Episode Details

Dr. Brian Juan toured with rock bands and played dueling piano bars for more than a decade before he became a family doctor. Three months into Metronome Family Medicine, his solo Direct Primary Care practice in Longmont, Colorado, he talks about what it actually took to make the leap.

Dr. Brian Juan spent most of his 20s and 30s on the road, first touring with rock and jam bands, then playing dueling pianos in bars around Boulder and Denver. His dad was a Filipino immigrant physician who ran a small practice out of the family's basement in rural New Jersey, so medicine was always somewhere in the background. It wasn't until a bar owner called him one day in 2007 and told him not to bother coming in, because they were putting in a mechanical bull instead of pianos, that he actually went back to school. He was 33.

In this episode, host Dr. Maryal Concepcion catches up with Dr. Juan three months into running Metronome Family Medicine, his solo Direct Primary Care practice in Longmont, Colorado, built around midlife vitality and longevity. They get into what actually kept him at his corporate job for nine years, and it wasn't inertia, it was real financial fear. They cover the savings buckets system that finally got him to leave, the pro forma he built in one night with another DPC physician, and how his years as his old clinic's go-to guy for AI documentation tools are shaping the practice he's building now. And yes, they get into the music too.

In this episode:

• Growing up inside a Filipino immigrant physician's basement practice in rural New Jersey, throat swabs, wart removals, the whole deal
• Choosing a band over med school when "doctor" was basically the only acceptable answer growing up
• A decade-plus on the road, rock and jam bands in his 20s, then years as a dueling pianist around Boulder and Denver
• The 2007 phone call that ended his music career, when the bar replaced the pianos with a mechanical bull
• Going back to school at 33, starting with intro chemistry, then medical school at the University of Colorado
• The student debt, foreclosure, and bankruptcy that shaped every decision that came after
• Nine years in corporate medicine and the real reason he stayed
• What finally made leaving possible: a financial planner and a savings buckets system
• Building the pro forma that got him a small business loan he still hasn't touched
• Running 500 AI scribe notes in a pilot that asked for ten, and what that taught him about his own tech stack
• 90-minute new patient visits, InBody body composition scans, and relearning how to take a manual blood pressure
• Precepting medical students in a Direct Primary Care clinic through CU's Longitudinal Integrated Curriculum
• The boundaries that keep it sustainable: no calls after 5pm, weekly hikes with his wife, actually writing music again
• His 25-year collaboration with Colorado Rock and Roll Hall of Fame bluesman Otis Taylor, and why he still plays with Docs That Rock

CONGRATULATIONS Dr. Oropeza!!!! Learn more about Oropeza Family Health at https://oropezahealth.com/

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