Introduction

April 2016

A training room in Las Vegas, Nevada

We were all asked to attend this meeting. There were about thirty of us.

We came from various paths. I can see that some had their own practice before joining the group. Some were like myself who has been an employed physician since day one.

We were there to relearn medicine. Not about how to take history and exam the patient, not about how to come up with a diagnosis, it is about how to get paid.

From my own orientation to this new job few weeks ago and this meeting, I feel paralyzed. Just like in the past when I went to see the golf instructor asking him to help me hit the golf ball better. Keep your head still, keep your eye on the ball, keep your left wrist flat, keep your left elbow straight. When I think of those instructions, many time I just top the ball and the ball roll to a few feet in front of me.

In the present medical lingo, it is like: Did you do the spirometry? Did you do the EKG? Did you ask about advance directive? Did you do the PHQ-9? Did you do the mini mental state exam? Did you recheck the blood pressure? Did you look at the cardiology notes? Did you ask about family history? Did you reconcile the medication? All of these in front of an elderly patient who is crying and walk in with a cane.

The healers are sick. How do I know? I am one of them. Physician burnout is becoming an epidemic. Physician suicide due to depression is true and real.

It is my hope, that in writing this book, I can share the story of my own burnout. If we are waiting for our elected officials to fix the problem, it is not going to happen. They live in a different world. After they do the lip service during election, they forget about what the citizens are going through. They do not see the elder mother sitting in my office, with a son and daughter-in-law who are in agony, not knowing what to do with their mother who is very demented. They, the officials, live in an insulated world.