In early 2019, I retired as director of the Charlotte-based Cancer Center due to the gradual progression of my chronic retinal disease called retinitis pigmentosa. Although legally blind for driving a car and the excessive demands of the visual-based field of radiation oncology, I continued to function well enough to return to a one-year program for science-based individuals to study the business of starting a business. I enrolled in my undergrad alma mater, The University of Notre Dame ESTEEM program. At ND, I stumbled upon a company just starting in the US with an early prototype using virtual visits to offer metabolically acting repurpose drugs to layer to the standard of care for cancer patients. This company aligned with my goals to bring important lifestyle tenants into the care of cancer patients along with drugs that mimic fasting in the body to stress cancer cells.

CareOncology.com became my capstone project for the year and grew fast to a level serving many thousand patients in the US and Canada. In late 2021, along with our original company in the United Kingdom, Care Oncology merged with a larger company called Stage Zero Life Sciences which performs liquid biopsies for cancer. The original oncology nurses, most US doctors, and I left SZLS within eight months following the merger.

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I now serve the metabolic needs of cancer patients through Meakin Metabolic Care, which opened on 10/22, along with author and metabolic science writer Travis Christofferson MS.  We also work with most of the original CO oncology nurse team through a relationship with HealNavigator.com.  Together, we will bring better value and service to help cancer patients thoroughly treat their cancer to enable the best outcomes with the Cancer Metabolic Optimization Protocol. We also have rolled out a program, Metabolic Optimization Protocol, to identify early and intervene in chronic disease predictors we are excited about.

Over the last 3-4 years, this virtual platform work has fostered remarkable learning opportunities for me, fellow doctors, nurses, and patients. Ten years ago, few colleagues were familiar with or interested when I mentioned words like autophagy, apoptosis, metabolic flexibility, ketogenic, and more. Now, these words are becoming more commonplace, and strategies to reintegrative metabolic theories into care are taking place. I am striving to bridge these two theories to improve outcomes for the service of my fellow human beings. Patients today need help to prioritize the multiple strategies out there, given the challenges of time, cost, and side effects of these entities. I stick to the discipline of reviewing a different topic every month in a readable 8 to 10-minute format with references in my Blog. Although I don't have time for charity coaching anymore that I started immediately after retirement; I would do my best to answer emails advising a health coach but not as a doctor and offer questions to take back to your local team. At Meakin Metabolic Care, our first purpose is to help you survive and thrive, to enable you to then help someone else, and although we have some fixed cost for the services (45 state medical licenses, malpractice insurance, lab fees and more), we will do our best to make sure we can serve you regardless of your ability to  pay. I also ask that everybody pays it forward in some way or manner to help someone else; it is a health-giving exercise "on its own."