Dr. David Lieberman’s journey to practicing medicine, and ultimately to Nantucket, was anything but conventional. Lieberman was a political science major at Yale, and his love of cooking led to an early career breakthrough as one of the first Food Network stars.

His show, Good Deal with Dave Lieberman, premiered on the Food Network in 2005, focusing on affordable gourmet recipes. A year later, he launched a web-exclusive series with the Food Network called Eat This with Dave Lieberman, where he visited various cities, uncovering trends and crazes in cuisine. It was a precursor to some of the network’s most successful shows that would come years later, shows like Guy Fieri’s Diners Drive-Ins and Dives.

Despite his early success and brush with stardom, Lieberman soon realized that he needed to find another path. “I was approaching 30, and I was like, ‘Is this my life’s work’?” Lieberman said. “I got into food television and food media sort of by accident, serendipitously, I would say. I took the ride, but then as I took that ride, I asked, ‘Is this really what I want for my entire life?’ I thought I’d better reevaluate. I didn’t train formally, and I didn’t feel like I had the chops to do a restaurant or be a mature, multifaceted chef. I just didn’t see a future in it. I was this young kid cooking, and that was fun, and people watched me doing that, and that was cute. But then you’re not cute anymore.”

Lieberman has always had another interest in preventative health and wellness, so he returned to school and dove into primary care and internal medicine. It was no half-baked idea. He completed his medical school prerequisites at Columbia University before graduating from medical school at the Alpert Medical School at Brown University. Lieberman ultimately landed a job practicing in the southwest as an assistant professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in the division of geriatrics.

Lieberman then got a call from Mass General Brigham recruiters who asked him about a job as a primary care physician at Nantucket Cottage Hospital—an island he’d visited only once before. “Of course it posed challenges, but when we looked at the overall picture, the quality of life for my wife and my son, the safety of it, the proximity to Boston and being able to practice medicine in this rural, very intimate setting, I think that kind of clinched it,” he said. “You can’t really find that in the metro area very easily as a primary care doctor.”

Lieberman still cooks at home, of course. He tends to make simple dishes, with an emphasis on fish and Mediterranean cuisine. The process of cooking and the preparation helps him relax, he said. It’s not unlike the preparation that goes into practicing medicine.

“I often feel that creating a medical plan for a patient is like opening a spice drawer, looking for just that right combination of flavors,” he said. “Preparing ingredients for cooking—washing, peeling and cutting—requires quiet focus and patience, which feels familiar when I’m reviewing patient charts and completing documentation. Preparing a meal for a large group is an orchestrated team effort, and so is patient care."