Dr. Charles Schulman recently retired from clinical practice after decades of treating hypertension, heart disease, and other cardiac disorders. He continues to use his expertise in teaching and lecturing at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and volunteering as a medical expert in cardiology with MAVEN Project.
“I’m at an age when many people retire, but I don’t play golf, tennis, or bridge,” he jokes.
In 2017, Dr. Schulman joined MAVEN Project, a nonprofit healthcare organization that connects a network of physician volunteers with clinics nationwide that care for underserved and underinsured patients via telehealth technology. Through its growing reach, MAVEN Project has helped patients and communities around the country—who might not otherwise be able to receive specialized care—connect with specialists like Dr. Schulman.
Like many doctors, Dr. Schulman’s initial interest in medicine came from an early aptitude for science.
“There were fewer choices back then,” he says, “If you liked science, you became a doctor.”
Following medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, while in residency at University Hospital in Cleveland, Dr. Schulman decided to specialize in cardiology. He is matter-of-fact about his reasons for the choice: “I liked it,” he says.
After a fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Schulman remained in Boston, working in private practice with an older cardiologist specializing in hypertension. He continued in practice with two other partners after his original partner, Dr. David Ayman died. In 2011, Dr. Schulman joined the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s outpatient practice group.
These days, Dr. Schulman gets great satisfaction from teaching medical students and volunteering for MAVEN Project. His MAVEN Project consultations for community health centers and free and charitable clinics are for outpatient cardiology cases, often about heart failure, atrial fibrillation, hypertension, and abnormal ECGs.
Apart from the financial limitations of the clinics he serves remotely, he says, assisting primary care physicians at free clinics with cardiology patients is no different from consulting for a doctor in his own hospital.
“I enjoy helping other physicians because what I’m really doing is helping the patients,” he says. “That’s what I’ve devoted my life to.”
For many MAVEN Project volunteer physicians—and Dr. Schulman is no exception—it is a very rewarding experience to be able to assist and teach underserved clinic practitioners without incurring further costs on their constrained budgets.
“If one has the time, it’s very satisfying,” Dr. Schulman says, “I get a lot of satisfaction out of doing this.”
