I grew up in Lawrence MA as the fifth of six children. Family is important to me. I am married to Jennifer and am father to 3 adults now. I graduated from Boston College, taught high school for a time and later lived in Belize for 2 years doing community work. Later, I worked at Greater Lawrence Community Action Council in adult education and training and went to night school to get prerequisites for medical school. After finishing medical school, I did my residency and initial career at Cambridge Health Alliance in primary care and hospitalism.
Teaching has always been an important aspect of my work. I got into administration with the goal of having influence to make things work better for staff and be able to serve our patients better. I enjoyed leadership roles as Chief Quality Officer and Chief Medical Officer at several institutions before joining Charles River Health in 2025.
At Charles River, I serve as the Medical Director at our Brighton location. My role here continues my focus on making things work better for staff and being able to serve our patients better. Providing health care requires constant learning; learning from other staff, learning from patients, reading, listening to podcasts, and continuing medical education courses. Today, having encyclopedic knowledge is not enough; pick up an encyclopedia and see how quickly the understanding of the world has changed since it was published. Now we must be able to know how to learn on the fly, a just-in-time education applied to patients’ ever-changing needs.
I really enjoy working with service driven colleagues who want what is best for the patients. I also cherish the connection with the patients, meeting them where they are at and trying to help them get to better health. And it can sometimes be frustrating to always want to do more while facing the reality of maintaining the balance between limited personal and institutional resources.
We are caring for a patient who has a challenging chronic illness that requires accurate dosing of medications to keep her out of the hospital. However, the illness can also affect her thinking, making it difficult for her to take her medications correctly. So, the pharmacists created easier to follow instructions and dosing boxes to help the patient and her family. Nurses and I meet with the patient and family regularly to help keep things on track, measuring her weight and adjusting medications as indicated. Our Community Health team is offering other supports and reminders to help her make her appointments. We meet regularly as a team to anticipate future needs and challenges. That is the essence of community care.
I try to stay curious and open to new experiences which leads to an eclectic set of activities. I am a jack of many trades; dancing, painting, photography, brewing beer, cooking, but sadly am master of none. If people want to share books, shows, music, activities that they love chances are that I will give it a try…excluding polar plunges and sky diving!