If All Doctors Had More Time to Listen

This doctor is awesome:

Calling a doctor on his cell? No waiting for an appointment? It’s the type of service that Dr. Batlle tries to offer to all of his 1,500 patients. “I prefer to keep them healthy than treat them when they are sick,” he says.

I wanted to do this already.  Hopefully increased resources will encourage others:

The Obama administration is considering ways to persuade medical students to pursue careers in primary care by raising their pay, and is channeling them to work in underserved rural areas. And the White House has already set aside $2 billion for community health centers through the economic stimulus package.

I really love personal interaction.  Nursing’s got it.  But there’s something about being a doctor…

By stepping off the big-clinic treadmill, where doctors are sometimes asked to see a different patient every 15 minutes, Dr. Batlle has joined the vanguard of physicians trying to redefine health care. These doctors spend more time with patients, emphasize prevention and education to keep them healthy and can handle many medical problems without referrals to specialists.

Connecting social issues to economic (or national security) problems is always a good way to generate attention and energy.  I support such framing:

In many cases, this kind of care can reduce a patient’s medical bills. That’s more crucial than ever: according to a study published online by the American Journal of Medicine, 60 percent of all bankruptcies in the United States in 2007 were driven by health care costs.

I don’t know what specialty, if I so choose to specialize, I’d choose.  There’s the theoretical ROADE to happiness (radiology, opthamology, anesthesiology, dermatology, and I forget e).  But the nature of the field has definitely made specializing an more appealing option–especially given the financial straits most new doctors find themselves in:

Across the country, primary care physicians are in short supply, in part because average salaries for family practitioners are the lowest of any medical specialty. According to a 2008 survey of physician salaries by the American Medical Group Association, their average annual salary is $201,555, versus $356,166 for a general surgeon and $614,536 for a neurological surgeon.

Interesting:

“Could I have helped some people without specialists and tests? Absolutely,” said Dr. Sacks. “Would it have saved the patient and the insurance company both money? Absolutely. Is the system set up for the best care and cost efficiency? Absolutely not.”