Last night at our dinner table, my 5-year old spontaneously chanted, "Health care for all, health care for all. Right, mom? Remember?" He smiled with glee.
A few weeks ago my family had participated in the health-care rally in downtown Seattle. When the march was covered on the radio, my kids were excited that they had made the news. I was excited for the press coverage and to have joined so many others who recognize the need to fix our broken healthcare system.
As with many things in life, I was feeling a convergence of events. Soon after the health-care march, an article appeared in the New York Times, "If All Doctors Had More Time to Listen" (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/health/07health.html?emc=eta1). The article quoted a variety of physicians from across the country who are part of a movement to provide patient centered care outside the constraints imposed by the business of medicine. I have been part of this movement for the last year. In this time of impassioned debates and increasing costs, as a physician, I am encouraged and motivated to find others whose beliefs mirror my own.
This part of the movement, called Ideal Medical Practices (http://idealmedicalhome.org/) encourages both patients and providers to have higher expectations of how health care can be provided. By stepping out of the constraints of the large medical industry and opening our own private clinics, we can keep staff and overhead low. This allows us to see eight to 10 patients a day, instead of the more typical 20 to 25 patients a day. The most frequent comments I get in my clinic are "I have never had a doctor spend so much time with me," and "I don't feel like just a number here in your clinic."
And as a provider, I now love what I do. And I work with physicians who enjoy coming to work each day instead of waiting for the day they can retire. A movement is afoot. Health care needs to change in radical ways, not just who pays the insurance premium. I believe that the true change will come from the grass roots, where both providers and patients stand up and demand more: more time, more personal attention, more focus on health than on illness, and more focus on providing care instead of how to bill insurance companies.
Melissa Weakland, M.D., is a physician at Ballard Neighborhood Doctors. For more info: www.ballarddocs.com[[In-content Ad]]
