Why I choose DPC medicine - Part I
This is me beaming after getting my “business card” — a joint design between my father, friends and myself.
Typically, I hate to talk about myself. However, I think it’s important to explain how I got here, opening a Direct Primary Care Pediatric office. My journey speaks to the type of patient care and relationships that are at the core of my personal values, and why I became a doctor.
I had a very good job working for a medical group for almost ten years. I loved the people who I worked with on a daily basis. I loved my patients and felt so honored to have been part of so many lives — often starting from the moment of birth. I had benefits like health insurance and job security. Why give this up?
Because I started to hate my job…. What I hated most was all the apologizing I, and the staff I worked with, did on a daily basis for things beyond my control. Parents would call and only get a busy signal, or would spend so long on hold that they’d hang up. Parents would get sieved through layers of receptionists, medical assistant and nurses from different offices before I would know that they were calling me. Often families would end up bringing their children to Urgent Care Centers or the emergency room because they couldn’t schedule an appointment to get their child seen. I’d see them in follow up, and stop the antibiotics or steroids that they had invariably been placed on for viruses. And I’d apologize that they had wasted time and money and potentially harmed their child in the process — all because they simply couldn’t reach the right person when they called for help.
I longed to sit down, and spend time with the families I took care of. I typically saw 20 to 25 children each day — and occasionally over 35 children daily during sick season. When I was at work, I never stopped. I would run late, and explain to families that it wasn’t because I was wasting their time, but because another family needed me more at the moment. But it never felt good to make families wait - and I was wasting their time. There were days where I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath.
Ages ago, when I was in medical school, I was on a committee that created our classes’ declaration of principles. First off, our committee created a poem, because medicine is an art. There was a line in the poem, about being at the end of the day, and taking a deep breath, and meeting the next patient with the same energy with which we had greeted the first patient of the day. This theme has stuck with me for almost two decades.
I knew that I was no longer able to take that deep breath before recommitting to being fully present for every family I saw. There was simply not the time. I could not sustain that energy. And I hated myself for this seeming failure. And I hated medicine because it became only about diagnoses and treatment and not about care.
When I learned about Direct Primary Care (DPC) medicine, my spirit rose — “I can do this. I would love to do this.” This way of doing medicine (more on Direct Primary Care in the next installment) makes sense — and allows me the time to focus on relationships, on families and to truly listen to concerns.
My first patient I saw as a DPC doctor called at 4 pm - her daughter had a sore throat, and she was worried about COVID. Did she need to go to an emergency room? Absolutely not — I saw the child in my office at 5 pm. I was able to test for both COVID and strep and give reassurance and counseling about precautions going forward. At the end of the visit, the mom commented that she felt so amazed that this sort of medicine was possible, to reach their doctor, on the first attempt, and to be seen that same day — and “for $80 per month! That’s less than my daughter’s cell phone bill!”
This experience, these comments, drove home that I have made the right choice in choosing this new pathway. I love being a doctor — it defines who I am. How lucky am I to now strive to live my ideals!
Personalized Pediatrics of Maine strives to be the best Pediatric office in the state of Maine!
