Southwest Health System recently hired Dr. Jameson Laub, a new family medical doctor.
He’s always been partial to family medicine because it lends itself to fostering meaningful relationships with patients and helping them make informed decisions about their health.
“It incorporates the entire person, in terms of their values, their goals, their lifestyle, the environment they live in,” said Laub. “Pursuing that specialty right away just made the most sense for building close connections with my patients and making the most meaningful difference for them.”
He completed his Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine at A.T. Still University of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona. Afterward, he underwent residency in Family Medicine with Osteopathic Recognition at Montana Family Medicine Residency in Montana, according to a news release.
“I’m kind of green. I’m fresh out of residency training for family medicine and freshly accredited with the board,” he said.
During his residency, he pursued an extra fellowship that allowed him to specialize in providing care in frontier locations, he said.
With that, he participated in hands-on activities like splinting and safely extracting people who might have been injured during some sort of adventure activity, like climbing or biking.
Laub underscored his focus on preventive medicine as well.
“As soon as I started my medical journey, the common thread is preventive medicine is the best kind of medicine,” he said. “Of course, if you can prevent any health issues or injuries to begin with, you’re kind of setting yourself up for everything you want.”
He’s originally from Pennsylvania, but vacationed in Colorado growing up. In the early 2000s, his parents bought a condo in Telluride. Plus, his brother recently moved to Rico.
“What it came down to for me was wanting to be close to family again after the long medical journey and not wanting to go back to Pennsylvania. And knowing that Colorado is better,” Laub said.
“Especially Southwest Colorado,” he said.
He said he always wanted to be a primary care physician in a rural place and that he couldn’t be happier to be here.
“My wife and I are very excited to not be moving every three years anymore and to actually be able to put down some roots,” said Laub. “We’re still trying to accept it as a real thing, cause everything that we’ve been experiencing in Cortez in terms of the people and the community and also just how beautiful everything is – we’re still pinching ourselves to accept that we’ll likely be here for the rest of our lives.”
