Here’s what my About Pages were (yes, I had two active ones!).
BEFORE:
Meet Matthew Physician and writer Matthew Rehrl, MD has an undergraduate degree in Engineering with advanced degrees in both Physics and Medicine.
He is currently a double-board certified physician in Obesity Medicine and Family Practice. In his clinical capacity he has engaged face-to-face with over 100,000 patients.
In parallel to his clinical experience, over the past ten years Matthew has been involved with the interaction of social media and other online digital platforms with individual and population health.
He has pursued additional training in healthcare social media at The Mayo Clinic, and is currently working towards developing additional expertise in artificial intelligence and social media strategy through the Strategy and Innovation Executive Education Program at MIT Sloan.
Matthew has significant experience navigating the challenges medical groups face when engaging with the rapidly changing social media and is actively pursuing additional training in Healthcare 3.0 technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Semantic Web, Blockchain, Virtual and Augmented Reality, Internet of Things. In this capacity he has advised senior medical directors, board members, and C-Suite executives at a half-billion dollar healthcare organization.
Matthew has spoken frequently to groups of physicians and healthcare leadership about both the opportunities and risks of social media and related technologies. His philosophy is that the key to successful deployment of 2.0 and 3.0 technologies within healthcare is to have a clearly defined, patient-centric focus on the “why” of these technologies prior to the understanding of their “how..”Matthew received his Bachelor of Science in Engineering from The University of Colorado. Following this he received his Masters Degree in Physics from the Univesity of Texas.
While in Texas he worked worked as both an engineer at Texas Instruments in their New Business Development division, eventually rising to the level of program manager of an R&D Program for the United States Air Force.
During this time, he developed a deep interest in the the biological sciences and medicine, which eventually led to an MD from Baylor College of Medicine, and later a Double board certification in Obesity Medicine and Family Practice and is pursuing an Executive Certificate in Strategy and Innovation from MIT-Sloan.
Matthew become a partner at a large multi-speciality clinic in the Pacific Northwest where he saw and treated over 100,000 patients. During this time, he had the opportunity to experience the transition from physical chart based healthcare systems to one centering around electronic health records. This group eventually joined a global healthcare organization, giving him the sector perspective of having worked within two Fortune 500 companies – one in technology, one is healthcare.
In parallel to his clinical work, he served on various long-term C-suite committees, including the New Technology Committee and the Social Media/Marketing Committee. He also served on various new business development and recruiting efforts and a frequent contributor to the internal corporate blog, with a particular focus on relationship between healthcare innovation and culture.
Matthew is currently working on combining his systems engineering background with his extensive clinical experience and his deep interest in 2.0 and 3.0 technologies to develop an approach to solving one of the toughest future challenges facing our world today: how does health, healthcare, and the digital world interact?
Dr. Rehrl is a member of The American Academy of Family Physicians, The Cognitive Neuroscience Society, The Obesity Society and The Mayo Clinic Social Media Network.
Dr. Rehrl actively pursues meditation, yoga, mountain climbing and hiking.
And here is what my simplified, edited page has become.
AFTER:
Matthew was born in the United States Air Force Hospital located in the sub-district of Crickdale & Highworth, in the County of Wiltshire, England— not far from Stonehenge (the association with Stonehenge does not imply causation!).
In his younger years, thanks to the United States Air Force and his parents, he grew up in Middle America, including places like Minot, North Dakota, Kincheloe Air Force Base, Michigan, and Colorado Springs, Colorado.
He eventually went on to get some education—primarily in the sciences—including an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering, a Masters Degree in Physics, and an M.D.
The then newly minted Dr. Rehrl went on to see lots of patients—over 100,000—getting even more education, mostly about the human condition.
During his clinical decades, he also started to write blog posts and articles—some of which can be read on his blog.
He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his lovely wife, Alexa, and his cat “Roo” (short for his favorite philosopher, Rousseau).
He is now writing full-time and is working on his first novel—The Raven Singularity.
The latter—coming in at a lean 181 words (vs. 571 words) —is clearly better.