Meet our New Medical Director of Primary Care

Q&A with Max Romano, MD, MPH

Our new Medical Director of Primary Care knows Health Care for the Homeless well. After earning his master's in public health and medical degree at Johns Hopkins University, Max spent three years as a family doctor at Health Care for the Homeless. In that time, he also helped implement COVID testing and vaccination clinics during the peak of the pandemic. After two years as the Administrative Medical Director for Mary's Center for Maternal Child Health in DC, we are thrilled to welcome Max back in this new leadership position. Get to know more about him below.  

Did you always know you wanted to be a doctor? How did you get on this career path?

When I was 13 years old, I read a book about Dr. Albert Schweitzer's medical work in Gabon, West Africa, which inspired me to become a doctor serving the many people who are left out of mainstream medicine. At first I thought I would work in some far-off land, however over time I realized that our fragmented, profit-driven US health care system leaves so many people behind in my very own community. I came to Baltimore as a medical student in 2010, and I haven't wanted to leave yet!

You know we love staff boomerangs here! What inspired you to come back to the agency?

In 2019 I took my first job after completing residency as a full-time family doctor at Health Care for the Homeless. I absolutely loved the clients and the coworkers I got to work with in my first three years here. I knew that I was interested in taking on a leadership role in community health, so in 2022 I left Health Care for the Homeless to become a medical director at Mary's Center, which is another fabulous federally qualified health center located in the DC area. I loved being in the medical director role, but I didn't love the commute from my home in Baltimore to Prince George's County. When I left HCH, I told everyone here that I'd apply to come back as soon as the right role opened up, and sure enough: I'm back!

What lessons have you learned in the years since you left that you’ll bring to the Director role?

In my last two years as a medical director at Mary's Center, I learned how to lead an interdisciplinary medical team in a busy immigrant-serving community health center. I joke that no one went to medical school because they wanted to become an "administrator," but I actually found my Director role to be very rewarding. I think my job as Medical Director is to serve my provider team so they can most effectively serve their patients.

As Medical Director of Primary Care, what will your day-to-day work look like? Which areas will you oversee?

My goal for our primary care team is to provide top-notch, "concierge"-level primary care that meets our clients' unique needs despite their housing insecurity. I will directly supervise the medical providers (i.e. physicians, nurse practitioners, physicians assistants) here at Health Care for the Homeless and will help coordinate the day-to-day operations of the adult and pediatric/family primary care clinics alongside my nursing and operations colleagues. I'll also work alongside our awesome mobile, street, addiction, psychiatry, and other teams to ensure the smooth operations of our primary care clinics and ensure seamless transitions between the many great services we offer. And I'm still a family doc, so I'll spend about 60% of my time seeing clients one-on-one at our Fallsway location.

What do you see as the most important part of providing health care in the context of homelessness?

Before I ever worked at Health Care for the Homeless, a friend told me about a period of his life living on the streets in Baltimore when he came to HCH for care. He said that the HCH team treated him with dignity and the best primary care of his life. He even regretted having to change primary care providers once he was housed and employed with private health insurance. My goal is to give every one of my clients that feeling of compassionate, coordinated, comprehensive, and high-quality primary care that stands in contrast to all the other challenges of housing insecurity.

What keeps you grounded and hopeful outside of work?

One hundred percent my family. I love having adventures in Baltimore and beyond with my spouse and our two daughters. We have been known to ride our lime-green three-person bicycle around Baltimore, so be sure to wave if you see us!

Give Max a warm welcome back when you see him next!