Doctors, He Felt, Were No Longer Helping People

It was never his intention that the name would stick.  A decade ago, when he first began working in the restaurant, some of his fellow employees knew that he was formerly a practicing physician and started to call him "Doc".  Although many of his coworkers had since moved on, taking the knowledge of his previous profession with them, his moniker persisted. Doc liked the simplicity and tedium of his bartending job.  He spent the majority of his nights doing what he liked most, interacting with fellow human beings.  He remembered a time when medicine offered such enticing rewards.  When he could sit across from a patient with a paper and pen and record only the most salient information.  He could look into their eyes, wax philosophical in the exam room, and still have enough time to comfort a grieving family member.The practice of medicine was once both amazingly complex and laughably simple.  The convoluted path of the ailing body was matched by the enduringly straightforward need to be loved and cared for.  And Doc loved his patients.  He loved them so much, in fact, that the wave of computerization, legislation, and compliance almost got the best of him.He no longer enjoyed his day to day activities.  His warm greetings and kind words were overtaken by a nagging electronic medical record system and voluminous rounds of paperwork.  Doc was deeply depressed and on the verge of suicide when he made the life altering decisio...
Source: In My Humble Opinion - Category: Primary Care Authors: Source Type: blogs