Principles of Authentic Medicine
This is an ongoing list of “rules” that define what authentic medicine is all about. They are just some rough ideas. I would love some feedback and additions that you may give.
- Be present on the job
- Quality is flexible, subjective and sometimes indefinable
- Administrators should not be in charge of patient care
- Insurance companies should not determine plan of care
- Spend time with the patient
- Smile every day
- Know your patient
- Enjoy what you are doing
- Don’t make crap up
- Customer service is not everything but it is STILL important
- If you don’t take care of yourself than you can’t expect patients to take care of themselves
- Don’t let yourself be abused by a patient
- Don’t abuse patients
- Healthcare is a service and therefore a business. Commit to improving it; not giving it away.
- Find a way to have fun with your staff, partners or patients
- Make a profit but don’t gouge people
- Don’t make a profit by churning through patients
- Actually listen to the patient and hopefully the patient will actually listen to the doctor
- Local, local, local – doctor should live in and understand the community and the patients
- It is okay if the experience in the exam room is reverential or spiritual
- Making medicine civilized again
- Walk your talk – eat healthy, be thin, exercise
- Don’t ever take yourself too seriously
- Pay attention to the details
- Don’t do this job because of the money or the security or your ego – you should actually want to help people
- Be true to yourself
- Don’t cut corners
- Do not lose touch with what happens in the trenches
- Remember, there is a delicate and difficult balance between the art and the science of medicine.
Re-read “House of God” and take the laws to heart. Remember “The patient is the one with the disease…” “Gomers go to ground…” and “Age+BUN= lasix dose…” God, I love that book. I keep a couple of copies around and no med student spends a month with me without reading it. Black humor and as true today as 30 odd years ago.
Medicine is a vocation, not an avocation. Have a life outside the office.