We were lucky to catch up with Jeff Cooper recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jeff, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?

My father was a butcher and a pastor. I spent a lot of time at both the shop and the church. I knew and understood those worlds. My mother, on the other hand, went into nursing when I was in grade school. By the time I was ten she was working in the hospital and in just a few years she was head of the OB Labor and Delivery floor. Every evening during family dinner she would tell exciting stories of deliveries, of complications, of stat c-sections. She would tell of the time the physician didn’t make it to the hospital in time and she delivered the baby, or the time that she got called to the ER and delivered a baby on a gurney. There was even the time she had a mom in labor and my mother diagnosed that she had a full-term extrauterine pregnancy! She loved her job and clearly found a lot of satisfaction in her work. I decided in eighth grade that I was going to be an OBGYN. For the next ten years–all through high school, all through college, for the first two years of medical school, I would tell people I was going to be an OB.

When I started my clinical rotations as a third-year med student, I started on Pediatrics. I loved every minute of it, but I thought I was going to love every rotation. Next was psych and while I knew I wasn’t going to be a psychiatrist, in retrospect it is a big portion of my current job and I enjoy that. The third rotation was OBGYN. I started on GYN and hated every minute. I didn’t enjoy being in surgery. I didn’t enjoy learning every nuance of the female hormonal cycle (although I passed the test!). I did not want to see the tragedies of miscarriages, unwanted pregnancies, and life-altering pelvic infections that I was faced with in the hospital every day. The tragedies made me very sad.

After Christmas break, I started on Labor and Delivery. Finally! This was what I was going to do with my life! I watched the films; I practiced with the models. My first delivery went smoothly. I caught the baby without dropping it, cut and clamped the cord, and turned to place the baby on the Ohio bed. Remember I had rotated on pediatrics so I knew how to resuscitate this new life laying before me. I sucked out his mouth and nose. I checked his Apgar scores and dried off the squirming little guy. I was beaming with joy.

The OBGYN intern who was supervising me tugged on my scrubs and said, “That’s the pediatrician’s job. You have a placenta to deliver.” I turned and looked at the mom. The umbilical cord was hanging from her vagina, blood, fluid and goo slid down a plastic sheet into a bucket. I turned back to the baby and in my head I thought, “I’m doing this the rest of my life.”

After 10 years of planning to be an OB, I changed my direction in an instant and I have never regretted that decision. I love my job.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

As a primary care pediatrician, our office follows Bright Futures–the American Academy of Pediatrics’ well-child schedule. We follow every child’s growth and development, immunizations status, and do our best to keep these up to date. Our office also provides episodic sick care and coordination of services for those with chronic conditions. In today’s environment, we find ourselves helping families and adolescents negotiate anxiety, depression, and ADHD. In an effort to accommodate today’s parents’ busy schedules, we began offering telemedicine visits in 2018 and when the pandemic came along we were ready to go with this important service.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

All medical residents work hard–very hard. We are awake for long hours and on our feet for most of that time. Toward the end of my residency, I began to look for a job with a large group where I wouldn’t be on call as often. I thought I had found the perfect job when I found a group where I would be on call every 5-6 days. I was miserable. As the most junior member of the team, I had almost no influence in the practice. Changes that I suggested to bring the organization up to date were ignored or even ridiculed and I worked almost as hard as I did as a resident.

In 1992 I read an article about a doctor who left a very large HMO in California and started his own practice in Arkansas. The author made the comment that with his cell phone he could be on call and go out to dinner with this family–something I could never do in my situation at the time. Cell phones were brand new and I had just gotten my first one. I picked it up off of my desk, stared at my phone, and began to daydream. Within a month I had made the decision to start my own practice where I could make decisions about the schedule, protocols, how to treat families and staff. A few weeks later I told the group I was leaving to start my own practice across town–another decision I have never regretted.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

I love to read and I read a lot of syfy/fantasy but occasionally I read things that are “good for me” like Shakespeare or business books. One of my favorite business books is Good to Great by Jim Collins. In this book he identifies 11 companies that went from tracking the S&P500 to outperforming the S&P500. In each case there was a change in leadership. He discusses the common characteristics of each one and it inspired me to try to be that kind of leader.

A surprising source for me was from the 2004 HIMSS Conference. I won the DAVIES award that year and was invited to speak at HIMSS about my experience with electronic medical records but was also given a pass to all the HIMSS events. The conference was in Orlando and one of the speakers was a VP at Disney. His talk was entitled “Creating a “Magical” Service Culture. I loved it! I got a copy of the talk (on CD back then) and have instituted many of the ideas he brought to the group. The process was delightful for myself and my staff and I think it has made a difference in the experience of my patients. Now that I am writing this, I think I’ll pull out the CD and listen to the talk again!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cooperpediatrics.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CooperPediatrics