Dr. Rob Abbott is a first year family medicine resident at the Virginia Commonwealth University- Shenandoah Valley Family Medicine Residency Program in Front Royal, Virginia. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia (U.Va.) School of Medicine Class of 2017 where he served as a student ambassador for the U.Va. School of Nursing’s Compassionate Care Initiative, promoting resilience, compassion and mindful self-care. He was a founding member of the U.Va. inter-professional organization Compassionate Awareness and Living Mindfully (CALM), which was created to promote wellness, self-care and resilience in health science students through the practices of mindfulness, yoga, compassion and spirituality. He approaches medicine from an evolutionary and functional perspective and practices what he calls “spiritually focused and evolutionarily informed functional medicine.” In his free time, Rob enjoys creative expression through writing and communal conversation, sharing blogs, poetry and podcasts through his website amedicinalmind.com.