RICHARD YOUNG is a Native Texan, born in Fort Worth. He holds a UT-Austin Chemical Engineering degree and attended Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center-San Antonio. His Family Medicine residency was at the John Peter Smith Hospital Family Medicine Residency Program, Fort Worth. Richard is married to Pamela, his wife of 37 years, and they have three adult children, all thriving. Currently, Richard is the Associate Program Director and Research Director for the John Peter Smith Hospital Family Medicine Residency Program, Fort Worth. He also worked in emergency departments for much of his career and worked on various committees and commissions for the Texas Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Family Physicians. He has had the privilege of helping to train about 700 young family physicians over his teaching career, as well as countless medical students. He is also proud of working in an environment where they take care of vulnerable patients with all the social determinant challenges one could imagine who have nowhere else to go for care. Thus, Richard and his team are the safety net provider for Fort Worth and Tarrant County.His research includes publications in the peer-reviewed medical literature on a variety of topics on the nature of family medicine and the cost and processes of the U.S. healthcare system. Examples include innovations in family medicine residency education, the underlying drivers of cost-effective primary care, the disconnect between the U.S. medical billing rules and the actual work of family physicians, the low interest of U.S. medical students in family medicine, the impact of the toxic effect of expensive U.S. healthcare on family incomes and health insurance, and new models for improving quality in primary care. Richard is constantly disgusted at the exorbitantly expensive U.S. healthcare system and its effects on every other aspect of life in America. He published a book in 2012 called American HealthScare to educate Americans about the difficult truths we must face to bring costs down. He also started a blog of the same name at www.healthscareonline.com and will continue to speak out in an attempt to stop the slow decay of American society.
