Contents tagged with family physician
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From the editor: Introducing a new look for Texas Family Physician
Eleven years ago, when I came on board as managing editor of Texas Family Physician, I was fresh out of journalism school with a love for design and an eye for art, photography, and typography, but no real-world experience in producing magazines. I learned much in those first few issues about the nuts and bolts of magazine production, all the while trying to appear as though I knew something about an expanding range of increasingly complex editorial topics my new magazine was required to cover.
My first cover story tackled the problems with the financing of graduate medical education – talk about jumping in at the deep end.
During those first issues, I knew the magazine needed a new look, a form and function that could achieve the news and information focus we wanted to deliver, while keeping the warmth and conversational nature we wished to convey. In 2002, we launched the first redesign of TFP under my direction, and while we’ve worked in each issue since to refine that design, I believe the artistic concept has served the Academy well.
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Hart of Dixie: Feel-good family medicine hits the small screen
By Juleah Williams
Among this season’s new fall line-up comes a new drama from the CW – Hart of Dixie – featuring surgeon-turned-country doctor Zoe Hart. Full disclosure: As can be expected from most CW programming, this show is geared toward a teenage audience and includes enough love triangles and “frenemies” to keep their attention. However, exposing this young population to the benefits of primary care and emphasizing the importance of having a relationship with a personal family physician is crucial to increasing interest in the specialty down the road.
As the story goes, Zoe graduated at the top of her class from medical school and seeks to follow in the footsteps of her father, a cardiothoracic surgeon. After residency she fails to be accepted into a fellowship because her superiors deem her “too cold.” Desperate, she decides to accept the offer of a kind stranger—who turns out to be her real father—to join his family medicine practice as a general practitioner in Bluebell, Ala.
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The unintended, but not surprising, negative consequences of hospitalism
By Richard Young, M.D.
A recent study in Annals of Internal Medicine looked at what happened when patients were cared for in the hospital by private physicians (presumably often their personal physicians) compared to hospitalists.
For a little background, hospitalists are doctors whose job is limited to taking care of patients in the hospital. They pick up new patients in shifts or cycles and almost always have no previous relationship with the patients. They rarely see patients in clinics and have no long-term outpatient relationships with patients.
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Remembering a longtime Austin physician, educator
Remembering a longtime Austin physician, educator
Family medicine pioneer Ruth M. Bain, M.D., of Austin died June 23, 2011, at age 92. Bain was highly influential in organized medicine; she served … more
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Payment Reform recap: Demonstrating value
Following the most basic model for success in business means minimizing overhead and maximizing revenues, Dr. Mark Laitos pointed out at TAFP’s Payment Reform Summit last Saturday. For doctors in private practice and other health care providers, this means billing for as many relative value units, or RVUs, as possible at the best conversion rate, and maximizing ancillary revenue, when possible.
And while this strategy is simple enough, Laitos said it has reduced the “proud field” of medicine to “conveyor belt medicine.” Worse, as payers – including health insurers, employers, and patients to some extent – strive to minimize RVUs, the solution to the cost crisis in a fee-for-service system is to slash payment to physicians and deny care to patients.
Of course neither patients nor doctors (nor the organizations that advocate for them) would allow this to happen considering the scale needed to rein in escalating health care costs. The solution, then, as speaker after speaker suggested, is to trade the volume-based model for a value-based model. This is also the cover story of the latest Texas Family Physician magazine.
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Eight things I learned from my tonsillectomy
By Janet Hurley, M.D.
Having been a patient not too long ago, I am convinced that doctors should be patients more often. As we continue to talk more in health care about “patient-centeredness” and the “patient experience,” I have a few thoughts on things I learned during my convalescence period after a tonsillectomy in 2009.
- My surgeon, my anesthesiologist, and the surgical center staff were GREAT. As providers, the things we do become routine to us, but to patients they are extraordinary. Taking the time to explain a procedure carefully and thoughtfully can make a big difference.
- Follow directions. Patient handouts have important information in them and the treatment team knows what they’re doing. I must remember to listen to their advice and review the patient materials when I have questions.
- Don’t be your own doctor! If you have questions about medications or symptoms, ASK SOMEONE ELSE. You may choose to be a highly educated patient, but not your own doctor.
