Physician

“Being a family physician is who i am, not just what I do”

Dr. Carroll, at the age of 5, suffered from a large recurrent odontoid cyst in his face. Until that time, he was deathly afraid of physicians and anything having to do with healthcare. But it was a kind Family Physician and very patient and friendly Pediatric Maxillofacial surgeon whom, after six months of regular drainage (3 times a week), provided him safe, familiar, and compassionate care he needed to get through it. It was at that time he decided to become a physician. He had wanted to provide the same sort of compassionate and comprehensive care which got him through the toughest point of his young life.

But it wasn’t enough to just obtain his undergraduate degree, proceed to medical school, graduate, and complete his post-graduate training. His first position offered in Phoenix, Arizona was to be a teaching position as an attending at a Family Medicine residency at the County Hospital. However, upon arriving, he found out that the program had been dissolved. He had been prepared to deliver full scope family medicine, including obstetrics. That was no longer available to him in his first position, and with a newborn in the home, it was a difficult time to look again.

So he led an outpatient clinic, optimizing the care of the indigent community that they served by increasing availability of appointments, expanding the scope of practice by rotating specialists through the clinic, and providing input and advocacy at all levels of executive leadership at the hospital system. This continued on when he left the system in February of 2003 and started his own practice. Though unable to provide obstetrical care (due to malpractice insurance and hospital credentialing restrictions), he made sure that the rest of the scope of a Family Physician’s care was provided. To this day, Atembis LLC continues to provide newborn care to geriatric, hospice, and end-of-life care. They continue to also team up with Hospice of the Valley to provide hospice care directly to their own patients, both at home and at their hospice facilities. Dr. Carroll and Dr. Williams-Vaughn also, prior to Covid, provided housecalls to patients who were homebound.

When Covid19 came to Arizona in March of 2020, Dr. Carroll sought privileges at two of the major hospital systems, Banner and Dignity. He joined the surge teams as a “Disaster Relief” physician, once again providing inpatient care, from hospital admission in the Emergency Room, to medical floors, to Intensive Care, and Codes. The training, experience, and versatility of a Family Physician was put front and center during the most challenging healthcare crisis of the modern era. During these shifts, he appeared on local and national television to advocate for public health measures, healthcare worker care, expansion of financial aid programs for private physicians, and the importance of a personal physician at all stages of a person’s lifetime.

“The Family Physician is the only doctor that could keep their doors open during the pandemic and provide for all of the needs of every patient for every problem in every venue and every visit venue, from in-person to virtual, to outside to carside, from clinic to hospital. And it’s crucial for the financial systems which support us to refocus and redistribute payments to reflect our crucial priority.”