Welcome and thank you for listening. This podcast may be more for me than you. It is a podcast down memory lane with regards to the practice of medicine. When I went to medical school it was about the practice of medicine not the delivery of healthcare. The patient was the sole focus. How to rid them of disease or fix what was broken. Now it is about economies of scale and numbers to treat with regard to cost effectiveness. It is about seeing 40,50,70 patients a day with little time spent at the bedside and most of the time in front of a computer screen. The results are not better for anyone involved; at least not for the patient or the doctor. I stumbled upon Dr. Victoria Sweet’s book, God’s Hotel looking at a Direct Primary Care Site. God’s Hotel was Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco, California. A 1200 bed hosptial that cared for the city’s poor in large 37 bed wards. Where doctors had time to spend with their patients and participate in their healing and their lives. It was isolated from the healthcare system of policies and procedures, patient disposition rounds, electronic medical records, and the 3rd party payer system and rules. Dr. Sweet spent 25 years there practicing medicine while she earned her PhD in the History of Medicine. Her experience there lead to her publishing the book, God’s Hotel and subsequently, Slow Medicine, The Way to Healing. LaGuna Honda Hospital could not remain hidden forever. Healthcare arrived and the hospital was rebuit along with the new ways of healthcare. We talk about medicine and healthcare. The physical examination and connection with our patients, the need to bring human kindness and compassion back into medicine and much more.
I would like to thank her personally for the reassurance of my own path to take back the practice of medicine through a Direct Primary Care Model. It is the path less traveled to limit the number of patients I see so that each patient is cared for in all aspects of disease and health. Choosing to teach plant based nutrition to my patients as a way of reversing lifestyle diseases instead tempory treatments with medications and invasive procedures has revitalized my practice of medicine. There is nothing more important than our health. If you have any questions please email me at jami@doctordulaney.com and please visit the website at doctordulaney.com. You can learn more about Dr. Sweet at @GodsHotel on Facebook. Check out her TEDxMiddlebury talk on youtube.com, The efficiency of inefficiency.
Thank you for listening.