Thoughts on taking care of people...
Let's get right to it...
Taking care of people and primary care should not be a gateway to the referral merry-go-round wasting resources, precious time, expense, and most unfortunate leading to the creation of greater patient anxiety due to lack of prompt solutions and care. Not fully practicing within our scope sacrifices and undermines the entire reason why we became doctors - to help people - not send them away when we should have the knowledge, capacity, and duty to do the right things, right away, with the person sitting in our chair.
So why give our patients unnecessary reasons to go elsewhere with many never to be seen again? How do we reduce referrals, keep patients, and grow? The answer is recognizing daily learning and management opportunities, consequently gaining increased competence for our future patients, permitting us to more likely help them completely within the walls of our practices. This is our fuel and should stimulate a continued passion to learn to be the best we can be - simply stop referring and you will find the fuel.
We must also be exceedingly conscious to not be trapped into practicing defensively due to fear of improper decision making, being sued, lack of confidence, etc., thereby automatically deferring responsibility. This is a common habit which is absolutely incompatible with taking care of people and the essence of primary care.
We must learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable - and become more comfortable with what was uncomfortable by stepping up to the plate, permitting ourselves to accept challenges and gain experience. Having less fear by developing confidence through learning to do our job properly.
A balance of complete competency, professionalism, truth, honesty, with warm personable qualities is required to make happy patients and increase the likelihood to create growth. It takes day-in and day-out purposeful practice. It is hard. It takes work. It takes perpetual study and passion for taking care of people without forgetting the most important quality of all, which is empathy.
So can we truly put ourselves in our patientsā€™ shoes? Which raises another question - can empathy and empathetic practice be taught? Should anyone who does not feel empathy be involved with the care of people? Are we in practice for the right reasons? Are you doing what you do every day for the right reasons?
Consider this, do your patients and potential future patients understand exactly what you do? Is their perception of you and your practice in line with what you are fully capable of providing? If not, why not? Do they believe they are seeing you for the right reasons? Carefully think through what they believe about you and your practice and why. These questions represent a philosophy of growth with a mindset prioritized from the inside out, not the outside in, strongly influenced by developing as a superior clinician through patient experiences you permit yourself to have.
Now most critically, proper experience and taking care of people can only happen by making a strategic choice. You must choose to position yourself in a proper practice environment, without restrictions, so to master your domain in the primary care of people. Have you positioned yourself properly? Have you limited yourself? Your patients need to be confident they are in the right place for the right reasons. Position yourself to be the best you can be - for yourself and your patients.
Our world committed to healthcare and medicine is of course not for everyone. I believe only those of us who embarked on this journey for the right reasons can truly enjoy, understand, and appreciate what we do - knowing we are doing in life what we should be doing. We are so very privileged to be positioned to absolutely change lives, and occasionally save lives, when we learn and know how to do our job properly. And pushing ourselves to be the best we should be and can be is absolutely free!...growing your practice by learning to help more people is more powerful than any marketing campaign you can envision or pay for.
Finally, let's remember it is not and should never be about me or you. When for the right reasons, medicine and healthcare is a very unselfish pursuit.
- from Vision & Neurology Casebook...
John R. Martinelli, MD, OD, FAAO
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