Story Archives of 'doctors'

When’s the last time you saw your doctor? And I don’t mean, “When’s the last time you got a check-up”, I mean, when’s the last time you saw your actual doctor? If you’re like most Americans, it’s been a while. Most medical service today is delivered by physician’s assistants and specialists. If you try to schedule an appointment with your primary care doctor, you’re probably going to wait a long, long time for an appointment, and you probably won’t get much face time.

No one seems to like this scenario -- not doctors, and certainly not the people they serve. That’s why some physicians are branching out into a practice known as “boutique medicine”. Under this type of care, patients can get an appointment with their doctor without having to wait forever, and the doctors can take their time with each patient. They accomplish this by charging extra and by limiting the number of people they’re willing to see.

Proponents say it’s a great band-aid for a broken healthcare system, critics say it leaves the poor and middle class out in the cold. Health reporter Jeff Levine recently wrote about boutique medicine for the AARP Bulletin, and he joins us to talk about it on Word of Mouth.

(Photo by Adrian Clark)

A new report by a physician's group says that there will be a shortage of family doctors by 2010. We'll look at the state of primary care here in New Hampshire, how healthy it is or isn't and what factors may be contributing to a decline in both doctors going into primary care and those running successful practices. Laura's guests are Gary Woods, past president of the New Hampshire Medical Society and a physician specializing in hand surgery with Concord Orthopaedics, and Gail Fayre, Program Director for the NH-Dartmouth Family Practice Residency at Concord Hospital and an Assistant Professor of Community and Family Medicine. We'll also hear from Dr. Rick Kellerman, President of the American Academy of Family Physicians who released the study on family doctors, Terry Bennett, a General Practitioner, and Matt Masewic, a family physician who is shutting down his practice, Boscowen Family Practice, after two years of operation due to financial strain.

Doctors have one of the most strict codes of conduct of any profession.

An angry outburst or sloppy note taking could warrant an investigation by the Board of Medicine.

A doctor could be banned from practicing for having a substance abuse problem.

Stepping beyond these ethical limits can have devastating effects: both for the health of the patient and the career of the doctor.

Physicians do have an elaborate policing system designed to protect patients.

Yet few people are aware that it exists.

New Hampshire Public Radio’s Kerry Grens has more on how New Hampshire deals with doctors who stray.

Amos Townsend is a retired physician and Air Force Colonel who served as a flight surgeon in Vietnam at the height of the American war. He later returned to Southeast Asia with his wife for five years to help refugees at a refugee camp on the Thailand-Cambodia border. He tells host John Walters why his work in the health field took him to more than 40 countries.

Dr. David Kelley began his residency in anesthesiology at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center at age 37. He'd been a college dropout and a bouncer in Little Rock before taking on his arduous medical training. He tells John Walters about the turnaround in his life and what led him to create the organization "Old Pre-Meds."