A fantastic op-ed piece in the Boston Globe yesterday by a doctor speaking out against the crisis facing family care physicians. An excerpt:

MRS. J. LOOKED baffled and hurt. I had just explained that I would no longer be her primary care doctor. I was leaving the field after just three years. "I have had three different primary care doctors over the past 10 years," she said. "You can't leave now. I was just starting to feel comfortable. I am getting older now. I can't keep changing doctors!"

Primary care is in crisis. Current primary care doctors are quitting, and medical students are pursuing other specialties. Primary care has lost its attractiveness as a profession because of poor compensation and plummeting job satisfaction. Primary care physicians are in short supply, and in Massachusetts, this problem has intensified in the wake of healthcare reform, as more than 300,000 previously uninsured individuals have joined in the search for available doctors.

As a former primary care physician, I am most troubled by the antagonistic state of the patient-doctor relationship. The system sets us against each other. Like many in the field, I chose primary care because I love people. I wanted to take care of the whole person, body and mind. I wanted the intimacy that comes with knowing your patients well and following them over many years. These goals are difficult to achieve in primary care today. After two years in my practice, I walked into an exam room one day and introduced myself to a patient. "We have met before," she replied, clearly aggravated. I was horrified and saddened.

This doctor’s piece also includes some recommendations for how to reform this system, and calls on all of us to speak out for revitalizing primary preventative care.

Read the whole article here.

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