As we all continue to go through an unprecedented national crisis, the clinical and management staff at Michigan Pain Consultants have been working non-stop to get our feet back underneath the practice and return to what we do best: treat pain. It continues to be a challenge, partly because these waters are uncharted. I asked my 89 year old mother if she can recall anything like this pandemic happening before, and she can’t. Even the polio outbreak 60 some years ago was easier to navigate, she says. As for World War Two, she explained that she recalls Americans having a very clear picture of what steps had to be taken and how to take them. Not so in our current situation.
As I write this, we are planning upon opening back up tomorrow at as many of our locations as we can. We are going to need your help and your patience here, but then, you’ve given us that before. You’ve put up with appointments running behind (sometimes very behind!). You’ve helped us get through most of the glitches in the electronic prescribing we must now do. Many of you have dealt with how the opioid misuse/abuse problem has affected your own pain management. You’ve had to handle the much more restrictive insurance environment of these past few years as well. By and large, despite all of this, we’ve stuck with one another pretty well, haven’t we?
I’ve not seen patients for over two weeks now. Sure, I’ve fielded questions, signed scripts, and even made a brief run at “telemedicine”. For an old doctor like me (am I old? I’m 57 now), that was very tough. I’m just not a box-checking kind of guy. Sure, this unexpected “vacation” has had its upside, crazy as it sounds to speak of a pandemic this way. My three boys are all home from college, which means our home is a mess and the grocery bill has tripled, but I’ve enjoyed seeing how they’ve matured. I’ve had more time to spend with my wife, which I always love. Of course, there have been disappointments as well. Do you recall how, in an earlier piece, I explained how our brain has much more space devoted to eager anticipation than it does to the actual enjoyment of the actual experience/event? Well, I long ago learned that if I have an outdoor adventure planned and on the books, I can get through most anything. I had a big bow hunt planned for early June, but I have just learned that Alaska has cancelled its hunting and fishing seasons for most of the year. Bummer! I have it on the books for 2021 at least.
But, all personal issues aside, perhaps most importantly, I’ve had no choice but to get involved in the actual day to day logistics of my practice, and they are staggering. This in turn has led me to a much greater appreciation for both our clinical and business staff members here at MPC. Looking back, I can see all of the ways I’ve taken them for granted. Sure, in the end, we doctors pay them for their work, but what they do goes far beyond any financial return we offer them. Each one of them has made a study of his/her job, adapting and overcoming in a medical environment that has changed more in the past 3 or 4 years than it has in my previous 22.
What I come away with is this. Medicine is still an art and a science. Always will be. But I’m only able to focus so intensely upon my art and my science and upon you, the patients who’ve entrusted me with their lives, because my staff pretty much takes care of everything else. In short, whatever good I’m able to do for you, my patients, rests entirely upon what my staff does for me. I think we tend to learn best when our minds are forced to become flexible out of sheer necessity. I’m going to do my best to take advantage of this unexpected, and frankly unwelcome, time of mental and physical flexibility, by taking in and holding onto my gratitude.
Thomas M Basch MD