Welcome to the Stafford Family Home Page 

First, you must endure my political statement –

Article III, section 3. of the Constitution of the United States reads –

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. “

If you do not like the above inference to my political leanings go no further, you are not welcome and we have nothing to discuss. Otherwise, read on.

Make no bones about it, I am proud to fly this nation's flag and the EGA. To all those Vietnam vets, especially Marines who happen upon this page - Semper Fi!, once a Marine, always a Marine.. I am also a hard core conservative - I believe Jane Fonda is a traitor and should be hung just like a traitor. I despise anyone that portrays this country as always being the bad guy. I am a warmonger and a baby killer, meaning I would have no qualms about annihilating any one person or race of people who attempt to harm my family, my country, or me. Until all swords are beaten into plowshares I am ready and I am armed. I do not care what your skin color is nor how you dress. I will welcome you as a neighbor and a friend as long as you are willing to live in peace with me, keep your yard mowed, the trash picked up, and not attempt to foist your religion, politics, or social hang-ups upon me.

Now, the credits

At the encouragement of Peggie Guthrie, PhD, professor of biology at the University of Central Oklahoma this web site has been prepared. This is mainly so that others interested in going to medical school can get to some of my writing which was done over the course of about 10 years. This is the span of time encompassing my numerous applications as well as my 4 years of schooling leading up to my D.O. degree, and 3 years of residency

I would guess that most of those visiting this site are interested in going to medical school and have either followed a link from Older premeds, Mike Grasso's great site or  Julie Bolding's site which has many interesting and helpful links. Perhaps you have read one of my postings on various news groups. At any rate I am pleased to have you here and my thanks to Mike for the great job he has done in providing supportive information regarding the truly agonizing process of applying to medical school, and to Julie who gave me permission to link to her site. In my case, the gift of endurance paid off and for that I am thankful to that which is greater than myself.

Who I am

I am Bruce Stafford, also known to patients as Dr. Stafford. I am 60 years of age but not old by any stretch. I graduated at the age of 52 from the Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine in May 2000. In my former life I have been an sergeant in the Marine Corps, an electrical engineer, a part time college adjunct instructor in both computer science and engineering as well as an artillery officer in the Army reserve, retiring as a captain. I love to fly small airplanes and to spend time talking to people all over the world on 10 meter sideband from my pickup truck as amateur radio station KE5NT. I am also somewhat active on 2 meter FM on 52 simplex. In 1967 I was an 18-year-old Marine Corps sergeant in Vietnam. I have come a long way since then and have the scars to show for it.

You can read a draft version of my entire experience here. I have been in private practice in Choctaw, Oklahoma for several years. Initially I was solo working with OU Medical Center now I am a salaried physician with Midwest Regional Medical Center and am also on the staff of the Specialty Hospital of Midwest. I also follow patients in several nursing homes. I work with a new partner (also an OSU graduate) and we have named our clinic – Indian Meridian Family Medicine. The practice is going great. I now have over 1000 Medicaid patients on my panel and hundreds of active charts. I also see patients with commercial insurance, including Tricare.

For those of you contemplating a move into medicine please read my story first. Medicine has changed for the worse since your grand father’s day. Managed care, or better yet, mismanaged care now runs the show. As a doctor I am just a puppet in a big game of cost containment. Managed care has nothing to do with patient care. Whenever a lawyer who is about to sue you says “It’s not about the money” you can conclude only one thing. It is all about money. Managed care is a game of lawyers and money managers. Non-physicians now make the decisions about what medicines you can give a patient (through the infamous “formulary”) and what tests you can and cannot run via concomitant “prior authorization.” There are over 40 managed care/medical insurance plans in Oklahoma alone. All of whom are vying for bucks, not the interest of anyone as far as health is concerned. You will never fully appreciate the frustration you are letting yourself in for until you experience it first hand. Medical school will teach you to be compassionate and attempt to give you a good handle on disease processes. Residency will introduce you to frustration. Going into practice will introduce you to the concept of “cover your ass” and the desire to just make it out of the system with your sanity. The monster is ravaging the country and NO ONE has an answer except – “Let’s form a committee …” Folks, I love medicine and it is my passion but I have a new goal in life. I just want to live long enough to see the whole manage care system collapse into a big heap. If you think about it from an engineering standpoint (I am still and engineer) that is not such a bad way to get something fixed. Unfortunately it continues to consume resources in money and sanity which need not be the case. If you are still motivated then by all means, go for it. You might want to take a look at the nice estate we left in Piedmont, Oklahoma to go into medicine. This was a great 15 acre place and if you look closely at the picture you can see part of the small lake behind the house. If you are not prepared to make such sacrifices, medicine may not be right for you.

Truly the better part of the family

The whole medical school thing would have been impossible without the support of my wife of over 25 years. I have also received support from my two daughters, Tammy and Lisa (taken on Tammy’s 16^th birthday as I was preparing to fly them back to Paul’s Valley). I am as proud of these girls as any dad could be. They haven’t changed at all. Tammy, seen with husband Jason is an elementary school teacher, trying to teach school, while doing what parents should be doing, teaching discipline. Tammy is also the mother of my first grand daughter, with another on the way. Here is Tam during her graduation from UCO with her Master’s Degree. Lisa, seen with husband Aaron is a graduate of the Oklahoma City University School of law.  Expect to see her sitting on a judge's bench someday. Just pray you never have to stand in front of her in court. She is a bulldog in the courtroom. Lisa is married to Aaron, an Air Force Predator pilot so they spend most of their time living where the Air Force takes them. Tammy presented me with my first grandkid, Aubrey in 2004. She has “paw paw” wrapped around her little finger to be sure. We have another girl, Lilly now and ole paw paw will is doubly blessed.

