If I can make a point with a story I came up with.
Quinn Bradley opened practice on the west side of town. He chose not to hire an appointments clerk, a nurse, or any of the other full-time medical assistants that often come with a doctor's office.
He shunned most appointments, just telling his patients to drop by and see him when they had time.
He didn't accept insurance, but that didn't matter much to his patients, since a visit was only $40, anyway.
Word of mouth came to make a difference. Right from the start, he was thorough with each patient, wanting to discover everything medically he could about them every time they visited. He'd query them forward and backward, and examine them inside and out, anxious not to miss a thing.
Word got around about how thorough he was, and from that time on, he didn't have a shortage of patients. People knew that if Dr. Everything examined them, they couldn't do better.
Did I tell you why they called him Dr. Everything? Well, he took a little longer getting through medical school than most because he got a few specialty degrees in order to make him a more well-rounded doctor. He didn't want to diagnose one thing while not even knowing another problem existed. He wanted to be an expert in as much of medicine as humanly possible.
And, there were a number of surgeries he could perform. It was in those instances that he would take appointments, and schedule his part-time nurse to come in and assist him.
In an age in which our medical system is struggling, a few more doctors like Dr. Everything couldn't do America harm. Right now, everyone is waiting for Congress to come up with medical reform. I'm not sure that is needed. Instead, just inspire a good share of doctors to be like Dr. Quinn Bradley.
(Note: It occurring to me that some might not realize this is a fictitious story, the first sentence was added 11/20/17.)
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