Member of the Month – January: Steve Pehrson

Practice: Now I work part-time in a small functional medicine practice in Vernal, I cover a couple weekends a month at a medical detox facility in Orem, and cover a handful of shifts in local urgent care clinics in Roosevelt and Vernal. I’ve been practicing since 1985 – 40 years.

Residency: Medical College of Wisconsin

A bit about Dr. Eastman:
I am a Utah native, and grew up in Logan, Utah. I attended Utah State and Weber State. My start in medicine came through the military. After serving an LDS Mission I enlisted into the 19th Special Forces Group and was trained through the JFK Special Warfare School in Ft. Brag, North Carolina as a green beret medic. Following the active duty requirement I was assigned to an operational team headquartered in Layton. I went through the Paramedic program at Weber State University and was hired by Davis County Sheriff Department as a Deputy / Paramedic. I worked this job full time while going to Weber state. The paramedic program hired me to teach in their program part time both as a classroom instructor as a clinical instructor on the road with Davis County. I got married during this time and started a family. Fortunately, my wife was very supportive of my adventures. We raised three wonderful children. I graduated from medical school in 1984 and completed a family medicine residency in 1987. I returned to Utah and the 19th Group working initially in Nephi, Utah. City medicine was not for me and never has been. We moved to Duchesne County in 1998 where I was hired as a full-time emergency department physician, but in small towns you end up doing everything. I had anticipated that during my residency. I had a practice on the side and did OB, surgery, just about anything that was needed. We bought some land and did some ranching on the side, at one point running about 200 head of cattle and farming about 300 acres of alfalfa. I was still with the 19th Group now as the Battalion Surgeon for the 1st battalion of the 19th Group. I was awarded the Utah EMS Physician of the year in 1995 and the State of Utah Emergency Physician in 1996. I have served on every State of Utah EMS committee except the air ambulance and Paramedic ub-committees and was appointed by the Governor to the State EMS committee and serve two 3-year terms. EMS has always been in my blood even now. Sometime in the mid 1990’s I was recruited by the Indian Health Service and worked at the Ft. Duchesne Ute Tribe Reservation until 2013, but still covered emergency departments across the state part-time. I was the clinical director at the IHS Clinic in Ft. Duchesne for 7 years. I was awarded Fellowship degree in family medicine in 2002. In 2013 myself and a couple partners teamed up with the Skull Valley Goshute Tribe and built Sacred Circle Health Care in downtown SLC. We built the clinic along side the Goshute people until they took over my interest in 2017. I’ve done humanitarian work with 2 trips to Ethiopia in 2001 and 2002 and through a small non-profit able to move about 1.5 million dollars of aid to the Horne of Africa, Eastern Europe, and southeast Asia. I was a adjunct clinical instructor with the department of family and community medicine at the University of Utah teaching medical students, family practice residents, PA’s, and Advanced Practice Nurses from several colleges for 30 years.

What do you wish you’d known when you graduated from medical school? How little I actually knew.

What keeps you passionate about family medicine? I’m passionate about caring for people who need that care. The practice of medicine has never really been “work” for me. Money has never been the driving factor in my work. “I do what I like cause I like what I do.” The wonderful and unique thing about family medicine is the diversity. Every day presents new medical challenges. I love the quest for added knowledge, but I get bored easily so being able to learn and add knowledge to my practice across a wide expanse of the medical sciences is what keeps me enthusiastically engaged in the science of medicine while expanding my art of practicing medicine. That never grows old. I believe it is our own mental biases that limit our expansion of knowledge. Recognizing these subconscious biases frees us to explore medicine in places we were never trained to look yet are now becoming more accepted in the mainstreams of western medicine. These topics are fascinating to learn about and even selectively apply into a broader scope of patient care.

Where will we find you on your day off? Recovering! I’m almost 70 now, but in good general health. I work around the ranch a bit – although (thankfully) it is no longer the operation it once was. Ranching is hard work and it provided an exceptional learning environment for the kids as they grew up. I’ve traveled all over the world but now I prefer to stay at home with my wife and with the kids and grandkids close by. I still really enjoy teaching and continue to instruct pre-hospital and wilderness / austere medicine. These topics have always been a deep interest and passion of mine. I love to teach medicine as much as I love to practice medicine. I love the outdoors and spent a lot of time there when I was younger – I still get there as often as I’m able.

What are you…
reading right now: I read a lot. I will read science (I’ve always had a fascination for astronomy) and science fiction, I like historical novels, I like medieval history and themes, chivalry and heraldry. I like military history.
watching right now: I enjoy movies – especially the older classics and I enjoy historical documentaries. I really enjoy watching the Disney classics with the grandkids.
listening to right now: I am a music lover and rather eclectic about that. I like traditional rock and roll, I like symphony, classics and neo-classics. I like most classics from the early 20th century and even some bluegrass from time to time.