Buying, Growing, and Running an Independent Medical Practice with Brad Dyer, MD

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Liam Dempsey: Hey. Hey. Welcome to Start Local. I’m Liam Dempsey, and I am here with my good friend and co-host Erik Gudmundson. Hello Erik, how are you?

Erik Gudmundson: I’m doing very well. Enjoying the fall weather, that’s for sure.

Liam Dempsey: Oh, it’s great to have and great to have. And speaking of fall weather, we’ve got our networking, our fall networking event coming up at Stolen Sun in Exton.

Erik Gudmundson: I can’t believe it’s that time again. Stolen sun in Exton. As Liam just said. Wednesday, September 24th, from 5pm to 7pm.

Liam Dempsey: Folks, registration is free and open. But, sorry. Attendance is free and open, but registration is required. So surf over to our website at startlocal.co to be sure to save your space. 

Today, we are very excited to welcome Brad Dyer to the show. Brad is a board-certified pediatrician and is the founder of All Star Pediatrics, a medical group based in Exton, Pennsylvania. Brad, welcome.

Brad Dyer, MD: Thank you. And thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Erik Gudmundson: Brad, I’m excited to talk with you today here on the Start Local podcast. So thank you for coming.

Liam Dempsey: So, in the interest of transparency, I should share that All Star Pediatrics took care of my family when my little ones were growing up. And while Dr. Dyer, Brad, wasn’t their primary physician, we’ve known of the practice for, well, probably the 15, 16 years since we’ve moved to the area. So it’s a real privilege to have you on. Dr. Dyer. I’m mostly going to call you Brad, but a lot of respect for the way your practice was run and the great care your team took care of my family.

Brad Dyer, MD: Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure.

Liam Dempsey: Brad, you’re the founder of All Star Pediatrics, a private medical group delivering pediatric services from your offices right there. Next, in Pennsylvania, we know that you bought the practice from Penn Medicine back in 2001. You shared with that, shared that with us before we hit the button. But I’ve got a two-part question for you, the first part is really, what was the process of making that purchase? You know, we hear about buying companies, but what does buying a medical practice look like? And then, within that, once you owned the practice, how did you go about making it your own? What additional steps did you have to take? What was the most difficult part of transitioning from a Penn Medicine practice to All Star Pediatrics that you owned?

Brad Dyer, MD: Yeah, those are great questions. And, boy, where do I start? I think the process itself, there’s no script for it really, there, at least as far as I knew. As you had mentioned, I was an employee ofthe  University of Pennsylvania. And in the late 90s and early 2000s, hospital systems that had acquired small practices were then developed, divesting of those small practices for whatever reason. And so physicians were buying themselves back. And I was an employee of PMA Pediatrics and Clinical Care Associates, and we were affiliated with an adult group in Phoenixville as well. Phoenixville Medical Associates. They were in the process of buying themselves back from the university as well.

And so they, they didn’t make a blueprint, but they sort of were a model. We were talking with the same people about buying the practice back. So. And I decided back around that, around that time, that I would really like to run a single office myself. And so the process is really just talking to people within the PEN system and working out, you know, what that was going to look like, and in terms of office space and patients and charts and personnel and all that kind of thing. And so those are really just done, you know, over, you know, the board table. And we came up with an idea, and then they wrote it up for me. So it was, it was relatively painless in that sense and very congenial.

And interestingly enough, Kevin Mahoney, who is the, he’s the CEO of Penn Medicine now, it’s the person that I was negotiating with when I bought my practice. And we’re still friends after all these years.

Liam Dempsey: I like hearing that. So what was difficult? What did you need to do to turn it from Penn Medicine Pediatrics to All Star Pediatric?

Brad Dyer, MD: So really, it was that part of it, really just kind of making it my own, was selecting employees that I could bring along with me from the old practice to the new practice and hammering out with the University of Pennsylvania, whose patients were theirs and whose patients were mine. We allowed people free choice, other that I was taking over one of their offices of the five pediatric offices that they had. And it was just kind of the nuts and bolts of those details and so forth, was probably the most difficult part of that. And then just getting up and going to work every day  24/7 for six months as a solo practitioner. Well, I was a solo physician in the practice, and I had a part-time nurse practitioner.

Erik Gudmundson: Let’s jump to today. How big is the practice at All Star Pediatrics currently? I imagine you have doctors, clinical staff, admin staff, and more. Tell us also, perhaps this is an even more important question: how many families you serve?

Brad Dyer, MD: Yeah, so when we started it, like I said, it was just me going solo and a part-time nurse practitioner. My wife is also a pediatric nurse practitioner, and she would fill in for people who weren’t there when I couldn’t make something or whatever happen. So she was, you know, coming in. There were five employees that we brought from the old practice to stay with us, including a new office manager, three nurses and one front desk person. And yeah, there was, there’s five of us now. We are six physicians, three nurse practitioners. We. And initially we had probably 1500 patients, maybe 1500 or 2000. And now we’re 10,000 patients.

