“It is more important to know the patient that has the disease than it is to know the disease the patient has” - Sir William Osler

When I graduated from medical school in 1975, I felt like the focus at that time was disease-based medicine. There was much more emphasis on making the right diagnosis than there was on preventive approaches to treating patients. The “interesting patient” was the “enlarged liver” in room 1, the thyroid nodule in Room 6, or the “Fever of unknown origin” in Room 12. Perhaps that’s why I chose to be a family physician because I enjoyed getting to know patients and having a relationship with them over time.

In the last 25 years there has been a revolution in medical education in medical schools with earlier exposure to simulated or actual clinical patients, more integration of basic and clinical science concepts throughout the curriculum, and more focus on “patient centered care”, emphasizing patient autonomy, collaboration, and respect for individual preferences. The Florida State University College of Medicine, founded in 2000, was the first new medical school created in the US since the late 1970’s. It was founded to address a looming physician shortage, most acute in rural and underserved areas, and met resistance from organized medicine (AMA and AAMC) that felt that we had enough doctors. FSU‘s vision was validated by the year 2007, when there was a call for a significant increase in medical graduates and led to a boom in creating over 30 new medical schools since that time. FSU further defied the conventional wisdom by training their graduates in community physician offices and hospitals, with the hope to encourage the graduates to practice in those communities in the future outside of the traditional specialty dominated acute care focused academic medical center.

Dr. Ryan Williamson is a 2014 graduate of the FSU College of Medicine and learned the lessons of patient focused care both at FSU and in his superb career as a neurologist in the US Navy. Caring for military service members, their families, and military retirees, he recognized that his many encounters with patients at critical end points in their lives left him asking what else could be done to live longer, healthier, and better lives. While helping patients when they were critically sick was his calling, he knew that this disease-based model was not enough. In his book, The Incredible Brain, he asks the reader to go beyond traditional medicine to find their purpose, take an active role in their health, and live better, healthier lives. He encourages all to develop an intentional lifestyle that is focused on optimizing sleep, nutrition, mental wellness, and physical movement. Our disease focused system does not encourage individuals to take control of their lives, harness the full power of their brain and body, and avoid the fate of those who succumb to chronic disease.

This book can serve as a handbook on how to optimize health, whether you are in your thirties or facing retirement. It provides an education on the “how” your brain and body work, and then provides practical interventions to slow the rate of aging. Each chapter is written to stand alone, providing first education that analyzes the importance of the topic for wellness, then provides “key takeaways” and a “cheat sheet” to help move the reader to better behaviors on the road to better health. I am very proud to endorse Dr. Williamson’s book as a fundamental guide to prevention and self-care for all.