Grateful, Honored, Humbled

Sep 02, 2010

 

Septmeber 2010 | Posted by: Dr. Suber

One of my highest priorities professionally is to personally invest myself into my patients. I feel strongly that an essential key to providing the best experience and outcomes possible for the patients who I am privileged to serve go well beyond me having the proper training, experience and surgical skills required to appropriately manage a patient's issue(s). This practice philosophy I believe is essential when the goal is to go beyond healing just the obvious injury, correcting just the obvious deformity or addressing just the stated patient issue. No matter what the reason for a consultation or emergency room visit, the fundamental similarity with every patient encounter is that I am treating a whole person every time...not a body part, not a diagnosis...but an unique individual. By my definition, successful interaction in the context of that seemingly obvious truth requires relationship where both parties are personally invested.

I am not going to belabor the point with a dissection of how I believe this is best accomplished. But I will share with you that I firmly believe that there are key elements in how a plastic surgeon's office is run that either promote or deter an ideal physician-patient relationship. I feel strongly that this cannot be accomplished if an office nurse is the one who spends the majority of face time with you during a consultation, while the plastic surgeon does a "30 second fly through" for a quick exam and is out of the room almost before your hair settles down from the breeze created. This cannot be accomplished when a patient gets the sense that her questions are not being fully and completely answered by the plastic surgeon personally during consultation. This cannot be accomplished when a patient does not feel comfortable and even encouraged to call her plastic surgeon 24/7 for any questions post-operatively, and have a genuine faith that he will be able to address the matter at hand successfully and with genuine concern.

I will resist the "soapbox moment" that I feel coming on regarding "beside manner" and how often it saddens me to hear all too frequent stories of even intelligent and well-trained physicians missing the boat so broadly regarding how they mismanage patient relations. When reflecting upon these stories, I am further pained by the reality that a career that should be a calling to service of others more than anything else, falls woefully short in either the execution or in rejection of my philosophy altogether. If there is any silver lining here, it is that these anecdotal stories motivate me personally to be fundamentally different.

I suppose it is the nature of this format, but I find it amusing that I am 450 words into this blog and I have yet to get to its purpose, which is the following. In order to give those visiting the website a clearer picture into the type of physician-patient relationships we foster in my office, a "Patient Testimonial" page was designed. One of the tasks necessary to create this site the way I envisioned was to gather together patients' correspondence with me from over nearly a decade of service. Much to my relief this potentially overwhelming responsibility was voluntarily taken on by my wife. I knew that these letters, notes and cards were around. Each had generated in me a humble smile upon the reading. While I knew that none had ever been discarded, I supposed that each ended up in the chart of the patient from whom it came. And I was sure that there was no separate documentation of even a fraction of the names of patients who had corresponded so genuinely and sincerely. So I assumed that the task of retrieving the correspondences was going to be monumental. But unbeknownst to me, my wife had been surreptitiously collecting these all along, apparently for some far distant retirement party planned for the mid-21st century.

So there I sat at my desk, stacks of paper at my side. I was for the first time reading together at one sitting each collected note card and letter, one after the other. The effect on me was substantial. I was reminded of house calls made, late night unscheduled office visits to manage an unexpected injury, and even surprising positive responses to my (sometimes dry, sometimes well-worn) sense of humor that apparently soothed some of my younger patients (and their parents).

As I poured through the collected stories detailing the impact that the type of physician-patient relationship I have created had on my patients, I at first struggled to put into words my feelings. But in the end what I concluded was that I am grateful to have been given the skill set to do what I do and (perhaps) the smallest sliver of wisdom to pursue the style of patient-centered practice I have created. I was honored to have the opportunity to encounter and intervene on behalf of individuals for whom I have cared, and perhaps in some small way improved their quality of life...perhaps even beyond the scope of the surgery. I was humbled that those patients would honor me with their trust and then they, as well as other physicians in my community and beyond thought enough of me personally and professionally to refer me new patients to care for.

I am grateful. I am honored. I am humbled. I thank each and every one of you who has to date trusted me to your care. And I am motivated more than ever to continue to foster an environment in my office that promotes the ideals of a truly patient-centered practice. As always, I welcome your comments and feedback ([email protected]). And always remember, no matter where you are, Life is good.

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