Erik Gudmundson: Wow.

Brad Dyer, MD: And I just checked with my office manager this morning. There are 41 full-time and part-time employees at the practice. So it’s a lot, mostly clinical people. I think the, I think the building staff and front desk staff are around 15, and the rest are clinical people.

Liam Dempsey: Can I ask, is that 10,000 active patients or is that 10? Wow. I thought it was 10,000 down the road. Kind of cumulative. That’s 10,000 coming into the office on a somewhat regular basis, depending on their medical n eds.

Brad Dyer, MD: Yes and no. Yeah. Which, as you know, Liam, as your kids get older, they don’t come in very often. We still implore them to come in, and they’re supposed to come in contractually once a year. That’s what we sort of work with the insurance companies to try to provide for them. It’s just health maintenance and surveillance. But yeah, if you’re coming in once a year, that’s. That doesn’t keep an office busy.

Liam Dempsey: So Brad, we greeted you as a board-certified pediatrician, which you are. Why pediatrics? You could have studied any medicine. What drew you to that?

Brad Dyer, MD: Yeah, it’s sort of, there’s a two-part answer to that. One is pediatrics, which sort of found me, and I also sort of always liked pediatrics. So growing up, I credit a lot to my mother, who was a career kindergarten and first-grade teacher, and a reading specialist for 45 years in her career. So you know, she was, got me into celebrating like every holiday and every kid, you know, coming into, you know, school functions and things like that with her all the time. But then teaching swimming and being a lifeguard, things like that. In the summers, during my summers. And I got into medical school and really, you know, my career aspiration was the last rotation. I did like, I really like this, and I really like this and that.

Brad Dyer, MD: When it came time to decide, it came down to about three different specialties, and I just had such a fantastic experience in pediatrics that I decided that was the career for me.

Erik Gudmundson: Well, as the founder of All Star Pediatrics, you have led its impressive growth for about the last two decades, if I recall correctly. So what I imagine is a competitive, difficult market when it comes to hiring and retaining top-quality clinicians. Pennsylvania, what was your secret? How have you been able to recruit and retain such professionally accomplished physicians?

Brad Dyer, MD: It’s another great question, and I’ll try not to be too long-winded in my answer, but I think it’s really, really about providing care in a wonderful environment. So it’s about quality and it’s about people treating people well, treating people appropriately and so forth and just doing our job as best we can. And we have a real culture that we established from day one at the practice that we respect people. We, you know, we value their presence, we try to work with families and patients and so forth just to do the best medical care that we know how. And that really pervades our every interaction. So as people come to visit the practice, you know, physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, all the way down the line, they get that sense that it’s a special place and we’re there to help people as best we can. So that just has carried through. So, from being that small, we called it the tiny team when we started, to the larger team that we are now, it’s still the same. You walk in the door and people say hi and welcome and try to make, you know, children comfortable.

Liam Dempsey: Yeah, they sure do. They sure do. Insurance is an ingrained aspect of healthcare in America. How does navigating the health insurance industry affect an independent practice like All Star Pediatrics?

Brad Dyer, MD: That’s great. And another difficult question. It’s so complicated, and I don’t know.

Liam Dempsey: I feel like we could probably have a podcast about that alone.

Brad Dyer, MD: Exactly, exactly. The insurance industry is just so complicated, and I’m not going to get myself in trouble by saying negative things about the industry, but it’s a challenge for us. It’s a challenge to, you know, there are just so many different rules and so many different considerations. And so forth. And there are different, you know, reimbursement models and all this sort of thing that the only, there’s no manual for this. It’s just, you know, coming together with other like-minded people. So we’re involved with local, state, and national groups that are independent practices still. They’re navigating these systems together and we try to share our knowledge and figure things out.

But people, as a general rule, have no idea how complicated reimbursement is. So that if I see a child for an earache, I could get five different reimbursements from five different insurance companies just based on by contract with them. It’s not like a set fee where you go into a store and buy something, and we may not get reimbursed for that at all. So it’s just knowing how to do what we do and so forth. And also that same visit, that insurance company may pay me one rate and pay another affiliated practice or a hospital practice a very different rate. And so that’s also very challenging for us because typically, as a small independent local practice, we have the least bargaining power of anybody that’s out there. But we do our best. We, you know, we pay our bills and we try to pay our people well. And at the end of the day, I hope we’re all happy.

Liam Dempsey: I like that. I’m curious, when you said you can get five different reimbursement rates from five different insurance companies for simple math, is it something like one insurance company may pay you $5, another might pay you 20 and the other might pay you 200, know, percentage wise, is it, I’m not saying that those are accurate amounts, but like, is that the kind of the wild range or is it 5, 7, 9 and 11 kind of thing?

