John Baker
Final Approach
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2008
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- San Diego, California
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John Baker
My primary care physician retired back in October of last year. We, at one time simply referred to our own doctor as "my doctor". I moved over to the family practice across the court from his office.
I guess it was about a year before he retired, maybe less, that he started bringing his laptop computer into the exam room. In the good old days, he would come into the exam room with nothing but himself and his stethoscope. We would chat about this or that for perhaps five minutes or so.
Our conversations consisted of what seemed to be small talk, but mostly centered on my health and how I was feeling. My fifteen or so minutes he spent with me was usually him checking my heart and lungs, he would check my back which was usually an ongoing problem for me, and he would check whatever it was that brought me into his office. I always felt that I was the focus of all of his attention.
Then the laptop became part of my exam room time, well actually, it became the center of all of his attention, with him asking me a series of assorted questions that seemed to have been prompted by his computer. He would diligently type in each of my responses.
I visited my new doctor, er... primary health care provider, yesterday. It was the same thing. I went into the exam room, then he and his computer came in. We introduced ourselves to each other, then he set his computer on a little podium like table and we worked together on what seemed to be the patient, the computer, answering all of its assorted questions. At the appropriate time, he checked my heart and lungs, and felt the reason I was there, a lump under my arm, and then he went back to his computer.
All of this has got me to wondering how far away we are from eliminating doctors altogether. An exam could be conducted via e-mails, with a quick hop to the office to have a trained technician listen to my heart and lungs, and take other assorted vitals. Or perhaps computers could be equipped with Kromen revelators that would do all of that in your home.
I don't know the reason that a laptop computer now gets the bulk of a doctor's attention in an exam room, if it's due to insurance company demands or Obamacare demands.
I think this is actually the worst thing that has happened to our healthcare system, the self protection information gathering, or it could be more about payment gathering, I don't know.
One of the girls in the new office had worked for my old doctor. She told me he is now volunteering his time at a free clinic down in the Barrio.
I think I might wander down to Mexico and check out a few doctors down there one of these days.
-John
I guess it was about a year before he retired, maybe less, that he started bringing his laptop computer into the exam room. In the good old days, he would come into the exam room with nothing but himself and his stethoscope. We would chat about this or that for perhaps five minutes or so.
Our conversations consisted of what seemed to be small talk, but mostly centered on my health and how I was feeling. My fifteen or so minutes he spent with me was usually him checking my heart and lungs, he would check my back which was usually an ongoing problem for me, and he would check whatever it was that brought me into his office. I always felt that I was the focus of all of his attention.
Then the laptop became part of my exam room time, well actually, it became the center of all of his attention, with him asking me a series of assorted questions that seemed to have been prompted by his computer. He would diligently type in each of my responses.
I visited my new doctor, er... primary health care provider, yesterday. It was the same thing. I went into the exam room, then he and his computer came in. We introduced ourselves to each other, then he set his computer on a little podium like table and we worked together on what seemed to be the patient, the computer, answering all of its assorted questions. At the appropriate time, he checked my heart and lungs, and felt the reason I was there, a lump under my arm, and then he went back to his computer.
All of this has got me to wondering how far away we are from eliminating doctors altogether. An exam could be conducted via e-mails, with a quick hop to the office to have a trained technician listen to my heart and lungs, and take other assorted vitals. Or perhaps computers could be equipped with Kromen revelators that would do all of that in your home.
I don't know the reason that a laptop computer now gets the bulk of a doctor's attention in an exam room, if it's due to insurance company demands or Obamacare demands.
I think this is actually the worst thing that has happened to our healthcare system, the self protection information gathering, or it could be more about payment gathering, I don't know.
One of the girls in the new office had worked for my old doctor. She told me he is now volunteering his time at a free clinic down in the Barrio.
I think I might wander down to Mexico and check out a few doctors down there one of these days.
-John
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