What does 30 years in medicine teach a doctor about healing, healthcare, and humanity? In this exclusive reflection, Dr. Susan Wilder — founder of LifeScape Premier and a pioneer in patient-centered care — shares the most important lessons she’s learned throughout her three decades of practice. After starting her career at the Mayo Clinic and later founding LifeScape Premier, Dr. Wilder has spent the last 15 years building a practice focused on proactive, whole-person health. As she celebrates this incredible milestone, she reflects on her journey, what she’s learned about medicine and the medical industry, and what she believes patients deserve over the next 30 years.

Key Lessons from 30 Years in Medicine

"I graduated from GW School of Medicine & Health Sciences 30 years ago, when gas cost under a dollar a gallon, a new home averaged under $95K & US per capita annual health expenditure was under $2000. A few of us owned the very first Macintosh computers or bulky brick cell phones while health information technology was just dawning.

Prozac had just launched, marking the beginning of an era where the pharmaceutical industry harnessed the power of marketing. In the decades that followed, our therapeutic options expanded from a few hundred to more than 6,000, while the number of Americans taking more than three prescriptions grew by 40%. 

Although we made remarkable strides in rescue medicine — saving lives through cancer treatments and procedures like artery-opening surgeries — overall, people were not getting healthier. Rates of chronic disease surged among younger populations, including children, with conditions such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, colon cancer, autoimmune diseases, heart disease, addiction, autism, attention deficit disorders, depression, and anxiety becoming increasingly common. These issues stemmed from multiple root causes: nutrient-poor diets, sedentary lifestyles, poor sleep habits, chronic stress, and exposure to environmental toxins.

Despite the rise of more sub-specialists and an explosion of diagnostic and therapeutic innovations — along with healthcare spending that far outpaced inflation to exceed $10,000 per capita — our collective life expectancy barely improved compared to other developed nations. Meanwhile, our aging population became increasingly frail and disabled.

Challenges Facing Healthcare Today

In recent years, we’ve witnessed the first-ever decline in U.S. life expectancy, driven largely by alarming maternal and fetal health statistics, rising rates of suicide, homicide, gun violence, opioid overdoses, and chronic diseases linked to obesity and diabetes (often referred to as "diabesity"). Despite incredible medical advances — including laparoscopic and robotic surgery, immunotherapy, genomic medicine, CRISPR therapy, and infertility treatments — Americans continue to experience the poorest return on healthcare investment among developed nations.

To simplify, here are my general observations from 30 years in medicine:

• The more we learn, the more we realize how little we know
• Today’s dogma is tomorrow’s dog you-know-what
• “IT” & “EMRs” are 4-letter words
• Medicine keeps you humble…and if it doesn’t, you’d better retire
• We cannot deliver patient-centered care in institution-centered systems
• MORE is NOT better – medications, interventions, screening, administrative complexity
• Out of intense complexity, intense simplicity emerges
• Answers to healthy longevity do NOT reside in a bottle
• Prescribing a pill for an ill disables patient’s healing power while enabling dependence
• Health cannot be delegated to doctors, insurers, hospitals, employers, or the government
• Responsibility for our health depends on us, WE THE PEOPLE, and our lifestyle choices
• Never cease to be amazed by the power of the human spirit

Dr. Wilder’s Vision for the Future of Medicine

I pray, in the next 30 years, we, as doctors, do the following for patients:

• Learn to value and invest in long-term proactive, preventive care, not just rescue
• Shift to truly patient-centered methods of storing clinically useful medical information
• See toxic chemotherapy relegated to the scrap heap of interventions no longer useful
• Disrupt costly medical industrial complex with free market, direct-to-consumer services
• Enact common sense measures to protect science from corporate & political coercion
• Eliminate the term “manage chronic disease” by preventing and reversing it
• Witness a groundswell of personal stewardship for this incredible gift we call health

Experience Patient-Centered Care at LifeScape Premier

As Dr. Susan Wilder looks ahead to the next 30 years, her vision remains clear: a healthcare system that prioritizes prevention, empowers patients, and champions true healing over temporary fixes. Her decades of experience serve as a reminder that medicine is not just about treating illness, but about nurturing the whole person. If you're ready to experience a more personal, proactive approach to healthcare, LifeScape Premier is here to help you transform your whole health for your whole life. Click to book a consult today and see how becoming a patient at LifeScape Premier could change your whole health for your whole life.