Brad Dyer, MD: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I like your low numbers because it kind of underscores primary care right now.

Liam Dempsey: I just can’t do complicated math in my head while I talk to you, probably.

Brad Dyer, MD: Within 10 to 30% difference or, you know, if not more, but knowing also. So we always, you know, our, our charges are the same. We have a charge for a procedure or a visit, right? And that, that is our charge. But then what we get paid, you know, and then what you have to accept getting paid, all these sorts of things is, and you have to accept rates based on, you know, if you want a contract with independence, you know, Blue Cross, you accept their payment rate.

Erik Gudmundson: And not to be crass about it, but you need to get paid, and you need to get paid so you can continue delivering the service and attracting the talent that you attract to deliver high-quality patient care. I wanted to focus on that patient care for a moment. And part of this comes from your website. And the reason why it comes from your website, Liam, is very marketing-focused focused and I’m very literal computer science focused. So one of the things we do in prep for these interviews is read people’s websites. And for better or worse, sometimes it’s a surprise, but we read on there that I’m going to quote, our philosophy of medicine is best described as conservative and academic. So tell me in plain words here on this podcast, how does that philosophy translate into your practice of medicine, and what does it mean for your patients?

Brad Dyer, MD: Yeah, it’s a great question. It seemed to make so much sense when we wrote it back 20 or 25 years ago. No, it still does. So we are very academically based. We pride ourselves on our academics. So if you look at the, you know, academic backgrounds of the, of the physicians in our practice, I mean, they’re coming from the University of Pennsylvania, they’re coming from Johns Hopkins, they’re coming from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Nemours, you know, just incredible medical institutions and medical schools and undergraduate schools as well. And we pride ourselves on that and staying up to that. There’s nothing, I think, worse than, I’ll get into my medical philosophy later, but there’s nothing worse than being the guy who trained 30 years ago.

And I’m still doing it the way. Because we’ve always done it that way kind of thing. We absolutely get together and we talk about things and new changes that have come out ,and new medications that have come out, and we try to also all be on the same page in terms of medical decisions that we make. And by being very academic, it’s exactly that and being evidence-based. Absolutely.

So we feel like, you know, we all fall back on that as our, as our guiding factor. And yeah, conservative is maybe not the right term, but we’re also, you know, somebody walks in with a particular problem, we try to talk to them about it, we try to listen to the problem, and we try to work through that with them and not sort of say, you know, we can try this, and then if this doesn’t work, something else might work and so forth, or we might need to go do this and that and the other thing. But we’re not going to send you out immediately for like five tests and six specialists and all that kind of thing for something that we can typically handle.

So conservative is that we like to, you know, we like to listen, we like to see things early, but we would like to let things play out a little bit and not, you know, kind of fly off the handle with every little thing that goes wrong. And I. Conservative is the term that we use for that.

Erik Gudmundson: No, that definitely answers my question.

Liam Dempsey: So, thank you for explaining.

Brad Dyer, MD: I guess the other aspect of that, Eric, is trying not to over-treat. So we try not to, you know, we like to let things kind of work themselves out and not, you know, treat every, certainly not every cold with an antibiotic, but every illness doesn’t ask you need a medication, you know, doesn’t need a prescription or doesn’t need a referral.

Liam Dempsey: Well, building on from that, in our Internet-fueled and now even AI-fueled climate where medical and healthcare guidance sometimes becomes contentious, controversial, or even political, how do you and your colleagues ensure that you’re delivering the best medical care you can? It’s kind of building on the same question we asked. What’s your philosophy? But in terms of how does that plays out, how do you stay up to date? How are you deciding when there might be one camp saying medically proceed this way and the other camp saying medically proceed a different way? What does that look like for your team, for you folks?

Brad Dyer, MD: Yeah, I think that it’s a multi-pronged approach, if you will. So first and foremost, it’s going to be evidence-based, like things that are out there in the medical literature that have been tried and proven and shown to work. And we’re going to stick with those things always. As those things change from time to time, we’re going to try to keep up with those changes as they go along. But we’re also going to be relying on our experience as clinicians. Like you said, I’ve been practicing for over 30 years. Dr. Rob Nacheski, who was my first partner, has been at it for 22 years now.

There’s a lot of cumulative experience in the practice. We still come, and I grab my younger colleagues and bring them in a room and say, What do you think about this rash or whatever? That’s all part of what we do together. So it’s just, it’s sticking with known things, not going with trendy things, not using the latest medication just because they’re advertising it on Jeopardy or something like that, and really going with what we’re comfortable with.

Erik Gudmundson: Before we hit the record button today, you shared that you turned over the leadership of All Star Pediatrics to your colleagues a few years ago. So let me take a moment to pause and let you look back on your work. And if you think about that. What about all-star pediatrics do you consider to be your most meaningful accomplishment?

