Pierre Manzo, MD

During my family medicine residency, I enjoyed spending time with the medical students. While not the easiest arena in which to teach—given general stressors and time constraints—I could tell that student interaction was something that I was interested in making part of my career after residency.

Finding balance in life is essential. I have always said that to be a good family physician, one must take good care of themselves and their family. This includes physically and emotionally. That is why for our 25th anniversary last year, we chose to take a trip to Alaska. I had heard many stories of trips to Alaska from other people. Never have I heard any negatives of travel there. You can add our family trip to the positive stories of trips to Alaska.

I have the absolute best job in the world. I am fortunate to be a family physician. Where else can you spend 10 hours a day talking with and listening to interesting people, potentially making a difference in each others lives and actually being paid well to do so? Entering family medicine, I had the idea that it would be the right fit for me, and indeed it has far exceeded my expectations. Whereas many other fields in medicine over the last 25 years have been more lucrative, I have no regrets having entered the field of family medicine. I graduated from medical school 21 years ago and have completed approximately 80,000 patient visits. I am one of the founding partners in a small group practice in suburban Rhode Island and a clinical faculty member for the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.