Nearly six hours after a deadly fire ripped across Maui last August, Dr. John Meisel ’91 received a phone alert around 1 a.m. warning that a second blaze had ignited near his home about 40 minutes from Lahaina.
With the fire moving at 60 miles per hour, Meisel and his family evacuated from their neighborhood and slept in their car overnight. The next morning, he was back at his clinic working with fire victims, and that night, a family of four and their dog began a six-week stay in his home while he collected donations of money and clothing for them.
Helping people in need is something Meisel has embraced as a family physician in Hawaii, where he has lived since 2016. “I’ve always enjoyed being part of the community I’m in,” he says.
After stints as a doctor in the Cayman Islands and New Zealand, Meisel was practicing in Connecticut when he and his wife decided to move to Maui so he could work for Kaiser Permanente, which focuses on prevention and integrated health care. Practicing under an integrated care model, he now treats patients at Kaiser by bringing together teams of social workers, physicians, dietitians, and palliative care specialists.
Meisel knew he wanted to become a doctor for as long as he can remember, and during high school, he took all his required college-level, pre- med science classes. That allowed him to major in philosophy and religion at Colgate so he could hone his skills in thinking, reading, and writing.
Once he started practicing family medicine, Meisel was not surprised that studying philosophy and religion directly impacted his work. When he treats patients facing terminal illnesses such as cancer, for example, he draws on his background to help them choose the path to take.
“It’s a lot of the art of medicine combining with the science of medicine,” he says. “Philosophy and religion help me be able to be a good backseat driver and help them decide what to do, and let them know that whatever they decide, we’re with you.”
Last October, Meisel helped reopen a health clinic that had been closed for three years during the pandemic in the town of Kīhei on the island’s southwest coast. Since it has ramped back into service, Meisel and a team of six other doctors have rebuilt a primary care presence in the area, serving toddlers to seniors in this small, rural community.
On a typical day, which begins at 6:30 a.m., he sees about 20 patients in his office, via telemedicine or by email. “I take care of homeless people and multimillionaires and everyone in between,” he says. “I get to talk to people from every walk of life.”
The best part of his job is being able to impact so many people’s lives on a daily basis.
“It’s challenging to do primary care, but it’s also tremendously rewarding,” he says. “I’ve never come home from a day [at work] without feeling like I had a very important conversation or connection with most, if not all, of the patients I see.”