I am a physician who has spent two decades treating patients and studying the system that is supposed to keep them healthy.

I trained at the University of California San Diego and was faculty at Washington University in St. Louis. I have led radiology programs, built multidisciplinary clinical teams, and published over 40 peer-reviewed studies. I currently serve as Chairman and Medical Director of Radiology at Community Health Network. I have spent my career at the intersection of medicine and leadership.

But the thing that changed how I work was simpler than any of that. It was standing at enough bedsides to understand that the system failing my patients was not an accident. It was a series of decisions. Made by people who had never stood where I was standing.

That is why I write. My columns in the Indianapolis Star and the Indiana Capital Chronicle are my attempt to put a physician's voice into the rooms where those decisions get made. I write about Medicaid, workforce, maternal health, and the choices in Washington and state capitals that determine whether people get care and whether they can afford to stay alive.

I also wrote YOU Are the New Prescription with Dr. Rani Ramaswamy, an obstetrician-gynecologist and menopause specialist. It is the book I wish I could hand every patient who walks out of my office.

The problems are real. The solutions exist. What is missing is the will to act. That is what I am working to change.