About Us

I promptly fell out of love with delivering babies. I did not mind gynecological surgery, but after working all day, when it was my turn to be “on-call,” staying up half the night and then performing a full day the next day was not a lifestyle compatible with my body type.

I was newly married, had interests inside and outside of medicine that ranged well beyond spending 80-100 hours a week in the delivery room, and found, after a while, that I was rooting for quick C-Sections so I could go home. My new wife, Merle, was not thrilled about being a “job widow” at the age of twenty-two after only one year of marriage.

Do not hate me, but I fell into a “funk” as delivering babies became nine months of tedium followed by 12-24 hours of abject terror. One night a patient came to the emergency department claiming she had a stomach ache. She went into the bathroom.  Suddenly, from behind the closed door, we hear hollering and screaming.  We sent Nurse Carol to investigate.  Our Nurse Carol followed the patient’s hollering and shouting. by hollering and screaming.

Into the lady’s room we rushed.  Nurse Carol is screaming and pointing into the commode. I quickly spot two tiny feet sticking straight up out of the bowl.  There, a newborn infant, head down in the water, was flailing away.  We fished it out and began CPR.  Not equipped for severe neonatal cases, we called our backup hospital a mile away to rescue (us and) the baby. We prayed she stayed alive long enough to get to the other facility. (She did!)

By the by, we got a stretcher for “mom,” who didn’t know why she gained weight over the last several months before “touchdown” but claimed there was no way for her to be pregnant.  Nobody ever knew how she did not think she was pregnant, much less full term.  She resumed thrashing and crying again as we wheeled her toward the delivery room.  Not a minute later, full-term, Baby # 2 crowned. Baby # 2, born on a gurney, at least started in a better place than face down in a commode.  Thank goodness BABY #3  began life in a bed.

(I realize this sounds far-fetched, but I will swear on my Pop-Pop’s eyes it is entirely true and accurate.  I even remember the date.  Friday, November 21, 1980, the rest of the ER staff and I prayed for a slow night.  If you were around and sentient at the time, you will remember it was the night of the big reveal:  We were to learn who shot  J.R.’ on the hit TV show, Dallas.

You might think we would get an atta boy or at “you did your best you could under the circumstances.”  All the babies lived and were deemed healthy.  But this was the dawning of the golden age of everything wrong in the world is some doctor’s fault.  The family filed a malpractice suit, claiming we were negligent for not diagnosing her pregnancy and causing great distress and trauma to Mom and Baby # 1.   Additionally, Mom and Baby would carry the “stigma” of being born in a commode, forever.  The litigation lasted a ridiculous five years, and the hospital and the patient settled for an undisclosed sum. Thankfully, I escaped without any blemish on my “record.”

            I wanted no part of obstetrics after that. Gynecology, eh, ok, but you could not train in one without the other in those days. (I assume it has not changed.)  I could not endure four years and then a lifetime of what seemed like a punishment for living.

                 My next choice was plastic surgery—unfortunately, a higher power than I instructed me to look elsewhere.  I got run over by a ten-year-old on a ski trip, suffering ruptured discs at L4-5 and L5-S1.  Although I escaped surgery, I could not stand at the operating table for the requisite hours on end. So, no surgical career for me.

Meanwhile, my Bride and I decided, or so I thought, it was an opportune time to leave our hometown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to see the world.  We were going to California!  In 1980 I interviewed at a brand-new hospital in the newly incorporated town of Cupertino, in the Bay Area.  The city and the ancillaries with a new town centered around a new company, Apple Computer. Apple had invented this “personal computer” thing that would revolutionize how the world worked (or so they claimed).

Cupertino, California, wanted us!  We made plans, but at the eleventh hour, Merle got cold feet, not wanting to be so far from her mother.  Instead, we traveled just 114 miles north on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to, of all places, Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania.

Wilkes Barre has many fine, salt of the earth, down-home people, and I made many friends.  But the weather is terrible, and the industry is non-existent; I had grown up in a big city, and I was never very happy there.

(How bad was Wilkes Barre, Pa.? Check out this Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Bullwinkle J. Moose clip (https://youtu.be/RSVq7X7OPeQ) from the 1960s. The bad guy, Boris Badenough, pleads with his boss, “Mr. Big,” to send him to either Siberia or Wilkes Barre as alternatives to chasing Rocky and Bullwinkle to “the wettest, dreariest, most terrible place on the planet, Moosylvania.”  Check the video at the 34-second mark. )

We arrived in Wilkes-Barre in July of 1980. The plan was for two years, which would give us time to plan our next move.  Then it would be off to save the world.  We bought a four-bedroom, 2 1/2 bath house with a stream, a pond, and two acres for $32,500. It came with a bargain 9 1/2 percent assumable mortgage (interest rates were 13 +% at the time, thank you, Jimmy Carter.)   My two-year stint ended in 2013.  It was a long two years. Unfortunately, after 1997, my Bride and I  were no longer a ‘we.’

