One Doctor's Top-Down Approach to Medicine

While stuck in traffic, you may have entertained the idea, but Paterson, N.J., internist Safwan Sweidan has gone and done it: transformed his car into a traveling office, complete with desk, computer, fax machine and desk lamp. He says he doesn't work and drive at the same time; he pulls over to the curb first.

Sweidan, seen here in his Chrysler Sebring in New York's Times Square, says he got the idea 10 years ago while commuting four hours a day between northern and southern New Jersey, and sometimes his office needed to fax him EKGs to read promptly.

Since then he has changed jobs, and the mobile office -- his fifth -- is just for fun, Sweidan says. He connects into WiFi outlets and does primarily personal work in the car -- nothing that would violate his patients' privacy, he says. He used to conduct his open-air practice closer to home but neighbors complained.

-- Kathleen Hom