About Dave
Who I Am
In short, I am a husband, father, physician, advocate, legislator, and Ironman triathlete.
I have lived in New Hampshire with my wife and two sons for the past 37 years and Gilmanton for the past 27. Having moved here from a small town in Upstate New York and having worked for the Indian Health Service in Sitka, Alaska, I had fully embraced “Live Free or Die” long before I got here. What I love about New Hampshire is that it is so easy to get involved and make a difference. That is what I have done my whole career.
I have always been inspired by my mother. She was physically very disabled, but mentally very able. She never let her limitations get in her way. She had a finger and she had phone, and using the two, she could make a difference. She was always there to help others in need, something I have come to call “kitchen table advocacy.”
Armed with that lesson, I came to New Hampshire determined to make a difference. In my medical practice of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, I have served the physically, mentally, and psychologically disabled first serving as medical director of Easter Seals, then at Concord Orthopaedics. My focus at first was geriatric rehabilitation and brain injury.
I quickly came to see that pain was a part of all the disabilities I encountered, and I became aware of how we, as a culture, stigmatize those who suffer, adding unnecessarily to the burden these patients faced. I also learned of the disparities that exist in how we treat those who suffer; people discriminated against not just because of their pain and their inability, but also because of their skin color, their sex, their sexual orientation. I was determined to change the way pain and addiction are perceived, judged, and treated.
I learned that the world of the clinic was artificial. I felt a need to get out into the community to make a difference. In doing so, I created my own model of advocacy which I entitled the “John the Baptist Model,” a voice crying in the wilderness. I learned that too often those in power did not want to hear what I felt a need to say, but I never let that stop me.
In short, I am a husband, father, physician, advocate, legislator, and Ironman triathlete.
I have lived in New Hampshire with my wife and two sons for the past 37 years and Gilmanton for the past 27. Having moved here from a small town in Upstate New York and having worked for the Indian Health Service in Sitka, Alaska, I had fully embraced “Live Free or Die” long before I got here. What I love about New Hampshire is that it is so easy to get involved and make a difference. That is what I have done my whole career.
I have always been inspired by my mother. She was physically very disabled, but mentally very able. She never let her limitations get in her way. She had a finger and she had phone, and using the two, she could make a difference. She was always there to help others in need, something I have come to call “kitchen table advocacy.”
Armed with that lesson, I came to New Hampshire determined to make a difference. In my medical practice of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, I have served the physically, mentally, and psychologically disabled first serving as medical director of Easter Seals, then at Concord Orthopaedics. My focus at first was geriatric rehabilitation and brain injury.
I quickly came to see that pain was a part of all the disabilities I encountered, and I became aware of how we, as a culture, stigmatize those who suffer, adding unnecessarily to the burden these patients faced. I also learned of the disparities that exist in how we treat those who suffer; people discriminated against not just because of their pain and their inability, but also because of their skin color, their sex, their sexual orientation. I was determined to change the way pain and addiction are perceived, judged, and treated.
I learned that the world of the clinic was artificial. I felt a need to get out into the community to make a difference. In doing so, I created my own model of advocacy which I entitled the “John the Baptist Model,” a voice crying in the wilderness. I learned that too often those in power did not want to hear what I felt a need to say, but I never let that stop me.