Brad Dyer, MD: Yeah, that’s a big one. So when I started the practice, it was admittedly very entrepreneurial. I thought I could do a better job than was being done, and I thought I had a vision of creating a practice that could be, you know, sort of a community resource essentially. And so I would say that my, my biggest contribution, really my, my biggest achievement is having established that now, having established a practice we’ve established, I just, it, it blows me away and I’m not going to take, you know, anywhere near the majority of credit for that other than, you know, being the founder and then, you know, initiating that ball rolling and then, you know, it’s attracting, you know, high quality people all the way. You know, all the way, and you know, providing great care to practice, just building on its own momentum as things have gone along. And now, you know, 10,000 patients and not a relatively, you know, giant community is, you know, we are sort of a pillar of the community and I’m very proud of that. And, and I think we’re still doing the wonderful work that we started out doing over 20 years ago. So that, and you know, having, you know, established ourselves as, as that resource for the community, but also as a small business.

Brad Dyer, MD: I mean, we’re, that’s a lot of people to employ over all those years. One of the things we didn’t talk about earlier when I started the practice was coercing or convincing the employees who came with me from the old practice. I had nothing, you know, I had, I had a loan for the practice. Having those people come along with me and make that leap with me as well. And now having, you know, provided, you know, employment and jobs and a wonderful work environment for all those people for all those years is just, is another just crowning achievement that we’ve been able to do. So it’s great.

Liam Dempsey: Yeah, it’s an impressive accomplishment. Congratulations on that. Let’s discuss board certification. What differentiates a board-certified physician from a non-certified physician?

Brad Dyer, MD:  We’ll start to answer that by saying, so what does it take to practice medicine in Pennsylvania? So you have to go to a medical school for four years. You have to pass three different qualifying examinations. There is, you know, part one, part two, part three. One comes in your preclinical years of medical school. One comes in your last year of medical school. And the third part comes when you’re a practicing physician in a supervised, accredited program. So, a residency program for most people. So after you finish two years of that post-medical school or post-MD program, you can practice medicine, you can hang a shingle out and you can do, and you can really do whatever you want to do at that point.

Within the balance of medical license, what does board certification mean? It means at least one additional year of residency. So you have to finish three years of an accredited program within your specialty. So within, for me, within pediatrics, and then you have to, you have to pass a certifying examination for the National Board of Pediatrics. And they provide their own. And this is a separate test from the other certifying examinations, which are broad-spectrum general tests. This is pediatric-specific. It’s quite challenging, actually. It used to be two days, and I think they might have pared it down to one day, but it’s still basically all of pediatrics that they deem that you need to know in order to practice medicine.

And then there’s also ongoing continuing medical education requirements. So it’s kind of a long answer, but we still have to, you know, be assertive. We still have to continue medical education for the state, our state medical licenses, as well as for the board certification to keep that up and ongoing. It’s not as if, you know, once, once you’re a board diplomat, you’re always a board diplomat. You need to, you know, keep those up in various, various ways.

Erik Gudmundson: I never knew the answer to that question, so I appreciate your answer there. That’s like a, it’s a long answer, but yeah, no, that’s a, that’s a very accurate answer.

Brad Dyer, MD: And that goes. So every medical specialty has its own board. So the, you know, the boards, the internal medicine or family practice or, you know, obstetrics and gynecology, everybody has their own board examinations and everybody does it a little bit differently. And they have their ongoing, you know, requirements and so forth. So, which is a great thing, I think, because it’s something that we need. So when you walk into an office of a board-certified ear, nose, and throat doctor, you know that they’re not just practicing medicine the way they did 30 years ago. Hopefully, they’re keeping that up.

Erik Gudmundson: Today’s an unusual day because Liam is asking the technical questions that I want answered. And I’m about to ask a very emotional question or potentially an emotional question, maybe. Brad, you’ve been providing pediatric medical care to children in Chester County for over 30 years. And so I would imagine you’re probably treating the children of people who came to you when they were patients as when they were children. What is that like as a physician?

Brad Dyer, MD: It’s fantastic, as you can imagine. I mean, this has been something that it was coming for a while. Like I was having patients bring me their children for a while, but I hadn’t had the experience of having a person who I’d held in my arms in the nursery when they were like, you know, a new literally like, you know, just born or, you know, in the first two or three days of life bringing me their children. But now I’ve had that happen several times and it’s just, it’s just fantastic. It’s the, everything you would expect of that. So, we call them grand patients and we.

Erik Gudmundson: I love it.

