Zuli Direct: Putting the Focus Back on the Patient

Zuli Direct officially opened on August 1 in Mishawaka, IN. After practicing medicine in the traditional healthcare system, Dr. Bajuyo and Dr. Lindenman realized that patients were being treated as numbers, not a people. With the aim of bringing patient care back to the foreground, Zuli Direct Care strives to put the focus back on the patient – as it should be!

Dr. Bajuyo is a Board-Certified family physician who is also Board-Certified in Lifestyle Medicine and is a Menopause Society Certified Practitioner (MSCP). She is a graduate of Indiana University School of Medicine. She grew up in South Bend, Indiana and decided to return to South Bend for residency at Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center. Her roots and her large extended family are in South Bend, and there is really no place she’d rather raise her kids.

After 16 years as a fee-for-service family physician, Dr. Bajuyo was struggling to find any joy in her profession. She still enjoyed her patients and did not want to give up being a doctor, but she could not continue practicing medicine the way insurance companies and administrators demanded.

Dr. Bajuyo is a mother of five children (wow!) and DPC has also allowed her to be more present in their lives. She had missed out on many special moments of theirs and, thankfully, she doesn’t have to carry that burden anymore with DPC!

Beginning a new DPC practice is both rewarding and hard, and she is grateful to be on this journey with her friend and co-owner, Dr. Elizabeth Lindenman. They had worked together for 16 years at their previous employer, so she couldn’t imagine starting this new chapter with anyone else!

Our community is suffering from lack of access to quality care and we are excited to bring them an affordable, exceptional alternative! Pivoting to Direct Primary Care restores my joy in medicine and now allows me to be the physician I am- one who spends time with patients, assists them through health challenges, and guides them to live their best, healthiest lives. 

Dr. Lindenman grew up in South Bend, Indiana and graduated from Indiana University Medical School in 1998. After completing her residency at St Vincent’s Hospital in Indianapolis, she practiced for a few years in Carmel, Indiana. Once she had her first child, she wanted to return home to South Bend to be near family and help take care of the people in her hometown.

I practiced for twenty years in the traditional insurance-based practice but found myself becoming progressively more unhappy and burnt out. I was tired of being told my worth was only measured by parameters set by my revenue generation or metrics set by insurance companies for reimbursement. My ability to deliver the best care to my patients was restricted by time and administrative demands while sucking the joy out of me. I felt defeated and stuck in a career with few alternatives.

The only bright spot in her career was being able to commiserate with her colleague and friend, Sara Bajuyo, MD, at work each day. When Dr. Bajuyo discovered a better option in DPC, Dr. Lindenman was all in. Dr. Bajuyo recommended some books and told her about her experiences at the DPC Conference she had attended. Dr. Lindenman was excited at the possibility of finding joy in medicine again without a businessman in a corporate suite with no medical background dictating how to do that.

Dr. Lindenman is extremely excited to build their practice together and offer better care to those in their community.

Congratulations to Dr. Bajuyo and Dr. Lindenman for taking the leap into DPC. You two are going to crush it!