Ann Lindsay
What do you do every day?
Ann Lindsay: I'm co-director for Stanford Coordinated Care, a clinic designed to help people with chronic illnesses lead healthy lives. Half of my day is spent seeing patients and working with my clinical team. The other half is administrative and teaching time: working with medical students and residents, spreading the model, or getting data together to analyze the effectiveness of what we do and improve our team and care processes. It's nice to have a mixture of teaching, research and patient care!
Why do you love your job?
Ann Lindsay: I love interacting with patients and getting to know them personally and figuring out what makes them tick! I love being part of such an effective team- patients get really good care and we have everyone from a pharmacist, dietician, PT and social worker working together. I have only been at Stanford two years- My husband and I were recruited to build and test out this model of a clinic for a high cost high risk population.
What were your biggest moments of fear or challenge in your career?
Ann Lindsay: For 28 years I was a family practitioner in a small town in Northern California- running a business and giving good care is a challenge. For the last 18 years I was also the county health officer and that's challenging because of the responsibility of the population's health and then the politics involved. Leaving all that and joining Stanford was a huge challenge. _My husband and I have two children and now we have a beautiful granddaughter- we were fortunate to split one job for ten years so there was always someone at home. It meant that we both have the opportunity to grow professionally but also both have time for family life.
What are the latest innovations in science that you are the most excited about?
Ann Lindsay: There are tremendous technological innovations- I find the challenge is getting people who have chronic illnesses motivated to do something to better their health. There are innovative models of care working with patients from many different social and cultural backgrounds. I love being part of that and feel what we are doing is reproducible and can make an impact!
Where did you grow up?
Ann Lindsay: I grew up in a small town in Massachusetts.
Who was your favorite teacher and why?
Ann Lindsay: I was influenced most by a friend's mother- who was a physician! She was a wonderful mentor for me- I didn't know what I wanted to do, but she would always urge me to talk to female physicians and learn from their experiences! It really changed my life and perspective.
Do you have a unique or quirky talent?
Ann Lindsay: Bringing people together in a community around a problem to solve it! __I believe in "never giving up!"
Since we are The Science Runway, is there any style or fashion tips you would like to share?
Ann Lindsay: Be natural! You can't be too flamboyant- you have a lot of freedom but you do get judged by what you wear! Have confidence in your body!
What are you reading currently and what are some of your favorite books or authors?
Ann Lindsay: I love the book "Cutting for Stone" by Abraham Verghese. It starts in Ethiopia, with identical twins whose parents are physicians and just follows their incredible stories! It's an amazing look at being a physician and what that entails and the whole training process and how you learn how to take care of people and put them in a position of priority. It looks at FMG (foreign medical graduates) in a better light and highlights the challenges they overcome. It's extremely inspirational!
What 's next? What is something you hope to accomplish in the future?
Ann Lindsay: I'm looking forward to working on research to show that our model here is working- our focus on patient goals can be the answer to adverse health outcomes and medical care in this country.
About Ann Lindsay
Ann Lindsay MD is Co-Director of Stanford Coordinated Care (SCC). SCC is capitated for primary care of Stanford employees and adult dependents with complex chronic health conditions. Care is provided through a partnership between patients and families and their multidisciplinary care team including physical therapy, behavioral health, nutrition therapy and clinical pharmacy and primary care. Emphasis is placed on the patient 's own goals, care coordination with specialists, and on helping patients gain the skills to be healthy with whatever conditions they faced with. SCC has developed a dashboard that pulls from EPIC EHR to risk assess patients and identify care gaps and a Team Training Center to share the model of care. She currently serves on the Clinical Advisory Committee for the Pacific Business Group on Health CMMI supported project, Intensive Outpatient Care Program, which seeks to enroll 27,000 patients in three states by 2015. She is a fellow in the California Health Care Foundation Leadership Program and joined the IHI (Institute for Health Improvement) faculty in October, 2013. Prior to moving to Stanford in 2011, Dr Lindsay shared a family practice with her husband, Dr Alan Glaseroff, in rural Northern California for 28 years. During this time she served as County Health Officer for 18 years and was active in the leadership of the California Conference of Local Health Officers in Sacramento. In 2006 she received the Plessner Award from the California Medical Association as the physician who best exemplified the practice and ethics of a rural practitioner. .