Brad Dyer, MD: I love it. It’s. And it’s a, you know, hopefully a testament and certainly a compliment to us and the work that we’ve done, but also a testament to that job that we’re all about the kids, and they know that relationship that we provide, and they’re coming back. That is one of the things about pediatric care, which is wonderful, is you get to see kids grow up and given the right circumstances, they come and see me for every one of their, well, check visits from months to years to teenage years to college. We take care of children from birth to age 21. And it’s just great as that relationship changes over time. It’s heartwarming. And then having them bring their children back is clearly icing on the cake.

Liam Dempsey: Yeah, I can imagine that. I can imagine that. And speaking of your position of watching children grow up and then bringing in the next generation of children, you’ve been privileged to hold a front row seat where you can observe the evolution of generational change. Right? You’re talking about it now. Mom brings in a child, and then a 20-some-odd-year-old child brings in their child. Some say a generation is shaped by how they rebel against their parents. Generation trends and stereotypes of Gen X and millennials have been thoroughly discussed all over the Internet. So we’re going to ask you to tell us about what you’re seeing with the Gen Alpha kids.

And for clarification, those are children born between 2010 and 2024. And to ask you to see into the future. Brad, what generational changes can you predict that we’ll see with the generation of kids born this year and beyond?

Brad Dyer, MD: I first have to admit that I’m really bad about identifying those generations and the labels that we put on the various years. And I tried to say, like, what’s Gen X? And also I’m not a generalizer like that in terms of like these people are all this is their thinking, and so forth. But in terms of what we’ve seen, in terms of, I guess, overall differences in thinking and approach to childbearing and child raising, rearing, you know, for the last 20 years, I. It’s hard to say. I mean, I think clearly the Internet has, has provided people with a lot of information and so forth, and how they use that information is really crucial. And there’s a lot of really good information out there on the Internet. There’s also a lot of bad information. There’s also the second-guessing that we get with parents, like, because there’s so much information out there, and because they put pressure on themselves, they feel like they should be, they should know it all, they should be better parents.

They should, you know, be able to take care of this themselves or whatever, or they should, or I should be worrying that about something that they read about on the Internet that I may not be thinking about. So it’s really how to process that information that we’ve seen a change in sort of over time, and I think it’s, you know, I think it’s getting better. I think that this next generation, and we’ve seen it in our patients as well, so that, that really is a reflection on the parents, but you know, in patients as well, in terms of how they’re interacting with social media and so forth. It may be optimistic of me, but I’m hoping that what we’re. There have been some trends recently where there’s a little bit more of a, let’s take this with a grain of salt, and this is a little bit too much, and how much is too much screen time and how much is too much social media content and how much are we following things down rabbit holes, and so forth. And I think there’s been a bit of, I won’t call it a backlash, but I think there’s been a bit of withdrawing from just all that information that we can absorb. We’re going to try to absorb.

Erik Gudmundson: Have you ever written a script like Stay off social media or Limit your social media to so many hours?

Brad Dyer, MD: Well, limit your social media because one of my big things about technology in general is that we need to really not just ignore things that come along, but we need to learn how to, you know, harness it and use it. With probably artificial intelligence being the latest. It’s not going away. Right? So. And rather than completely not use it, we need to learn how to work with it and, you know, good and bad, and not use it all the time. The other thing I’ll say is I Think that people are recognizing the value of human interaction and human-to-human contact. And as syrupy as that may sound, I think it’s very real. I think that people interacting with their screens too much and not learning to have a conversation, not learning how to go out socially, all these sorts of things, the value of in school, learning the value of attending summer camps, the value of all sorts of those sorts of interactions, the value of going out and hiking, interacting with nature, being outside.

All these things you’re seeing people yell more and more loudly about. And people are coming around to that. And I’m very heartened by that. So I’m hoping that that trend of too much information is going to come back to us and help us put it in perspective.

Erik Gudmundson: As much as I enjoy technology, I feel very fortunate that I am in Gen X and use a stereotype. I know how to turn technology off. I don’t feel like I’m going through a complete withdrawal. So it’s, it feels good to be able to turn it off and disappear into nature for a little while. Well, let me ask you more about that community interaction question because we’ve certainly focused a lot on your role there at All Star Pediatrics, but you’re also an active board member on the Chester County Food Bank board. So tell us what your work on that board entails.

Yeah, that’s a great question. So I’m going to preface my answer by saying that, and you had alluded to, you know, I’m no longer a partner, also pediatrics. Six years ago, I started the process of selling my practice to my partners. And part of the reason for doing that was to have time to do things that I’d always wanted to do. One which was, you know, to give back to my community in a more direct, hands-on way. And so I started selling practice six years ago. I went from practicing full-time medicine to practicing two days a week. And I always say that I called my bluff and I just dove in. So I started getting involved with the food bank as a board member.

