I awoke to a text recently that simply said, “Can I ask you a question?” Having finished medical school 22 years ago, I get this very frequently and know from personal anecdotal statistics that it’s either a medical issue (high probability) or someone needs money (much less common). This is not a text from work nor is it from a channel that will result in additional funds deposited on my behalf. This is from an acquaintance, by which I mean it could be any of the following: family member, friend, colleague, ex-girlfriend of an ex-boyfriend, co-worker, random person I met somewhere, etc. I spent some time on the phone in response to this text, recommended a course of action, and solved the problem. The details of this discussion (or the hundreds of others I had over the years) are privileged and irrelevant. The point is that I was “being a doctor’. A problem was presented by a person in need with real concerns about their health (or a loved one’s), I assessed the information they provided, and suggested a next step. My advice is usually spot on and appreciated which stems from my being cautious but concerned. Another important feature of my advice derives from one of my mantras: “Don’t scare the straights!” (which I learned from the comic genius, Bill Murray, in Ghostbusters).
This is one of the hardest aspects of being a doctor (especially when you are a student). It’s really great that you recognize (sometimes immediately) that someone has a life-threatening illness… but they don’t need to know that unless they are within a safe, secure medical environment where action can be taken. Moreover, medical issues are private for the same reason. It’s pretty clear to all of us that we shouldn’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theatre or even jokingly say words that sound like “bomb,” at an airport. But here’s a true story of what I mean with medicine. Many years ago, I happen to be on an airplane (at cruising altitude) coming back from Africa, where my friend, Paul Farmer (RIP), was also a passenger. Another colleague of ours (a surgeon) was also on the plane. Paul was having an eye issue which looked mild but irritating. Our colleague said, loudly in her confident tone, “Do you think it could he Ebola?” Paul and I exchanged a quick glance, both thinking, “Don’t scare the straights!” I think you see my point. But, for clarity, a personal example. One winter, my husband and I were returning from the city to our suburb, which required a brisk, long walk from the train. The sidewalks were icy and, in places, uneven. He stepped off and fell full force on his shoulder. The next morning he couldn’t move it and it was painful. My immediate thought was, “He broke his shoulder.” Did I say, “Dude, you totally broke your shoulder!” No. We were having an open house to sell our place and he was all stressed about it. So, I said, “Be careful with your arm and we will go to urgent care afterward.” This made him calm. I even made him drive to urgent care (it was not his dominant shoulder) to reassure him he was okay. In urgent care, the ortho surgeon (who happened to be that day’s coverage) walked in after the x-ray and said, “Dude, you broke your shoulder!” And my husband promptly passed completely out onto the examination table. It’s all about understanding the acuity of the situation and striving to not make it worse.
Have I ever been wrong? Of course! Because the only way to truly care for a medical concern is to evaluate it yourself in person with appropriate tools. And almost all of the times I have been wrong (which is only a few), there was some crucial aspect that was not shared because either it wasn’t known or there was discomfort with sharing.
But what I am describing is not unique to me. I’m quite sure every doctor gets these calls with frequency. It’s the purest form of practice because there is no financial transaction presumed, assumed, or demanded.
But what about “doing my job?” Let’s break that down. I work for a non-profit and have a private consultation practice (non-overlapping, non-conflicting). Currently, I am financially compensated (at about $175/hour (pre-tax)) for any/all of the following: health system implementation, grant writing/administration, education, research management, social media production/communication, expert scientific/business consultations, committee participation, abnormal laboratory case review, daily laboratory management, intra-operative consultation, market insights/research, etc. Not much of that sounds like I’m fighting death and stamping out disease at the individual patient level, the life task I as trained for in medical school. Importantly, I’m also hard salaried across all my work so I don’t do individual billing except for a few things like abnormal slide review. Many of my physician colleagues do have to engage in individual billing. But I think much of what I do still sounds very familiar to many of my physician colleagues who see patients every day. When (in my opinion) my physician colleagues should be spending every hour of every day “being a doctor,” as I described above, I fear they spend a lot of time instead documenting, managing, and administrating to ensure they are compensated. I am of the very unpopular opinion that healthcare should be free but I also believe healthcare workers should be compensated aligned to their impact on patients. The medical profit insistence paradigm continues to widen inequity while decreasing the care time for patients in lieu of format/template/documentation to justify billing. I have to spend time doing this non-patient care but, fortunately, they are limited because of the narrow slice of medical billing to which my services are privy.
Here is a specific example to demonstrate the difference I’m discussing. I received an abnormal smear to review from the laboratory. The white blood cell count was over 400,000 cells (ref 10 – 30), the smear was a “medical student”-level diagnosis, the patient was on a supposedly effective treatment, but they had left against medical advice. There are many ways to respond to this case. My question was, “Is this patient okay, right now?” and my immediate action reflex said, “This patient needs to see an oncologist right now.” But she left AMA. How you as a patient or doctor respond to this says a lot about you as a person but also about the fiscal constraints in which you work. What did I do? I called the patient who had, thankfully, been admitted elsewhere, and asked them to please have their doctor call me back. The doctor did, I told them the information, and my suggestion that oncology see them immediately. Oncology saw them a few hours later. Let’s summarize. I spent about 20 minutes reviewing all of the clinical and laboratory information, about 1 hour on the phone over 2 days, and about 10 minutes documenting all of this in the patient’s medical record. I was subsequently paid an additional $25 two months later for that documentation by the patient’s insurance company. So, I “did my job” for $16.67/hour over my base but I was also “being a doctor,” which likely was best for the patient. Which is most important at the end of the day? I certainly didn’t need the extra $25 but the patient definitely needed my input. Importantly, note that the insurance company valued my time at a 10-fold lower rate than did my hospital.
A recent study demonstrated that when nurse practitioners are used instead of physicians, healthcare costs were higher.1 This study follows other studies which have shown the opposite. I don’t have an opinion about quality of care, appropriateness, or territorial pissings in the current debate between MDs and NPs about scope of practice; in fact, I see NP’s quite frequently for my healthcare. But we are all being asked to always be conscious of costs in healthcare when all we should be focusing on is, “How is the patient doing right now?” Grand efforts, like task shifting domestically and internationally, are assumed to save money but they simply don’t do so universally. Where costs could be easily cut (i.e., administration) or outsourced (i.e., finance, HR, IT), they aren’t because C-suites are in charge of cost cutting. But doctors (and NPs and all front line medical workers) are the ones being told to be cost conscious and find cost savings—when their job should only be asking the question, “How is the patient doing right now?”
I love “being a doctor,” especially when I can help someone reach a positive outcome. I love “doing my job” because it’s variable, ever-changing, challenging, rewarding, and I feel my compensation is appropriate. I really love when “doing my job” and “being a doctor” align around the same task. Finding this alignment as frequently as possible produces the happiest healthcare workers and the best care for patients, in my opinion.
Note: As an employee of a 501(c)(3), my salary information is public knowledge.
Reference
-Dan Milner, MD, MSc, spent 10 years at Harvard where he taught pathology, microbiology, and infectious disease. He began working in Africa in 1997 as a medical student and has built an international reputation as an expert in cerebral malaria. In his current role as Chief Medical officer of ASCP, he leads all PEPFAR activities as well as the Partners for Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment in Africa Initiative.
Lablogatory 