(Snippets from the frontline)
Start the clock
The timer starts as the doctor walks through the exam room door.
Do they greet you, or even sit down?
How many questions do they ask before pulling out their prescription pad or sending you off for an expensive test?
Almost all medical care is now rendered in this manner whether you are seeing a primary care physician, specialist, or in the emergency room.
In the past, TIME was the essence of making a diagnosis and providing appropriate treatment. Nowadays, because the medical profession has been taken over by profiteering business people, you and your doctor are on the clock attempting to decipher through body symptoms that ultimately could re-direct your life.
Time allowed a correct diagnosis to be made, but now more often, the bull’s eye is missed.
The true statistical measure should be has a physician made an accurate diagnosis, as opposed to wasting money and chasing zebras.
Let’s use “correct diagnosis” as a quality measure, and not whether your doctor got you out in 10 minutes.
Times up!
Gene Uzawa Dorio, M.D.
Leave a Comment