Brad Dyer, MD: So what that involves is really, number one, educating ourselves on, you know, the magnitude of the problem of food insecurity in our community. And I guess educating ourselves about what resources are available in the community to our, you know, to our neighbors, to everybody in the community. And then really learning backward and forwards what the Chester County Food Bank was all about. And my every interaction with the food bank has been overwhelming, and it’s drawn me in. The more I learned about it, the more I got drawn in. I started out as a board member and, after four years became board chair of that organization. I’m now serving as the incapacity as the immediate pastor of the organization. But it’s what you would expect.

It’s board meeting is interaction with the CEO, its interaction with staff to a limited degree and other members and just evaluating programs that we have and how can we best do the job that we’ve charged ourselves to do.

Liam Dempsey: Yeah, we had Andy out, the CEO of the Food bank, back on the show in August of last year and she talked a lot about food insecurity and the work that the Food bank is doing. So folks, listening, I invite you to go back and listen to that episode with Andy. We’ll go ahead and link to it over on the show. Notes at startlocal Co.

Brad Dyer, MD: I heard that at the time that it came out, actually, Liam and I, she. Andy is a dynamo and she is. She has helped transform that organization into a. A lean, mean, you know, efficient, incredible resource for our community, which has been, you know, she really took the reins and never looked back. So it’s everything. It is, you know, a lot of it. We ascribe to Andy’s vision and effort and so forth. You know, taking the vision initially, moving that forward.

Brad Dyer, MD: But she is incredible.

Liam Dempsey: Yeah, we interview a lot of leaders and nonprofits on our show here. And to a person, everyone that I’ve met that knows Andy and has had direct contact with Andy just is the biggest fan. Like just an amazing leader, an amazing person. And what a win for the Food bank and for Chester county that she’s at the helm there. So big shout-out to Andy for the work she’s doing.

Brad Dyer, MD: Yes, absolutely.

Erik Gudmundson: And another recent.

Brad Dyer, MD: Go ahead. I’m sorry.

Erik Gudmundson: Oh, no, I was. Sorry. I was gonna say that the Food bank is full of wins lately because we also just scored Katie Walker from A lot of people know her through the Greater Westchester Chamber of Commerce and absolutely love her. So we’re excited to see what she does for the.

Brad Dyer, MD: She’s now our director of development. And yeah, some people were not so happy with us that we were able to get Katie because she’s so good. They’re big shoes to fill, so we’re looking forward to working with her in that event.

Liam Dempsey: Definitely winning over at the Food Bank. Go ahead.

Brad Dyer, MD: Andy’s made being on the board just a pleasure and just a real educational experience for all of us around the board. And our board is now. We’re right around 20 people and just. It’s a very active board. It’s a very hands-on Board. To answer your question that you asked a little bit ago, we get out there in the community. I think, you know, having your presence at a food cupboard or a food pantry or food kitchen, you know, makes all the difference to both the volunteers there as well as to people, neighbors in need that are coming and seeing that you’re out there and you’re trying to. You’re trying to do your best for them. So we do lots of different community events and so forth, and it’s a wonderful organization.

Liam Dempsey: Brad, you shared that you began transitioning your practice to give you the time and the space to take an active role in board leadership or board involvement. I’m wondering if you can share any suggestions with listeners who might want to do the same, knowing that not everyone has a practice to sell, but there’s still ways to get involved. And I kind of wonder, like, what, aside from having the time to do so, what was your process? What worked for you to find the right organization and then to get involved in that? Is there anything that you could share that might benefit other folks, considering how they might play a more active role in the organizations for causes that matter to them?

Brad Dyer, MD: Yeah, it’s a great question, Liam. And I think all along, just having the conversations with people, talking about what people do with their free time and who they work with and. And finding out about organizations in your area, you know, certainly the Chamber and the Community foundation are great resources for a number of different groups and so forth to get involved. But then just if you have that passion about a particular cause and so forth, just, you know, giving that group a call and talking with them, and even if you don’t like, you know, quite honestly, the food bank was something I heard about and I was interested in, but it was really a friend that called up and said, you know, we’re looking for more help here. Would you get involved? It was really me. It wasn’t like I sought the organization out prior to that, but it was just a fit for me. So it’s really both. And the other answer to that question is just pick a few or pick one or two or three organizations to get involved with and see what you like about them and what you don’t like about them.

Volunteer in the smallest way. You know, come to the food bank and pack, you know, boxes on a Saturday morning and, and see what that’s about. And you hear about the organization or, you know, go to the, you know, one of the Nina Kini kitchens, there’s all. Or whatever organization that may be, and just starting, like don’t, you know, don’t overthink it. Like just get out there and do it. And then you can, you can go back or you cannot go back or you could go to the next one. But if that’s a desire of yours, I would really say go with their planet and dive in.

Erik Gudmundson: That’s wonderful advice. And There are over 400 active nonprofits in Chester County. So if people want to get involved, there’s a spot for them to get involved. No doubt.

Brad Dyer, MD: Absolutely.

