David Roberts

The author's nom de plume is David Roberts, M.D. He graduated from The University of Michigan Medical School in the 1970s, and completed his Internal Medicine residency training in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He began in private practice in the early 1980s. The book chronicles the first five years of his medical practice.

In addition to medical practice over the past 30+ years he has held a variety of administrative positions, from his first position as an Internal Medicine Residency Program Director at his large, Midwestern community hospital to being the President of New Mexico's largest health plan.

In 1990, he began giving presentations on interesting and unusual patients at his state's American College of Physicians (ACP) annual meetings. These presentations became extremely popular, and are often the highest rated sessions at the conference. Each of Dr. Roberts' cases is presented in a mystery format, with him sequentially revealing the patient's medical history, examination findings, laboratory, and x-ray studies. Having given more than fifty of these presentations, usually to audiences of 200 to 1,000 physicians, David has learned the basic mechanics of creating interesting patient "mysteries" that keep an audience hanging until the end. These patient cases have become an important part of the foundation for his writing career.

In 2009, David began to sense that healthcare, even in the face of the enormous national political focus, struggled to "change from within." Building on his deep love for his patients, and his thirty years of continuous medical practice, he left his executive role, returned to the care of his patients, and to begin writing their stories. From this decision comes Practice Makes Perfect: How One Doctor Found the Meaning of Lives.

One of the great honors of his career, and most relevant as a source of expertise for this book, he was named one of America's Best Doctors in 1997, and every year since then. He has also been named a "Top Doc" and the Number 1 Geriatrics Specialist every year since returning to practice in the Albuquerque metropolitan area, where he currently sees patients three days per week.

A lively, entertaining, and very popular national public speaker, David continues both his national medical presentations as well as regional and local engagements. He also addresses large lay audiences on medical topics. He lives in an adobe home in the beautiful desert south of Santa Fe, New Mexico.