So this initially heart-tugging tale of a rural doctor who’s been practicing medicine in Maine since 1968, has never bought (or learned how to use) a computer, now being forced out of medicine by the state … has a few more dimensions to it.
1. Not to go all ageist, but should an 84-year-old doctor consider retirement?
2. The state’s issue is that there’s supposed to be reporting from doctors into a database tracking opioid prescriptions. That’s not for nothing, and there’s likely related things a doctor might be asked to report in for public health reasons. If the physician cannot (and will not) do that — is it _un_reasonable for the state to prevent them from practicing?
3. If the doctor in question never touches computers, and has never bothered to learn, does that imply anything about the accessibility to up-to-date information and training that a doctor should be assumed to have? Are they actually keeping up with medical advances?
4. If the only “high tech” the doctor has is a landline phone, how are records for individuals sent to hospitals as needed? Hand-carried? Snail-mail? Is that a concern?
5. If we say, “Well, the doctor works in some poor rural community that desperately needs a doctor, and doesn’t need someone with all the latest-greatest information and databases and toys,” are we also saying that rural communities should have second-rate medical care, or that we’re happy if patients just get the treatment they need 80% of the time, or that our only societal choices for that community are to either have no doctor or have one that doesn’t measure up?
6. People (esp. tax-sensitive people) tend to pooh-pooh the idea of broadband access as a human right. If that’s a (legal, if not also medical) necessity for a doctor to practice in a community … that begins to sound like a human right, or at least societal obligation, to provide such service.
It’s a more interesting story in its implications than at first blush.
Elderly doctor: I lost my license because I don’t know how to use a computer | Ars Technica
Doc says her paper records are just fine—state medical board disagrees.
Thanks. I was feeling much the same way on a number of those points.
Me too! My immediate, if uncharitable, conjecture was that this was a minimum-fuss way to shut down a pill mill.
Sounds like she needs a medical assistant. But how she would pay them when she charges $50 a visit? How does she hand insurance, Medicare or Medicaid?
+Linda Tewes My guess, from the article, is that it is "cash and carry" medicine. And part of my doesn't want that go to away, and part of me realizes all the problems with that.
+Michael Verona That's an interesting thought, though the article really doesn't go there.
Perhaps it's because I've lived all my life in suburbia, but I cannot conceive of a doctor's office that only consists of the doctor and no staff.
In answer to Linda's question about how the doctor handled insurance, I assume that she didn't. Apparently this was a cash-only operation.
Now of course the doctor can continue to charge $50 and practice medicine without a license under the table – except for that pesky little prescription issue. I'm sure some herbal salesperson is trying to track the doctor down right now…
+Dave Hill A medical practice like in the old country.
+Linda Tewes Infant mortality was atrocious in the old country.
+Eric Walker Have you seen Texas’ mother and infant mortality?
+Linda Tewes why is that relevant in an article about a Dr. in Maine? Or in reference to the old country. TX is one of the most techologically advanced states in the country. It is the opposite of old country. How are the infant morality rates in Mississippi?