Erik Gudmundson: Well, let’s talk about you personally for a moment. You do a lot professionally, you do a lot for the community, but for hobbies, you stay pretty busy as well. You’re into woodworking, you’re into fix up old vehicles. Tell me about a project you’re working on right now. And you know what, what project do you have your eye on next?

Brad Dyer, MD: Wow. So the old vehicle thing kind of fell into my lap, but kind of not. I brought it on myself. And Eric, that sounds like an excuse.

Liam Dempsey: Already, but go ahead.

Brad Dyer, MD: As you know, Eric, my wife grew up on a, on a horse farm in Chester Springs that her 100-year-old father is still living at and has kept her horses over there for her entire life and still has two horses over there. And we’re in the process of renovating that property in hopes that one day we will move in there. A neighbor down the road who passed away a couple of couple years ago now, year and a half ago, had a 1929 Chevrolet Stake bed truck undercover for the last 60 years that some crazy wild air in me bought and, and towed over to the farm. So I’m in the process of renovating that and that kind of started that was kindled by I rehabbed a 1949 formal Cub Little Tiny tractor, a 10-horsepower tractor that was her grandfather’s, that came from New Jersey and that rekindled that old auto shop thing in me. And that’s what I think gave me the false belief that I could rehab this ’29 Chevy. So yeah, my hands are greasy in my, and I’m doing that with a friend because I don’t have the knowledge really to sit down with Emanuels and say, oh, we need to change the U joint and the differential. So he’s providing that for me and I’m providing the brawn and the enthusiasm that. And then also at that, at the farm you mentioned that I’ve done some woodworking and, and I’ve, I’ve taken one of the outbuildings and transformed it into a small wood shop.

And making little things, I tell people, mostly make sawdust, but making, you know, making birdhouses and other little projects like that, and cutting boards and stuff like that. It’s just a very. It’s a very mindful and fun experience. Great hobby.

Liam Dempsey: You were born, raised, and educated through your medical degree out in California. You’re a California boy, and you came to Philly in the early 90s, if my memory and my reading was right. But you’ve been here ever since. So the question really is this. How does California living compare to Chester County, Pennsylvani,a living?

Brad Dyer, MD: It’s a little different. That’s just.

Liam Dempsey: You think.

Brad Dyer, MD: Well, there are many ways that I can answer that for you. So I grew up in Southern California, down in the Los Angeles area, Long Beach area, about 4 miles inland from the coast in a housing track that, if you remember the show, The Wonder Years, that was me growing up. I mean, it was really. Although that kid was a little bit, you know, younger than me, but. And I told my parents I was never, you know, going back there just because I didn’t like, you know, the cement and all the building and all that kind of stuff. You can drive for 100 miles or more, and you see literally, like an open field of anything. Then I did my education up in the San Francisco Bay area, and I was up there for 13 years finishing medical school, and then I came to the Children’s Hospital, Philadelphia to train. And that’s where I met my wife, who was born and raised in Chester Springs in this farmhouse that we’re redoing.

So you fill in the details there. Very different. But I also. I always. I always really enjoyed, you know, open space outside, you know, open country, doing all this sort of stuff. So when Anne first started bringing me out here to her family farm, I was like, oh, my God, this is great. Gone to heaven. So, yeah, here we are all these years later.

I miss some things about. Yeah, I don’t miss the crowds of Southern California or the kind of the traffic and the fast pace of that lifestyle, but I really do miss the coast and the mountains and the redwoods and Yosemite and all these sorts of things. That sort of access is really fun, but those are places that we can all go visit.

Erik Gudmundson: Now, if I put together the pieces of everything you’ve said today, I suspect I know the answer to this question, but I’ll let you fill in the details. One thing I’ve observed, because I’m not native to Chester County either, and, like, what I’ve noticed is that many, many folks in Chester County ride horses. And I know that you ride horses. So how did you get started with that hobby? Or to answer to ask it a little bit more precisely. For those who’ve been paying attention here to this interview, what kept you in that hobby and what really inspired you to stick with it?

Brad Dyer, MD: Really?

Erik Gudmundson: My wife, plain and simple, all the way.

Brad Dyer, MD: Anne’s been riding horses and being involved in fox hunting groups and things like that her entire life. And so that was kind of part of the whole package and came out and started riding with her and I just, I love it. I love being out, you know, in the change of season, regardless of what the weather is, you know, you know, getting out and, and seeing, you know, seeing the countryside on the back of a horse is a, is something that you’ll never forget, and it’s really, it’s wonderful. And I’m a terrible horseback rider, and Eric, we’ll ride together one of these days. But, but I, but I stay on and, and I just enjoy it. I’m not going to be that, you know, that jumper or anything like that. I just like getting outside.

Liam Dempsey: Yeah, I love it. I think staying on is a pretty successful horseback rider. What I’m seeing on social media is anything.

