An Ending and a Beginning Today I closed the doors on 26+ years of solo practice. My emotions are mixed. There is an enormous feeling of relief that I will no longer have my own business which has become a daily grind - constantly having to fight obstacles that interfere with patient care, depending on third party payers and people in general to actually reimburse me for my services, and always worrying if I will be able to pay my employees, my malpractice and my office expenses and still have enough left over to pay my own bills at the end of the month. On the other hand, I feel a profound sense of loss. I will miss the autonomy of running my own office, the daily encounters with a hospital staff that I love, and my long term patients who have become like family to me. Old people dont like change and I admit I love the familiar. Wayne and I have prayed and discussed for months the endless possibilities of where to go from here. I love what I do and I want to continue working part time. As I have said before, it does not appear that my rich uncle will ever get out of the poorhouse so it will be necessary to work part time to pay our bills. I also do not want to see the Labor and Delivery unit at Taylor Regional closed down. If an L&D unit at a small hospital closes down, it would be unlikely that we could ever get the states approval to reopen it. The L&D unit is the lifeblood of a small rural hospital. Woman have their babies there and then the babies are often followed by the local pediatricians. If mama and babies are being seen there, then dad and other family members are likely to seek medical care from the doctors at the same facility. If the unit closes, it creates a ripple effect that will reverberate and eventually be felt throughout the hospital and in every doctors office affecting revenues and the hospitals ability to remain open. So closing the unit could have potentially disastrous consequences. Wayne and I have been having open discussions with Taylor Regional for several weeks now. We already have Dr. Robinson working here as our new Ob-Gyn and the hospital is actively recruiting a second Ob-Gyn. The long term vision is to have a Taylor Womens Health Care group with three doctors, one of which will be part time. Like most Ob-Gyn practices, you could get an appointment with whoever you wanted to see, but obstetrical patients (unless scheduled) would be delivered by the doctor on call. Forty years ago, when I had my first son, I was induced in labor by one doctor and delivered 40 minutes into the next doctors shift. This is the way it works everywhere in this country. I have spoiled my patients for so long by staying in solo practice and always being available for deliveries even when I was not on call, but this is not the norm! After much discussion and prayer, today I signed a contract with Taylor Regional to work part time for them. I will be working in my same office the first ten business days of each month and will be on call the first weekend of each month. This allows me time to pursue other things after the 14th of each month. It also provides call relief for Dr. Robinson (seriously, no one can do this job endlessly with no time off and retain their sanity or their health!). It will be a good transition position because I will not have to abruptly break my ties with middle Georgia, allowing me to continue to see friends and coworkers that are like family to me. For the time being, if you want to see me when I am here, you can continue to call our same office number for an appointment. I will start this part time position in November. The Hebrew word to give is NATAN. The word is a palindrome, i.e., it reads the same backward and forward. It is spelled this way to teach us that when we give, we get back. I have given many years of service to this hospital and will continue to do so in a much more limited capacity, but the people of middle Georgia - my patients, staff and coworkers - have given me so much more in return. You all will always own a large part of my heart. Thanks for your support and love all these years!
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 02:46:19 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015