- I am not too tough for pain medications. While I dislike the mental fogginess they create, I had to keep in mind steps I prescribe to my patients—maintain better hydration, better nutrition, and keep my throat moist—to make myself more comfortable.
- I will never even think about accessing my Electronic Medical Record from home until fully off narcotics. Impairment was obvious.
- When on narcotics, I communicate better with my fingers than my tongue. You can’t rush recovery, even when you know you have important work to do. E-mail communication with others kept me connected when my speech was slurred and my throat hurt.
- I have great clinic coverage partners. I had no worries about who would check my messages, approve refill requests, and see my patients when I was out. We must remember that good patient care during such times requires that we receive help from our colleagues.
- Don’t undervalue the significance of family and friends. I am grateful to my husband who took care of our kids and took care of me, and the friends and neighbors who looked for ways to help out during my recovery. It’s okay to lean on those closest to you in times of need!
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Help wanted: Send us your ideas for the Primary Care Rescue Act
As a die-hard fan of the Texas Longhorns, I have no shame in telling you that after last year’s 5-7 record, I was glad the college football season was over. Even though I’m a self-admitted policy wonk and political news junkie, I was equally relieved—even somewhat jubilant—when the 82nd Texas Legislature finally closed up shop and went home. If you followed the frustrating struggle to balance the state budget without additional revenue, and witnessed the resulting cuts to higher education, public education, and health and human services, you might have been just as ready for it to end as I was. At least when they’re not in session, they can’t do any more damage, right?
Now is not the time to bury our heads in the sand. In fact, the legislative interim is perhaps our best opportunity to formulate and articulate our most effective arguments for renewed investment in Texas’ primary care infrastructure. We can document the ill effects of the drastic reduction in state support for graduate medical education, especially in family medicine residency training, and we can illustrate the broken promise of access to primary care physicians for underserved communities made manifest by the 76-percent cut to the state’s Physician Education Loan Repayment Program.
And now is the time to begin preparations for a major initiative in the next legislative session. In the late ’80s, rural medicine in Texas was in terrible need of state investment. Health care organizations and advocates rallied around a broad set of goals encompassed in what was called the Omnibus Rural Healthcare Rescue Act, which the Legislature passed in 1989. The law created the Center for Rural Health Initiatives and the Office of Rural Health Care, and it contained tort reforms, benefits for rural hospitals, several reforms to strengthen the state’s trauma care infrastructure, and new recruitment and training programs for primary care physicians. Family medicine won funding for third-year clerkships, among other valuable reforms.
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Asking for honest feedback – what did you like (or not like) about AS social media?
This Annual Session ushered in a new era of communication, and we asked members to interact with us, their fellow attendees, and their colleagues from around the state and country. Now that the dust has settled on a busy conference filled with CME, business meetings, and special events, we want to encourage you to continue the commentary.
So … what did you think? How were our posts/pictures/tweets? What can we do to improve our communication and interaction with you? And, in a very simple sense, what did you like or not like about our effort (so we can be better next time)?
As a recap, the total effort centered around the Annual Session Social Media Portal – http://tafp11.txfamilydocs.org/ – a page within our TXFamilyDocs.org blog. We had an ASSA Flickr stream updated nightly, as well as a daily news wrap. Staff tweeted more frequently than posting on Facebook, but that goes along with the urgency of the platforms.
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Connect with colleagues through Annual Session Social Media
TAFP is embarking on a new experience for the 2011 Annual Session and Scientific Assembly, July 27-31, in Dallas. We have developed the Annual Session Social Media Portal, a new blog page on TXFamilyDocs.org that presents an opportunity for all TAFP members to participate, provide input, and interact with our fully-integrated social media program during the entire gathering.
This page, http://tafp11.txfamilydocs.org/, will be your hub for a live-streamed lecture; TAFP’s social media feeds; and discussion topics before, during, and after Annual Session. We encourage all to participate, especially if you can’t physically attend Annual Session in Dallas.
On this page we’ll post the latest news, gather attendee feedback, and stream a lecture from the 2011 Annual Session, TMLT’s “Know Before You Sign! What to Look for in a Physician Employment Contract, Including Employment by Non-Profit Health Corporations” with Douglas Kennedy, J.D.
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Physicians generate trillions in economic activity
Physicians generate trillions in economic activity
By Erin Redwine
A study released in February shows the important contributions physicians make to the local, state, and national economies. “The … more