John Fullerton, MD: SFMS March 2013 Member of the Month April 3, 2013 Member of the Month, SFMS Member Hampton Health, John Fullerton, SFMS Member of the Month 0 John Fullerton, MD, MRO, CMD, CFP, FACP, AGSF, FAAHPM is primary care physician and clinician educator for more than 26 years. He is board certified in Internal Medicine, Geriatrics, Addiction Medicine, Hospice & Palliative Medicine, with added certificates in Long-Term Care, Hospice Medical Directorships and Home Care. Dr. Fullerton received his medical degree from the University of Miami, and completed his Internal Medicine residency training at CPMC (formerly known as Pacific Presbyterian Hospital). As one of the earliest hospitalists (hospital-based physician) on the Garden Sullivan Campus of CPMC in 1989, Dr. Fullerton became a leading expert in areas of HIV/AIDS, palliative care (including End-Stage AIDS), geriatric medicine, and addiction medicine. Dr. Fullerton is the Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer for Hampton Health, LTD., which specializes in ambulatory and urgent care, including a focus on the transitions of care between acute, rehabilitative & hospital-based SNF, nursing home, secured Dementia Units, Assisted and Independent Living Facility care, Home Care, and Hospice & Palliative Care. In addition, Dr. Fullerton serves as the Director of Geriatric and Palliative Education and Key Faculty for training of the Internal Medicine Residency Program at Dignity Health/St. Mary’s Medical Center. He also participates as clinical faculty of UCSF, USC, and Yale University Medical School(s) in their respective Department(s) of Medicine and serves as voluntary clinical faculty for medical students and medical residents at the San Francisco Free Clinic. To view Dr. Fullerton’s practice information, please click here. I am a SFMS member because I have always taken great pride in being involved in the local medical community, having trained and practiced general internal medicine in SF. I still consider it a privilege to maintain an office in the “heart of SF”, remain active clinical faculty at UCSF and Dignity/St. Mary’s Medical Center, and to be a proud member of the SFMS 23 years after serving as Chief Resident at CPMC. I think the most helpful SFMS member resource is the social and professional networking function that membership brings along with the excitement that comes upon receiving a new Directory from the SFMS, containing the listings with all of my esteemed colleagues. What is the most important thing you learned in medical school or residency? To seek out and serve clinically all who require our assistance and a duty to clinically instruct the next generation of primary care providers, including a focus for decades on the urban, under-served in SF in areas such as geriatrics, HIV/AIDS, addiction medicine, palliative medicine, those with disabilities, and those who have no insurance. This path has lead me to the most rewarding parts of my career, including training in medicine (and chief residency) at CPMC, early hospital-based work & training in SF at Garden Sullivan Hospital, long-term clinical instruction as teaching attending for surrounding training programs at the San Francisco Free Clinic, and Director of Geriatrics at Dignity/St. Mary’s Medical Center (Key Clinical Faculty to train Internal Medicine Housestaff at their Sister Mary Phillippa Healthcare Center [SMPHC]). What are some of the biggest opportunities or challenges you see in health care within the next five years? Now that primary care providers will occupy a central position in Obama Care as the ranks of the uninsured get covered and more lives therefore go “at risk” in ‘Round Two of Managed Care’, it is incumbent upon the primary care doctors to come together through groups like the SFMS and the CMA to position themselves as the comprehensive providers of professionally compassionate and ethical care within medical home delivery models, along the spectrum of a truly seamless vertically integrated continuum of care-starting at the acute care hospital and hopefully ending at home. This will require creativity regarding the “transitional models of care”, the coordination and cooperation of sub-disciplines, our growing and vital relationship with technology and social media, and how we flexibly handle our inter-relationships with non-physician providers, advanced practice nurses and PAs, practice-based nurses and case managers as key elements in our own inter-disciplinary team (IDT) approach to the spectrum of general internal medicine/primary care within our own and within our aggregated practices. In the end, there will be a necessary “reorientation” of the primary care providers along with their sub-specialty referral networks toward more preventive medicine, more cognitive medicine, more holistic (patient-centered) medicine, more co-sharing of “risk”, and less invasive, procedure-based approaches-particularly during the last 1-2 years of life. I love practicing Internal Medicine because the breadth of practice of General Internal Medicine also promotes life-long learning and trans-generational care, including in additional growing areas such as palliative care, geriatrics, addiction medicine, home care, and long-term care medical directorships. The ability afforded by practicing General Internal Medicine enables me to focus on the “baby boomers” in a city like SF and to help them with their preventive care and chronic diseases (if needed) while assisting their aging families through the stages of life and their corresponding levels of care, including assisting with their end-of-life care (when needed). What is your favorite restaurant in San Francisco? Spruce (in Laurel Village) and Caffe Macaroni (in North Beach). If I wasn't a physician, I would like to be a constitutional lawyer or a professor or a philosophical fiction author. Comments are closed.
