I’ve spent my life in service: to my patients, my family, and my community. For more than two decades, I’ve been a family physician in Western North Carolina, standing shoulder to shoulder with families through births, loss, and everything in between. I’ve seen what happens when people are left behind, and I’ve built my career around one belief: everyone deserves effective healthcare that they can afford.

My path to medicine began with service. As a young man, I worked in Kolkata, India with Mother Teresa’s Home for the Destitute and the Dying, where I witnessed the transformative power of compassion to heal, even in the face of unimaginable hardship. Years later, when Ebola broke out in West Africa and I volunteered, I chose to be on the front lines, because when people are suffering, you don’t wait for someone else to step up. You show up…