Edward Schwager

Some say that the practice of medicine has been on a roller coaster for a while. Like Space Mountain, we don't really where the next turn will be. My career has been something like that. Right out of residency in '86 I took over the practice of a retiring solo doc on Tucson's east side. Fully busy from day 1, doing full-spectrum practice including maternity care and surgical assisting. A couple of years later I helped form and grow a family practice group. Ultimately, during the Clinton health care craze of the early 1990s, we sold our group to the Carondelet hospital system and I moved to practicing 10% time and spent most of my day as a "suit" ie, a "physician executive" helping to develop what today would be called an Accountable Care Organization. The most noteworthy outcome from that endeavor is the current Carondelet Medical Group a primary care practice of about 90 providers and one of the few living medical groups to be born out of physician hospital organizations from Clinton Health Care Reform. Somewhere around 2004 I moved back into full time medical practice with some side-bar administrative activities. I continue in full time practice, although stopped maternitiy care in 2006 and hospital care the end of 2009. Currently I remain with Carondelet Medical Group and am transitioning my practice to a concierge model which is mixed with a lightened regular patient load. Throughout all of the years I continue to be part of the U of A's volunteer faculty, working with 3rd year family medicine clerkship medical students.