The LAFP is excited to welcome Dr. Cole Pratt back to Louisiana. Dr. Pratt is a Florida native but loves Louisiana. He is also the Program Director at the newly minted DePaul Community Health Center Residency Program. This program is the first of its kind in Louisiana. It is based at the DePaul Community Health Centers with academic affiliation with Tulane University. This model combines family medicine education and training in a community health center. DePaul Community Health Centers has 11 clinic sites throughout the Greater New Orleans area. Their mission is to improve the health status of the community and to advance the long tradition of health ministry to the people of New Orleans, especially the under-served, through the development of a values-driven organization dedicated to primary care and preventive health services, addressing the needs of the total individual – body, mind, and spirit.

Dr. Pratt is a graduate of Florida State University. He attended the American University of the Caribbean, and completed residency in Family Medicine at LSU in Kenner with Ernest James, III, MD. When asked to tell us more about himself and about his family. He stated, “I grew up on the West Coast of Florida in the Sarasota Bay Area, in the city of Bradenton. My son was born in Florida, at Sarasota Memorial Hospital, where I was born 35 years, to the week, earlier. My son was the fifth the generation in my family to live in the house we brought him home to, the house I grew up in. I also have a daughter who was born in New Orleans, and was delivered by Dr. Pam Wiseman, who is now with LSU, but at the time was a family doctor and faculty colleague of mine at Tulane. My Son is 17 and is starting at Tulane in the fall, he is studying Linguistics. My daughter is 15 and is currently a student at NOCCA where she is enrolled in the Theater Design program. My wife is an attorney who attended Loyola, here in New Orleans.”

We asked Dr. Pratt what brought him and his family back to New Orleans. He answered, “I left New Orleans 13 years ago to return to Florida and take care of my mother who was having medical problems and was struggling to take care of her affairs and her healthcare. She was widowed when I was 12 years old, and she needed help with everything. A tumor on her spine was discovered and during the surgery to remove the tumor she was paralyzed from the waist down. She moved in with me and my family after that. When the opportunity arose to return to NOLA and become Program Director for the DePaul Community Health Center Residency Program in Family Medicine, we made the decision as a family to move back to the city together.”

We asked Dr. Pratt about how he chose family medicine. He stated, “I worked in a refugee camp in Thailand on the border of Burma after completing medical school. There I realized that the Family Docs were the most useful - they could literally take part in the care of any patient that came in. The family docs I encountered were confident and kind and they took a different approach to the healthcare crisis and the population of people being treated. I hadn’t really had much exposure to Family Medicine in school. I cancelled all of my Internal Medicine interviews and reapplied for to programs in Family Medicine and the rest is history.”

He continued, “One of the things I always loved about Medicine is that it is expected that physicians will be lifelong learners and will be involved in training the next generation. I had some attending during my time in medical school who were amazing physicians and teachers. They had a huge impact on me and my understanding of Medicine. In general, I love to teach and find it very rewarding and stimulating to be around other physicians who also enjoy the academic side of practice. Also, medical students and residents are inspiring and they keep me energized in my own practice. I am particularly happy to be part of this residency program we are starting, as I care tremendously about issues related to social justice and I am excited to train physicians who share that passion and who also want to understand health disparities and effective strategies to affect social change and who are willing to pursue that knowledge with academic rigor.”

Dr. Pratt continued, “I feel very privileged to be a part of peoples’ lives in a meaningful way many times every day; that is my favorite thing about being a doctor. As for Family Medicine in particular, it means a lot to me that I am able to take care of people throughout their lives and that I am trained to have a holistic understanding of their health care needs, and frankly, I am very proud of the fact that we Family docs can handle just about anything our patients need in the realm of primary care.”

He loves spending time with his family. They enjoy traveling and exploring the world. He enjoys boating. That hobby led to his buying a sailboat during COVID and learning to sail. Dr. Pratt is also an aspiring audiophile and has recently been turned on to the joy of collecting vinyl by his teenage son. He also always enjoys seeing productions at NOCCA, particularly those that his daughter helped produce.

The LAFP extends congratulations as our August Member of the Month!