Find your core stabilizers. Dear Patients and Friends, I recently reread the greeting I sent on January 2, 2025. It stopped me in my tracks. So much of it still feels exactly right. I meant to send a December message, but didn’t quite pull it together in time… which honestly tracks. Classic me. Reading it now made me smile. What a year 2024 was. When I wrote that greeting, and I looked ahead to 2025, my intention was simple but ambitious: to allow more moments of spontaneous

Enjoy every second. Dear Patients and Friends, As many of you know, my aunt, Dr. Venis Fanous — whom we all lovingly call “Tant Seeza” — has been my lifelong mentor and hero. Growing up, I watched her shape her work around her family with remarkable grace. Her husband and her two sons, Jack and James, were the center of her world, and every day she showed them what a life of service looked like. Jack and James grew up in that environment of unconditional love, clear purpose,

Change, Stress, and a New Lipstick. Dear Patients and Friends, A few weeks ago, Kelly Watson, one of my kindest employees sent me a text that really made me think. She complimented my "put-together" look that morning. And while I appreciated the compliment, it struck me how different my exterior was from what I was actually feeling inside. The truth is, beneath the surface of that "put-together" exterior, I was feeling the weight of a lot. We were recovering from opening our

More or less. Dear Patients and Friends, A new year has begun, but I'm still in awe thinking about the final weeks of 2024. Here’s a little timeline of the amazing things that happened in the CMMD world: December 13th: We celebrated 20 years since opening our doors! The road has been long and rocky, but so worth it. (You can read more about the journey here.) December 16th: My youngest daughter, Hadley, was accepted to her first-choice school, Lafayette College, AND received

At first, I thought Chris meant one more pediatrician, to make a total of four. But they weren’t sure they would be able to recruit...

Yes, you read that right: he walked out. The door slammed so hard that, while I expected it, it still made me jump. Numbness overtook me...

It was November 2004. I pulled into our driveway and walked inside after a long day at the practice where I had started working right...

Can openers, and the little things. Dear Patients and Friends, I can’t open cans (see video). My entire family understands this well-documented fact. Today, I made a short video of my Bolognese sauce recipe to share with Maisy since she often asks for it. Opening the tomato paste cans took me 20 minutes. Anyway, that only happened today because Chris was not home. Had he been home, he would have heard the pantry door, the cans hitting the counter, and my rummaging in a drawer

It's good to be back. Dear Patients and Friends, A few months ago, I announced to you all that I would take the summer off from patient...

Seeing me. Dear Patients and Friends, As many of you know, our youngest, Hadley, is the last one left at home. She is almost 17 and will...