New practice a ‘leap of faith’ for Carmel doctor

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Dr. Holly Smith’s family medicine practice follows the circle of life.

“I take care of newborns all the way up through the end of life,” Smith said. “I do a little bit of early pregnancy care, but I don’t do full obstetrics or anything like that anymore.”

Smith, a 35-year-old Westfield resident, opened Fiat Family Medicine in mid-July in Carmel at 13590-B North Meridian St., Suite 100. Fiat Family Medicine is a member of the national FreedomDoc physician community.

CIC HEALTH 1108 Fiat Family Medicine
Dr. Holly Smith

Smith’s practice follows the direct primary care model. Patients pay a monthly membership fee of $120 or less.

“That allows me to keep my total patient numbers lower than a traditional primary care doctor, who typically carries 2,000 to 3,000 patients,” she said. “My maximum patient load will be 500, which allows me to be more readily available to people when they need me. The monthly cost gives them essentially unlimited access to me. (It covers) if they need to come in for their annual exam, or just have a quick question on the weekend or off hours, Telehealth or any appointments in the office.”

Smith is trained and certified in two fertility awareness methods of family planning and provides medical consultation for that.

“It allows me to look at a woman’s menstrual cycles and fertility cycle and help her determine whether there are problems,” Smith said. “I see women who have all kinds of different complaints. Maybe it’s heavy periods, painful periods, trouble getting pregnant or trouble staying pregnant, all kinds of things across the spectrum. My goal is to try to figure out what the problems are that are causing those things as opposed to using the birth control pill or IUD, which oftentimes covers up the symptoms but doesn’t treat the problems.”

After graduating from the Indiana University School of Medicine, Smith was in St. Vincent’s family medicine residency program in 2016. She worked for IU Health in Zionsville for 3 1/2 years. She returned to St. Vincent in Fishers in the summer of 2020 and was there for two years.

Smith, a Catholic, said Fiat refers to the biblical story of the angel Gabriel coming to the Virgin Mary and telling her she is going to conceive the baby Jesus.

“It refers to Mary’s unreserved ‘Yes, may His will be done,’” Smith said. “To me, it’s a powerful story that resonates a lot in my life. In this particular (instance), this is a leap of faith for me in a lot of ways to go from traditional medicine out on my own was something that I felt God was calling me to do. So, this was my ‘yes’ to God’s call.”

For more, visit fiatmd.com.


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