Magnus DPC in Jacksonville, FL
Pictured above is Sarfaraz Dhanji, MD with his wife of 23 years, who he says he could not have gotten through med school and residency without her support. With them at the beach enjoying life is their German Sheperd. The three off them now have more quality time together since opening Magnus Direct Primary Care.
Dr. Dhanji is a first generation Indian and emigrated to the US in 1977. He knew he wanted to be a physician ever since watching reruns of Marcus Welby, MD as a child. He completed residency in 2008 at Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah, Ga, and started his career in medical education and eventually made it to assistant program director. He and his wife moved from Savannah to Jacksonville in 2014, after burning out of medical education, but still enjoyed having medical students rotating in the practice for their clerkships.
I was considering starting a DPC practice about five years ago, but like most other physicians I was apprehensive to get out of my comfort zone and dive into new frontiers. So I remained complacent until I felt pushed to the edge when in the past year, although my patient numbers per day remained the same, there was more clicking and metric nonsense of the FFS world. I got tired of working 16 hour days, not having time with my wife and dog , or having a life outside of work. During the same time, there were more work emails about new vice-presidents of this and that, and new executive director of nonsense positions. It occurred to me that why should I be working my butt off to pay for all the added overhead for an organization that has no appreciation for what I do. I was just another cog in the wheel. So I decided to take control of my life and make a change to once again enjoy my career as I once had years ago. I’ve enjoyed setting up the practice and have learned a great deal in the process. My patients have been supportive and since opening, the patients I’ve seen love the relaxed atmosphere of patient care – the way it should be.
In his spare time, Dr. Dhanji enjoys working on cars. He’s been restoring a 1980 Corvette for the past five years and hopefully will have more time now since he once again will have a life outside of medicine.
