In an era when medical students are flocking to specialties with high pay and predictable hours, country doc and WSJ.com columnist Ben Brewer worries that family doctors are becoming “an endangered species.”
“What sustains me in my practice is the importance of the work and the satisfaction of seeing patients get well and the kids grow up,” he writes. “You can’t hide from your results as a country doctor. I see nearly everyone I treat around town, and I like it that way.” At a school program, he bumps into a toddler he delivered eight weeks early and stabilized until a helicopter came to take him to intensive care; a woman he referred a while back for cervical cancer surgery was out riding her bike the other day, and waved to Brewer as she passed his house. The fun is in the follow-up,” he writes. “Doctors who never see the rest of a patient’s life are missing out.” |
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