David Meir-Levi, DO

One day I’ll be a patient in a critical health situation, and I will want to be treated with respect, consideration and courtesy. And I’ll want to be able to receive as much information as I can to make good decisions about my health care. That’s how I look at everything I do when I interact with a patient. Always in the in the back of my mind is how I would want to be treated. I know how important it is as a physician to give a smile, a touch of the hand, and help people deal with a difficult situation that may be moving fast.

I have always have been very hands-on. I enjoy manual activities, whether repairing cars or building things. So I always connected the medical profession with surgery. It’s the only specialty I was ever interested in because it allowed me to fix things with my hands. I also had an uncle and a number of cousins who were physicians, and I had volunteered in hospitals, which allowed me to see the life of medical professionals.  It was always my goal to have this combination of the manual rewards of repairing things, the social responsibility of caring for people and the intellectual satisfaction of solving problems. 

My wife and I were heavily involved with our daughters as we raised them, and have spent a lot of time driving to soccer practices and games from youth through college. As we transition from that time of our lives, I’ve been getting a little more involved with civic activities such as elections. But perhaps my biggest connection to the community is my patients. I recently ran into someone I’d had as a patient in the 1990s. I’d done a lung resection for cancer, and she’s now 89 and a wonderful lady. Medicine is a community investment because you treat people from the community and make yourself available at odd hours and on odd days of the week. It’s incredibly rewarding.

Most of my immediate family – my mother, father, brother – are classical musicians, and I listen to a lot of classical music in the car or during workouts. But I also like jazz, blues, ethnic – really all kinds of music. I also love theater and opera, the outdoors, art museums and traveling to see different cultures, lifestyles and people. Whenever my wife and I get an opportunity to enjoy something that interests us, we try to take it in.