Brad Dyer, MD: It is, it’s a good goal. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Liam Dempsey: So the question I have is, you talked about that All Star Pediatrics is now up to 10,000 patients. Makes me wonder, is the practice hiring? Are you looking for additional help either at the clinician level or admin and if so, where can folks learn more?

Brad Dyer, MD: Yeah, so it depends. There’s sort of a pace and so forth to these things. And so we’re always looking for good people, as any good business person would say. We’re always looking for good people to fill in various roles. Right now we have just hired a new nurse practitioner who will be starting with us in November, December, sort of time frame that we’re always looking for great nurses and so forth. And even though we tend to retain, you know, along with our growth, we always have, you know, more needs and then there’s always turnover of course in our, in the thankfully low, but in our employees and in our staff and so forth. So yeah, so that if somebody’s looking for a, you know, a clinical or non-clinical role with a fantastic, great business. Yeah, just go, go to our website which is allstarpedes.com and, and there’ll be links there.

Erik Gudmundson: Now I have a question for you that we like to ask all of our guests. It tends to be one of the harder Questions, I think. But tell us about a business or a nonprofit that more folks should know about.

Brad Dyer, MD: I could go on for an hour without one. I will start. So I’ll start with the Chester County Food Bank, which is obviously near and dear to my heart. I will. And what people kind of maybe know or maybe don’t know about food insecurity in Chester County and the Food Insecurity Network is that the Chester County Food bank is the only food bank in Chester County. And our job is to source food and deliver it to the over 100 partner organizations in Chester County. We serve over 40,000 people a year who are food insecure. And so our organization is driving the tractor-trailers to the pantry which might be open one day a week or two days a week, those sorts of things for just several hours and so forth.

And we time the deliveries and all that kind of thing. And then there are larger pantries like Westchester Food Cupboard and Phoenixville Area Community Service Packs in Phoenixville who are open like a store and they’re open five days a week, six days a week. So learning those organizations and so forth, I want to give them all a shout-out. And certainly the food makes is near and dear to my heart. One other organization that I really like to mention is a group called Better Days Ahead, which is a group that’s serving a homeless population in Chester County, or unhouse,d I think is the appropriate current term. And they are phenomenal. And their CEO goes out to the site with people and is really trying to provide them essentials, trying to provide them with cell phones, trying to provide them with non-perishable foods, which is something the Food bank prides itself on. Perishable foods.

Unhoused people who don’t have refrigeration and don’t have kitchens, don’t have that, you know, don’t have that facility. So they’re doing incredible work and just getting out into the community where they need to be. If there’s somebody that, you know, looks like they’re in trouble, you can call them up and they’ll send somebody to the site and try to, you know, try to give them safety, give them security. The organization started out as a. Just providing sleeping bags and tents for people. And we’ve now branched out through a partnership with the Food Bank to try to provide them with non-perishable food as well. So Better Days Ahead. And I think it’s better. BDA.org or something along those lines. They’re based in Phoenixville and they’re phenomenal.

Erik Gudmundson: Great answers. Thank you very much for that, and thank you for all the work you do with those nonprofits. They do important work here in the county.

Brad Dyer, MD: The last two things I’ll say too, while you have me going is Community Volunteers in Medicine and Phoenixville Free Clinic are medical clinic providers for people without medical insurance. And either those organizations, you can, you know, you register with them, you can sign up, and you can get medical care free of charge, vaccinations, lab work, all these sorts of things. And those are two organizations that I actually also volunteer with as a clinician, very part-time, but they’re super worthwhile and wonderful, wonderful groups of people.

Erik Gudmundson: You are staying very busy, and the community appreciates that. That’s great. Brad Dyer, founder and former managing partner with All Star Pediatrics. Where can listeners connect with you to learn more about what you’re up to? And also, you gave the website of All Star Pediatrics earlier, but is there any other else they should connect with All Stars?

Brad Dyer, MD: That’s really it, Eric. I think that’s. I have a LinkedIn page that I still don’t really know how to use, and every once in a while, I get my notifications and so forth. And it’s something that I established as part of becoming the board chair at the food bank. And they promised me that they would help me like manage it, but I just like too many other, too many other distractions, I think. But yeah, really on, really on our website and then on the LinkedIn page.

Liam Dempsey: Brett, thanks so much for joining us today. Really enjoyed our conversation. Really, really enjoyed all your insights. Thank you. Thank you.

Brad Dyer, MD: Very good. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity, guys. It’s really, it’s wonderful and I think that we live in a wonderful community and it’s nice to be able to give back to that community and be part of it. So hopefully we can inspire people to do the same.

Erik Gudmundson: It was wonderful having you today, Brad. And thank you also to my co-host, Liam Dempsey. I’m Erik Gudmundson. 

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