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It wouldn’t be incorrect to characterize nearly every aspect
of a physician’s professional life as being patient focused;
from many practitioners’ original motives for choosing a career
in medicine, to the reason for the exertion of so much time and effort
in the application of the knowledge gained during those long years
of education and training, a physician’s actions and choices
are directed by a concern for or a connection to the patients he
or she treats. This essential truth can sometimes get obscured by
or even lost amid the distractions that characterize medicine as
it is practiced today. To help mitigate this, we take it as part
of our editorial mission to bring attention to or otherwise profile
those online or technology-related resources that can assist physicians
in maintaining that patient-focused stance.
The subject of this issue’s Cover Story comes at that mission
from a slightly different angle. As any physician still relying on
paper-based patient records can attest, the cost of storing and maintaining
them, the time required to retrieve them from (possibly offsite)
archives, and the space needed in which to house them are not insignificant,
especially for high-volume, long-established practices. The time,
money, and space costs all add up, to one degree or another, to take
away focus from and time spent with patients. Fortunately, a technological
solution to this dilemma is at hand. The advantages of "going
paperless" are presented in detail in the Cover Story; take
this information to heart and free up more of your time and energies
to devote to your patients.
Unfortunately, sometimes the very patients
physicians invest so much of themselves into treating can become
a negative focal point
and require the expenditure of a great deal of counterproductive
effort when their behavior becomes abusive, inappropriate, or otherwise
unacceptable. Sometimes good intentions are not enough and it becomes
necessary to sever the professional relationship with a patient.
This is not a task to be undertaken lightly, for it carries with
it many possible ramifications if not handled with the proper discretion;
this issue’s article devoted to this subject will hopefully
guide you through these potentially hazardous waters. Yet even in
the instances when physicians must devote themselves to removing
the focus of their ministrations from a specific patient, it is to
the eternal credit of the profession that, even at the nadir of a
patient-physician relationship, physicians’ strong sense of
responsibility to their patients and code of ethics ensure no patient
is summarily turned away; treatment, even at this low point, will
still be seen to until a new provider is found.
We celebrate our reader’s commitment
to and focus on their patients; we appreciate the opportunity to
continue to assist in
their professional endeavors.
Yours,
Michael J. Hennessy
Publisher
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