Physician…Heal Thyself!

This is about health. Your health. If you are a physician who has been practicing 10 years or more, you have no doubt had the occasion at least once or more to consider what might happen if you, God forbid, became seriously ill. Who would take care of you? Which hospital would you chose? Would you entrust your care to those whom you work with on a daily basis, your colleagues, or would you seek a more private setting nearby, or go out of state completely to seek “the best care possible” at a "world renowned” center of excellence as we might be expected or pressured to do?

These are not just hypotheticals to ponder anymore. Not just because as the general baby boomer population ages, so do the physicians taking care of them. But because in the last 20 years or so, we have witnessed a major cultural and professional shift in how healthcare is rendered and delivered. One of the world’s most noble professions has insidiously slipped into a service industry, whereby the dedicated individuals once revered and honored for the sacrifices they make for the sake of others, are now often regarded as mere commodities in a healthcare system that is increasingly impersonal and corporatized. And so as future physician-patients, we are surely forced to consider what kind of legacy and what kind of healthcare system have we left for those who will ultimately take care of us.

There have been numerous books written on the ills of our healthcare system. The many prescriptions and “what the doctor ordered” fill the shelves of bestsellers lists every few years, an indication of the angst and yearning for better solutions, the deep frustration felt by the citizens of a country that was once regarded as the having highest standard of living, resources and healthcare, bar none. Each “revelation” or iteration of the “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with healthcare” dissertation usually ends up trying to envision either some grand and bold new model, or oversimplifies the problem into a unifying theory that is “the silver bullet” to solve it all. And yet, here we are, one unaffordable care act later, with no replacement in sight, and seemingly no real solutions to fix what's clearly broken. And as much as I hate to say it, I won’t claim to have all the answers either. But I am committed to finding them and giving them the attention they deserve. There are many of us out there. I hope, through this site, to be the conduit for change and your voice for advocacy.

My hope is that in the coming weeks, months, years and beyond…this will be the place where we come for solutions! This site will be dedicated to the evolutions and revolutions of healthcare. I will provide, as much as possible, whenever possible, my own insights and analysis as a practicing physician. But I will seek input from others as well : nurses, administrators, insurance adjusters and actuarial accountants, economists, and of course, most importantly, patients! I want to hear your stories, your analysis and your ideas. This is the start of an exciting journey for me…and I hope it will be for all of us, as we seek to find solutions, find avenues to advocate and effect change, and either bypass or push through the clogged and hyper-partisan logjam that is our current system of “special interest” dominated politics that never saw a great idea it couldn’t suck the life out of.

And lest you think I am sounding too cynical or pessimistic, let me assure you I am not. Quite the opposite in fact. I believe we have never had a greater opportunity, nor had better tools and resources to make our healthcare system exceptional. Though we have lagged behind other industries, technological improvements in the world of digital medical records are on the verge of a significant breakout where we have tools that will improve, not impair, the delivery of healthcare. The next Steve Jobs of healthcare is out there…waiting to be discovered. We also have exciting and once unimaginable diagnostic and therapeutic tools at our disposal, and others on the way, that will fundamentally change the way we think about, treat and manage disease. There is perhaps no better time to be part of the healthcare profession, no matter what your role. As physicians in particular, I believe there is an arc back to the days where we can focus on more on quality, and less on volume, by using the tools at our disposal. An opportunity to truly focus on prevention rather than just cure. A return to the fundamentals of why so many of us chose this profession in the first place is at hand.

This is a call to action. It is time for us to take ownership of our profession again, to wake up from the mind numbing assembly line model of health care, to stop resisting change and embrace the power we hold in the one thing we provide as trained scientists that has always been at the core of how we practice our art : data. We produce the data, we analyze the data, we understand the data, but we have been either too lazy to use it, or too overwhelmed by the volume to even know how best to harness it, and yes at times even distracted by the exploitation of it to use it for the sole benefit of our patients and not ourselves. But the tools exist where we can do so, without surrendering our principles and values to bean counters and profiteers who are only looking at the fastest route to the bottom line, and without relying on a corporate entity to do it for us if we so choose. If we do not seize the opportunities, however, the decisions and analysis will indeed be made for us. And the commoditization of physicians will continue, at the expense of our economy, our health and our patients. Don’t let it happen. Speak up, engage, and heal!