I completed a Family Medicine residency as a Doctor of Osteopathy, took the MD board certifications, and became a pariah in both the MD and DO worlds.   Now I was, finally, ready to make my millennium.

I fell into the practice of an older doctor who passed on suddenly,

bought a newer house, purchased another doctor’s home that was his office that became my office, had the prerequisite two-point-five children, set up a goldfish tank, adopted a golden retriever, fought the good, constantly losing to my mother-in-law, fought, and was thoroughly bored with general medical practice.  If Uber or Lyft were a thing back then, I’d be a driver now.  I had become what I hated, a pill-pushing pass-through for specialists.   Plain Jane, white bread,  general medicine was not how I wanted to spend my productive years.

In 1990, my father’s older brother’s daughter, in other words, my cousin, Joycie, who had had fertility issues for at least ten years, let me know she had gone to an acupuncturist in Chinatown back home.  Low and behold, she was pregnant. 

Two weeks later, best friend Kenny called with a similar story.  Joycie had sent Kenny, a (former) skier with multiple knee injuries and unable to shush the mountain for at least three years, to her acupuncturist.  Lord almighty, Kenny was coming to Montage Mountain near us in Moosic, Pa. that weekend to ski, and could he stay with me?  

Two hopeless cases turned to success in two weeks? There are no coincidences.  This, I said to myself, was a sign from G-d.

The very next week, I received a flyer in the mail (there was no internet back then) about a course titled ‘Acupuncture for Physicians.” Certified by the UCLA School of Medicine, it was to take place in all places, downtown Philadelphia.  

There are no coincidences.

Nine months later, I was an acupuncture” specialist.”  I centered my practice around acupuncture’s principals, rose through the ranks amongst my fellow physician acupuncturist colleagues, initiated a mentor program for new physician acupuncture students, opened an acupuncture clinic at our local rehabilitation hospital, was elected Secretary of the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture, taught needling techniques to other physicians, and edited the AAMAs quarterly newsletter. 

In my spare time, I started a protein-sparing modified fasting weight loss program, coached boy’s little league, girl’s softball, became a cub scout leader, a daisy scout leader, and, when my son developed into a song and dance man, I became “The Theatre Dad.” 

 In other words, I was bored.

Unfortunately, as alluded to earlier, the Bride and I grew apart. In 1997 we separated, and the divorce follies began.  What came next was seven years of harmonious matrimonial litigation along with all the joys of dealing with “legal professionals.”  Much to the delight of everyone involved, except for myself, by March 2003, I was close to bankruptcy.

Climate is why the Wilkes-Barre, Pa. area became the coal capital of the world.  Take several thousand millennia of damp, humid, hot weather in the summer, and a long, eight months t of damp, wet, sticky, cold weather in the winter, shake in some prehistoric fossils, and out comes the perfect environment for coal formation.

By “law,” from September through April, the sun recedes behind an impenetrable cloud bank and only allowed out a maximum of three days per month. (And never consecutive days.) After the coal mines closed in 1959, Wilkes Barre’s prime occupation became depression, giving way to despair in the hope that the mines would reopen one day, and they never did.

The remedy, of course, for any self-respecting doctor, is to snowbird down to Florida, even for only a few days per winter until retirement. The alternative is a permanent case of seasonal affective disorder. 

In March 2003, year six of my seven-year matrimonial litigation “sentence,” I receive another career-changing medical conference postcard. Coming to Disney World in Orlando, Florida, was a “skills workshop.” Finances be damned, I had to get out of the cold.  Besides, a new Aerosmith exhibit had recently opened at Epcot Center.

I went to Disney World, not caring about acquiring any “skills.”  To be honest, I didn’t even know what “skills” were being taught.  As long as the weather was warm and the lines at Universal Studios were short, all was well. I planned to make the obligatory sign-in appearance at the conference early in the day to make it kosher with Uncle Sam and the state of Pennsylvania’s continuing medical education requirements.  In reality, I was looking forward to Space Mountain.

G-d, however, extended His cosmic chuckle that weekend, ruining my plans. That workshop changed my attitude, career, and life from the first moment. The skills I didn’t want to bother with that weekend made me forget all about Aerosmith. 

