I received this amazing email today from a viewer of the webinars. I hope it resonates with you like it did with me! This is why Paul and I have been holding the webinars and hosting this site.
About 30 minutes into the webinar I felt like I was finally home. Everything I heard resonated with my experience since this pandemic started rapidly impacting our world. I have rediscovered my purpose, have felt like what I did mattered. I had a glimpse again of the reasons I went to medical school and became a pediatrician… Yes, I knew that I had the best job in the world, working with babies, children and families alongside like-minded people who shared many of my core values. But the metrics, the prior authorizations, the school forms, the visits just to get a school excuse, the unending documentation of meaningless information, the consumer mindset. As a seasoned pediatrician, I suppose I was getting closer to mastery of my art. Although I was still constantly learning, it was about ever changing ICD-10s and CPT codes, new documentation requirements, how to avoid penalties and decreased reimbursements if a box was not checked or a 14 point insignificant review of systems or smoking status of a 5 year old was not documented, regardless of the actual care a patient received. Not only was I not passionate about it, I found it meaningless and soul crushing. As owner of an independent practice, I had some level of autonomy, but no leverage. I felt that I was at the mercy of administrative rule makers, competing with retail medicine.
You guys verbalized what I have been experiencing the past four weeks. I know that others in medicine are also experiencing it, but it has not been articulated. Has it been drowned out by the unthinkable tragedy, chaos and upheaval? Has it been suffocated under the confusion and uncertainty which is exacerbated by divided, inconsistent, questionable leadership and gross unpreparedness as we are blindsided by the attack of a relentless, merciless and deadly invader, without adequate PPE, trained personnel, supply of ventilators and other necessary equipment? Despite all of this, I have rediscovered my passion, or maybe it has been uncovered. This is what I am called to do. I have a purpose, I am essential. And I want to continue to live, and breathe, and practice medicine according to what I know is important, what I value, now and beyond this pandemic.
