adopt a sibling group of 3 more young children from St Louis, Missouri. This transition was very difficult for our family, but we were touched by the outpouring of support from friends and neighbors there, who provided respite, tutoring, and love for our children. After 10 years there, my wife’s father passed away, and we made the difficult decision to move to St George, Utah to be a support to her mother. This was at the beginning of 2020, when clinics were navigating the challenges associated with providing medical care in the midst of a global pandemic, and no clinics in St George were hiring family physicians at the time. But St George Regional Hospital was in need of hospitalists, and my residency training and inpatient clinical experience at my former rural hospital gave me the skills they needed. Since moving to St George, I have enjoyed the year-round outdoor recreation opportunities southern Utah offers, including bicycling and running on the roads and trails around town. My wife and I enjoy watching our kids participate in sports and other activities, and we love living close to multiple national and state parks, where we often go hiking as a family.
What do you wish you’d known when you graduated from medical school? I wish I knew the variety of roles that a family medicine training can prepare a physician for besides traditional family practice–e.g. inpatient hospitalist medicine, urgent care, hospice, etc..
Where will we find you on your day off?
On my days off, you’ll find me on the roads and trails in and around St. George on foot or on a bike.
What are you…
reading right now: Jimmy Carter’s autobiography–Beyond the White House
listening to right now: Various podcasts: Follow Him, Radiolab, Revisionist History, Throughline, The Moth, Cautionary Tales