No one I knew knew anything about hormone replacement except that it was “bad.”  The WHI study two years before essentially killed off the then most prescribed drug on the planet at that time, Premarin. They were implanting plant-based natural testosterone hormone pellets into 50+-year-old men to restore their youth and vigor.  Whoever heard of such mishegoss?  We’d been taught that testosterone causes cancer.  Our instructor, Dr. Ed, explained how this was all a myth. (To be fair, T does not cause prostate cancer, but it can exacerbate it.) 

In the afternoon, we injected a serum made from botulinum toxin into each other’s faces. Our faces!  For what? For who?  Those of us with sufficient wrinklage in our foreheads soon found out.  Within 2-3 days, the “11” lines between our eyes disappeared, as did the crow’s eyes and forehead wrinkles! Who thinks up these things? 

From an academic and personal perspective, the topic of testosterone replacement became my cause cé·lè·bre. After twenty years of being on call every other night at a minimum as a physician, raising two children, with seven years of matrimonial litigation and no end in sight behind me, I was a run-down grumpfish. My waistline bulged, my muscles were flabby, and I cared not one wit for any sexual companionship.

By the time I got home that weekend, everything had changed. I had found a new purpose in my life and my career. I read everything I could about hormones, hormone replacement, and anti-aging techniques. Simultaneously, I enrolled in additional training courses involving neuromodulators (Botox) and laser wrinkle reduction, hair and pigment spot removal, and skin resurfacing.

Thus was the fledgling origins of the Clearfield Training Program.  You are about to embark on is the culmination of twenty years of study and frontline experience covering what you need to know about essential and bioidentical hormone topics, peptides, aesthetics, and practice management.

Our flagship “Big Program” ™ consists of ten hours of introductory training in bioidentical hormone replacement therapy and anti-aging medicine, a workbook, free practice management and “change your attitude, change your life videos,” and

Three thirty-minute one-on-one zoom or phone calls for a minimum of six months. During these calls, we review cases, go over the course material in-depth, review new developments in the world of hormones, and walk you through the material. After studying integrative and anti-aging medicine principles from our “hormone-centric” viewpoint, your career will soar. You will have more time for study, more time for your family, and yes, make more money than any of your colleagues stuck on the insurance model bandwagon.

The “Big Program” retails for  $599 for the videos, a $100 savings off the regular price, and $600 a month for a minimum of six months. Most of our students continue after the initial six-month initiation, some for as long as fifteen years and counting!

Do you have the ammunition to back up your contentions? Dr. Clearfield does.  Each week we build our knowledge with evidence-based discussions and case histories.  His is a proven method to rapidly transition from a medical “pill mill” into practice and lifestyle you cannot wait to get to every morning.

For those just curious who are not yet ready for the full monty, we offer the “Basic Introduction to Bioidentical Hormone System.” ™ The Basic System consists of the seven videos mentioned above, a workbook, and one forty-five-minute zoom or phone call. The “Basic Introduction to Bioidentical Hormone System” ™ is perfect for beginners looking to get their feet wet or for experienced practitioners needing a refresher course.

The “Basic Introduction to Bioidentical Hormone System” lists for $699.00

“Advanced Bioidentical Hormone Course,” Peptides, and Aesthetic Medicine are coming soon. We make our free short 5-15 minute practice management and “atta boy/girl” encouragement videos for all of our students.

If you want to energize your practice, create a satisfying career where you indeed make a real difference in your patients’ lives, have fun working as a physician, and, yes, even make more money, the Clearfield Training Program is the perfect vehicle for your journey.

The “Big Program” and the Basic Program are now eligible for 10.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ and AOA Category 1-A CME Credits.

Accreditation Statements

To improve patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by the American Osteopathic Association and the American Osteopathic Society of Rheumatic Diseases. The American Osteopathic Association is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.

AMA Credit Designation Statement – Physicians

The American Osteopathic Association designates this live activity for a maximum of 10.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

American Osteopathic Association Credit Designation Statement

The American Osteopathic Society of Rheumatic Diseases (AOSRD) is accredited by the Council on Osteopathic Medical Education (COCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians. The AOSRD designates this activity for a maximum of 10.0 AOA Category 1-A CME Credits.

My task is to present these difficult topics as clearly and concisely as possible.

Each lesson ends with charts and summaries so you can quickly grasp and utilize our teachings “right out of the box.” 

I humbly thank you for considering our work.

Please reach out to us at doctrbil9@gmail.com or phone @ 570-881-6821

Sincerely,
Dr. William Clearfield
February 2022