Other members of the family include Cassie (the most beautiful cat in the world), a cat we adopted right after our beloved BooBoo died. Her daughter Maggie recently had to be put to sleep because she developed bone cancer, the pain of which made her miserable. Mookie, Lisa's cat was visiting for a while. After moving to Choctaw we brought on three more cats, Mindi, Noire, and Rowdy. Rowdy was a stray and was found wandering around the back of my clinic. He made his home around the ATM machine at the bank and was quite a hit with folks pulling up to make deposits and the girls working at the bank. After a month or so, and after taming him up, I just couldn’t stand it any longer so I took him to the vet, got him fixed, got his shots and took him home. He is enjoying tearing around the house pestering all the girl cats. Rowdy is my buddy. He wakes me up 2-3 times a night rubbing his head on my chin and licking my face with his file-like tongue.

We have had larger members of the family as well but they were given to a fellow horse lover after I knew I wanted to go into medicine. Those two gals were my outside buddies and I used to have a lot of fun on Saturday nights with them.

Among my prized worldly possessions are a 2000 Triumph Thunderbird and a fully restored 1961 4-passenger Cessna 172. It is GPS equipped and instrument certified and a joy to fly. I love to ride my bike and on nice days I like to take the plane up for some air work. I do not apologize for any of my passions, especially the practice of medicine.

Helpful links for those interested in becoming doctors

I have just delivered this little fellow. He is just one of the reasons I chose to become a doctor. Don't you just love him?

I started entertaining the idea of becoming a doctor when I was around 43 years old. I can now say that that was many years ago. You can read about the whole adventure - "To lift up my life a trifle" at your leisure. The work started out as personal journal entries but in time I decided to make a document available for others to read. It has been edited a number of times but is still rather crude from a professional writing standpoint. I thought I might like to publish it someday but for now is still free for the reading. It is by no means a great literary work but intended to convey my thought process at the time of each entry. Meanwhile it is here for your reading pleasure and hopefully will reinforce your own motivation to reach for your dream. In case you wonder if I've ever regretted giving up my high-paying engineering job to spend 7 more years in school to become a practicing physician - take a look at this picture of one of my patients here and wonder no more. KN was a patient I had on my pediatric rotation in Tulsa. He had Ewing’s Sarcoma and his attitude and endurance makes Survivor participants look like amateurs.

So you are having a tough time getting into medical school? Take a look at some things to think about.  When you read this article keep in mind one thing - unless a recruiter is courting you acceptance into medical school, or any other professional school for that matter is an exercise in salesmanship.

For medical students, Dr. Stafford’s H&P format, will help you on clinical rotations for those times when you must produce an H&P. I developed it while on my first medicine rotation in my third year of school.

Finally, look at my checklist on how to keep your attending happy on rounds.

The D.O. thing

My first goal from the beginning was to become a physician. This goal has been realized and I carry the professional designation D.O. My next goal has been met with graduation from an M.D. residency. Finally has come ABFM certification. If you are smart and pursue application to an Osteopathic School do not listen to the falsehood circulated by any professional group that says that in order to become licensed in the State of Oklahoma you must do an AOA approved internship. Please click on the excerpt of the Oklahoma law governing licensure of Osteopathic physicians. There is no mention of an AOA approved internship. There is mention of a rotating internship consisting of a minimum number of rotations in certain disciplines. Generally most Family Medicine programs, at least in Oklahoma have this rotating internship structure build into the program. Specialty residencies may be a problem, however I invite you to check out your State law first before listening to folks who think you have to be part of some club to become a doc. Politely put, individual states determine their requirement for physicians, M.D., or D.O., national professional organizations don’t. Here is another thought. I belong to the AMA, I do not participate in AOA politics or love ins. Here’s why. First of all, the AMA represents the vast majority of physicians in the United States and I choose an organization that can give me the best bang for the buck. Furthermore, there are movements all around the country to allow non-medical school trained “practitioners” to perform services that should be reserved for those who are properly trained to do so. For instance, eye surgery – do you want an optometrist to do surgery on your eyes? Hell no baby, give me a trained M.D. or D.O. ophthalmologist eye surgeon any day. I don’t even know a general surgeon who would do eye surgery and general surgeons are sure as hell more highly trained than any optometrist. There has even been a move afoot by chiropractors to deny D.O.s the ability to do spinal manipulation! Come on people, there is enough meat for everyone. When I hear of anyone trying to deny me the ability to perform what I’m trained for or to allow them do procedures that they learned at some weekend seminar without an underlying basis of training - this gets my goat. I feel that the AMA is more positioned to work these issues on my behalf, and for the end benefit of my patients. All I have seen from the AOA is the overwhelming desire to keep the “separate but equal” status in place that continues to keep the rift between D.O.s and M.D. brewing. Frankly, I am tired of trying to explain to my patients what is the difference between D.O.s and M.D.s. I feel that a single body representing ALL U.S. physicians would be far more productive than the present structure. We should be fighting the real enemy, managed care. This opinion puts me in hot water with some of the hard liners in the D.O. community but so be it. I am a family medicine doctor first, and second a D.O.

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