Episode 17: From Pebble Beach to Astrid — Samir Qamar on 25 Years of Reinventing Primary Care

Dr. Samir Qamar — one of the original founders of the Direct Primary Care movement and creator of MedLion, MedWand, and AstroDoc, joins Brothers, Dr. Erik Lundquist and Dr. Davin Lundquist, for a wide-ranging conversation shaped by a childhood spent across four continents with a UN-diplomat father. Samir traces his arc from Ross   University to England's socialized NHS to Penn Medicine-Lancaster General, where as an intern he cold-called MDVIP from his scrubs after  discovering concierge medicine. His first post-residency role was House Physician for Pebble Beach Resorts; that seeded MedLion, the nation's  largest DPC network across 27 states, which in turn led to the MedWand — a handheld telemedicine device that lets remote clinicians capture real  physical-exam data.His current obsession is AstroDoc and its AI health agent Astrid ("A System To Reinforce Infinite Doctors"), designed to be for billions of patients what Samir became for his own parents when they were sick. The conversation digs into healthcare versus sick care, why AI will change the physician's role without replacing it, the ethics of non-clinicians building medical AI, and Samir's view that the next generation of doctors will function as coaches and cheerleaders — not gatekeepers of knowledge.For physicians weighing DPC, founders building health AI, or anyone thinking about how the doctor-patient relationship evolves in an era of voice-enabled, multilingual, clinician-led tooling.