From Corporate Medicine to a Practice That's Actually Theirs
Dr. Sarah French, MD and Dr. Beverly Schuler, DO, FACOI are physicians with decades of combined experience in internal medicine. After long careers inside a large corporate network provider, they made the decision to do something most doctors only talk about: they left.
Together, they founded Copine Health, a direct primary care practice built on the belief that good medicine requires time, intention, and a real relationship between doctor and patient.
Copine is a French word for female friendship, and it’s the driving force for everything in how they practice. Bev and Sarah built Copine Health so their patients would never feel like a number, but like people deserving of time, attention, and thoughtful care.
The Challenge
Leaving a large health system isn't a quiet exit. There are legal boundaries, non-competes, and institutional constraints that make the transition complicated at every turn. While Dr. French and Dr. Schuler couldn't reach out directly to their existing patients, they needed their presence online to be well established and clear, straight out the gate. They needed their brand, website, and story to do the heavy lifting from day one — helping prospective patients understand the new practice and giving them a reason to learn more.
Not only that, but they had to build all of it in the margins of two full-time medical careers. Whether it was early mornings, late nights, or weekends, the transition left no room to manage three separate vendors, chase down a designer, brief a photographer, and make it all feel cohesive at the end.
Then, there was the problem that plagues the entire direct primary care space: the websites all look the same. The language is interchangeable. "Patient-centered care." "Personalized medicine."
None of it says who the doctors actually are.
Bev and Sarah had a story worth telling. They just needed someone to help them find it and put it on the page in a compelling way.
The Moment
Bev and Sarah came to WorkLife Studios because they needed more than a checklist of deliverables. They needed a guide.
They knew how they wanted to practice medicine, but needed help translating that vision into a brand, message, and online presence that would help prospective patients understand what made Copine different.
They chose the Connection Catalyst Launch Edition, bringing strategy, messaging, photography, design, and development into one guided process.
The Process
See the Story
Through discovery conversations, we explored why Bev and Sarah left corporate medicine, what they wanted patients to experience, and what direct primary care meant to two physicians who had spent decades inside the traditional healthcare system.
One simple philosophy emerged: Patients deserve enough time to be known.
The photography was part of that discovery process. Rather than creating generic physician portraits, we focused on the warmth, confidence, and partnership that already existed between Bev and Sarah — capturing moments that helped us see and understand the Copine story more fully.
Shape the Story
We translated what we discovered into website messaging that felt unmistakably like Bev and Sarah, while editing the photography into a cohesive collection that reflected the trust, accessibility, and humanity at the heart of their practice.
Words and images were developed together, each helping tell a different part of the same story.
Share the Story
Working with Andy Sharpe of Sharpe Creative, we brought the words and images together in a website designed to help prospective patients understand not only what Copine Health offers, but who Bev and Sarah are and what it would feel like to be cared for by them.
WorkLife Studios provided creative direction throughout the build so the messaging, photography, visual identity, and website worked together as one cohesive story.
Brand Message Guide
See more from the Brand Messaging Guide
The Transformation
Copine was a brand-new practice built on decades of experience. The challenge was making that experience — and the philosophy behind it — visible from day one.
By launch, Copine had:
- A cohesive brand built around a philosophy only Copine could own
- Messaging that helped people understand what made the practice different
- Photography that reflected the warmth and relationship at the heart of their care
- One guided process connecting messaging, photography, design, and development
More website pages
The Results
- A professional online presence that attracted more than 500 patient inquiries before the doors opened
- A brand and website that caught the attention of their former employer, who specifically referenced the new site during efforts to retain them
Client Voice
We are so grateful we hired you. The pictures are fantastic and the whole process has been better than we could have imagined. It was a carefully directed project in creating not just our brand and website but in communicating our story. The process was seamless and took a huge load off of our already overburdened schedules to have Sarah leading the way.
The Takeaway
Copine Health didn't need us to invent a story about relationship-centered medicine. Bev and Sarah had been living it for decades. Our job was to uncover what made their approach different and help more people understand it.
Sometimes the most important thing a new business can establish isn't awareness. It's understanding.
If you're building something deeply personal — a new firm, practice, or company — we'd love to help you tell that story from the beginning.
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