I'm James Breen, a Catholic husband and father. I'm also a family physician, writer and speaker. I first considered entering medicine while growing up in the DC suburbs of northern Virginia, and as an undergraduate at University of Virginia. I went on to study medicine at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, and I completed my internship and residency training in Family Medicine at Brown University.

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I have been blessed to have taken care of patients in many different types of practice--from community health centers in rural New Mexico to large multispecialty health system practice in metropolitan southeast Florida, to academic faculty practices in central North Carolina and the Gulf Coast of Florida. The distance between medicine's highest aspirations and often disappointing practical performance has led me to reflect on how we might better realize the profession's truest purpose or reason for being--in other words, its telos.

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This site presents a selection of my writings and musings about medicine and its proper ends. I am particularly fascinated by the crossroads of medical history, medical ethics, and the Christian faith tradition that shaped the profession over the millennia. I hope you will find something on this website that is cause for reflection. If so, please feel free to reach out to me!