It Can’t Be Done?

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I saw this story on Facebook, and it checks out:.

In 1939, a graduate student named George Dantzig arrived late to his statistics class at UC Berkeley. Two problems were already written on the blackboard when he walked in.

Assuming they were the night’s homework, he copied them down and went home to work through them. It took him several days longer than usual, and he apologized to his professor for the delay.

The two problems Dantzig had casually solved as homework were actually famous unsolved theorems in statistics, ones that had stumped professional mathematicians for years.

He later apologized for the delay because they “seemed to be a little harder to do than usual,” and Neyman told him to leave the work on a desk already piled with papers.

About six weeks later, on a Sunday morning, Neyman showed up at Dantzig’s door, excited, and said he had written an introduction to one of the papers so it could be sent out for publication. Only then did Dantzig learn that the “homework” had been two famous unsolved problems in statistics. Neyman later accepted both solutions as Dantzig’s thesis. One appeared as Dantzig’s 1940 paper in the Annals of Mathematical Statistics; the second was published in 1951 as a joint paper with Abraham Wald, who had solved it independently.

Dantzig later admitted that if he’d known those problems were supposed to be impossible, he probably never would have attempted them at all.

What the hell does this have to do with Direct Primary Care?

I have been around the DPC game for a long time. I studied practices that failed and spoke at length with those physicians. I have now written 4 books on the subject and have given many keynote lectures on the topic. I have come to the conclusion that if you do NOT believe it will work for you, then it probably won’t.

You have to be all in. You cannot dabble in DPC. You must believe in the system, the methodology behind it, and that you can do it. It’s quite simple, actually. I did not say it was easy. The resources are out there. Use them. And then work your ass off to make your DPC practice successful.

Sometimes the only thing standing between a person and the impossible is simply not being told it can’t be done.

It can be done. Believe it.

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About Douglas Farrago, MD

Dr. Farrago is a retired family physician based in Forest, Virginia. Since 2021, he has run DPCnews.com, a leading resource for the Direct Primary Care (DPC) movement. He is the author of three best-selling books on Direct Primary Care: The Official Guide to Starting Your Own Direct Primary Care Practice The Direct Primary Care Doctor’s Daily Motivational Journal Slowing the Churn in Direct Primary Care (While Also Keeping Your Sanity) In 2016, Dr. Farrago conceived the idea for the Direct Primary Care Alliance and co-founded the organization alongside other pioneering DPC physicians. He is widely recognized as a leading expert in the DPC model and frequently lectures to medical students, residents, and practicing physicians on how to successfully start and run their own DPC practices. Dr. Farrago sold his Direct Primary Care practice in October 2020.