Physicians Practice - June 2008 - (Page 15) grative Care Center at Clarian West Hospital in Avon, Ind., just west of Indianapolis. The patients are warmly greeted with their names and a smile. The staff in the office is there to help them if they need help filling out forms and to answer any questions they may have. I will walk with the patient and show them where the hospital lab is as well as how to find the hospital registration. Patients are always given reminder calls in a pleasant tone of voice. Since first impressions are the most important, we make sure to treat the patients in the same manner we would like to be treated. It is said that healing begins in the front office, and as Schwartz stated in her article, patients will keep coming back when they know that the doctor and his staff truly care and want to see them get better. —Mark Hummer Avon, Ind. MORE ON “ENOUGH” I recently read with interest your editorial “How Much Is Enough?” (October, 2007). Your lip service and granting a point for the exponential time and effort invested to achieve a physician’s skill level is less than generous. In fact, I find it offensive. The sacrifices in many aspects of life to complete the requirements to be a skilled physician and surgeon are only appreciated by the one completing the effort (and perhaps his or her spouse and children). Perhaps an even more pertinent point you fail to acknowledge is the adverse legal climate in which American doctors practice. Yes, there are “bad doctors” who need to be investigated, and the public needs to protected, but the American legal system is the single biggest factor that will drive good physicians out of practice and into early retirement (that is, if those individuals became doctors in the first place) as well as create the environment of defensive medicine, which is a major contributor in the continually rising cost of healthcare. Treating the human condition and its afflictions is an imperfect vocation. Adverse events will occur. We cannot prevent that. We cannot always reverse that. We are not perfect. But we certainly try. As long as the public demands perfection from their physicians and surgeons and there is a lawyer ready to pounce, there isn’t “enough.” After all, what is the price of perfection? • —Matt Reckmeyer, MD Lincoln, Neb. CORRECTION Our May 2008 cover story "Malpractice Insurance: How to Lower Your Premiums," incorrectly identified The Doctors Company as publicly owned. It is physician-owned. WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM JUNE 2008 | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | 15 http://www.ambir.com/PP http://www.ambir.com/PP http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM
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