An Open Letter to Medical School Students

Medicine has changed dramatically over the past 50 years. We've waxed extreme from a strongly relationship-driven practice to a technologically-advanced and financially-driven system. The time has come for us to bring these extremes together. Only when these two models of practicing medicine are integrated will we truly deliver great healthcare. When I was a child in Romania, our family doctor made house calls. I remember to this day, 60 years later, that he was a wonderful old man, with grey hair and big warm hands and kind eyes, and I actually looked forward to his visits. Even at five, I understood at some subliminal level that he was there to take care of me. He would examine me and then more often than not would give me a shot. It was usually penicillin, because fortunately for me I was born after penicillin was discovered. Surprisingly, I was never scared or afraid of our old house call doctor. After he was done with me, he would sit at the kitchen table with my mother and have a cup of coffee. I have no idea what they chatted about, but it was clear to me they were both comfortable and had a lot in common. He was part of the community, a member of the family, a friend. In fact, he went to weddings and funerals, he was kind of omnipresent in our lives. Those days are long gone. Medicine has changed a lot. As it changed, we went from having few or no tools for diagnosing and treating disease, to becoming experts and specialists. And technologically so advanced, we...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news