By Dr. Kate Scannell, Syndicated columnist, Bay Area News Group
First Published in Print: 11/28/10
THE 11TH season finale of "Dancing with the Stars" drew 24 million viewers last Monday night. I was one of them.
I watched the show, exhausted after a particularly grueling day at work. And though I had punched the proverbial clock, still, like many physicians, I continued to view the spectacle of the world through a doctor's lenses.
So I worried about Jennifer Grey's spine and cringed whenever her neck extended. I wished for Bristol Palin an experience of joy residing in the gift of an agile, healthy body -- resilient to the thorny body politic impinging upon it. And I was grateful for Kyle Massey's intrepid exuberance -- I've witnessed no better public health promotion for exercise and physical fitness.
The show was peppered with advertisements reminding us to stay tuned for the upcoming debut of its latest offshoot, "Skating with the Stars." And while I did not warm to that particular concept, I was inspired to think about a different spinoff with a medical twist.
Already, besides skating and dancing with experienced professionals, "the stars" are also singing with the pros. They are shaking and baking with celebrity chefs. Pitching business startups to Donald Trump. Everywhere, the stars are lined up -- literally and figuratively -- to illuminate how anything is possible, how any profession can be mastered within weeks of trying. So it seemed natural to wonder -- why not "Doctoring with the Stars!"?
There are so many good reasons to launch a show featuring pairs of stars and doctors who compete to provide the best quality medical care to patients in the current health care system. For example, "Doctoring with the Stars!" would provide a much-needed reality-check against the public's skewed view of doctors. Through documentary-type coverage of the stars during their monthlong training to become physicians, the public would see what genuine footwork was required of real doctors engaged in actual dances with life and death.
Even I am sometimes confused by media portrayals of doctors. After watching just a few episodes of "Private Practice" I once showed up at work in high-heels and a Chanel white coat, expecting to sit with colleagues all day around the break-room table until our one shared patient-of-the-day showed up and interrupted the fun. One day, I began shouting out inaccurate diagnoses and ordering every imaginable diagnostic test for patients simply because "House" had made that seem not only right, but also righteous. And after season four of "Grey's Anatomy" -- well, let's say I realized that not all doctors need to experience delusional psychotic breaks or personality transplants within the course of their careers.
Besides, if "Doctoring with the Stars!" succeeded in transforming waning stars into shining new careers as doctors, it could help alleviate our country's physician workforce shortage. Already, within the next 15 years, we expect to face at least a 125,000 physician shortfall.
To expand audience interest, we could change the locale week-to-week. Competing star-physician couples could discover the unique challenges of providing health care in urban settings, rural areas, impoverished communities, and many other places where large audiences of underserved Americans await decent health care access.
Perhaps the most logical first version of the new show should be "Enhancing with the Stars!" Here, we'd pair stars with renowned plastic surgeons in a faceoff, waiting to see which pair performed the most satisfactory lip or cheek enhancements on audience volunteers.
Another viable and related version could be "Operating with the Stars!" We'd watch stars cut it up on stage with master surgeons who each week concentrated on whatever human organ (or sub-organ) was relevant to their subspecialty (or sub-subspecialty) practice. Besides allowing for a limitless variety of weekly topics, this program format over time would educate us about often-ignored aspects of our own human anatomy -- like the mysterious islets of Langerhans, the impish uvula, or the "... .
In "Babying with the Stars!" we'd watch stars delivering more than lines. Star-psychiatrist couples in "Brainstorming with the Stars!" could compete to help troubled people who failed Doctor Phil's advice.
Finally, we consider "Primary Caring with the Stars!" Here, primary care doctors -- mostly from internal medicine, family practice, geriatrics and pediatrics -- are coupled with our stars. Sure, we may encounter difficulty locating enough primary care doctors for the show, especially when it comes to geriatricians or internists for adults. In advance of our population bang of aging baby boomers, the Institute of Medicine already estimates a current shortage of 12,000 geriatricians. A study in 2008 revealed that only 5 percent of medical students were choosing general internal medicine for a career path. Still, as the saying goes, "The show must go on."
In these primary care episodes, no one constantly yells "STAT!" or "Shock 'em!" Blood doesn't gush, and organs aren't rushed into clinic for lifesaving transplants. Rarely does anybody die or give birth during scheduled office appointments.
But patients needing more than 15 minutes of attention do show up -- every 15 minutes. In particular, the adult patients bring long lists of lingering concerns that have been awaiting medical evaluation, many of those concerns older than the doctors themselves. They bear bags containing medication bottles that require reconciliation or refill.
In the impinging background, paperwork piles up. Reimbursement claims regularly boomerang back from insurance companies as denials. The electronic medical record must be constantly fed with data entry and billing codes. Phones routinely ring with requests from the nurses' stations, inquiries from the patient call center, questions from colleagues. Nobody really knows where the break-room is located.
In these "Primary Caring" episodes, under significant budgetary constraints and administrative scrutiny, our star-physician pairs will be challenged to provide quality medical care to each and every patient, judged against 25 standards of excellence and, at the same time, patients' ratings of their performance.
Bonus points will be awarded for any glimmer of glamour that the couples can bring to primary care. We in the audience watch, mostly waiting to see if any star-physician couple simply makes it through the hour.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Kate Scannell is a Bay Area geriatrician and syndicated columnist. Her new novel is "Flood Stage."
© Copyright 2010, Kate Scannell
First Published in Print: 11/28/10
THE 11TH season finale of "Dancing with the Stars" drew 24 million viewers last Monday night. I was one of them.
I watched the show, exhausted after a particularly grueling day at work. And though I had punched the proverbial clock, still, like many physicians, I continued to view the spectacle of the world through a doctor's lenses.
So I worried about Jennifer Grey's spine and cringed whenever her neck extended. I wished for Bristol Palin an experience of joy residing in the gift of an agile, healthy body -- resilient to the thorny body politic impinging upon it. And I was grateful for Kyle Massey's intrepid exuberance -- I've witnessed no better public health promotion for exercise and physical fitness.
The show was peppered with advertisements reminding us to stay tuned for the upcoming debut of its latest offshoot, "Skating with the Stars." And while I did not warm to that particular concept, I was inspired to think about a different spinoff with a medical twist.
Already, besides skating and dancing with experienced professionals, "the stars" are also singing with the pros. They are shaking and baking with celebrity chefs. Pitching business startups to Donald Trump. Everywhere, the stars are lined up -- literally and figuratively -- to illuminate how anything is possible, how any profession can be mastered within weeks of trying. So it seemed natural to wonder -- why not "Doctoring with the Stars!"?
There are so many good reasons to launch a show featuring pairs of stars and doctors who compete to provide the best quality medical care to patients in the current health care system. For example, "Doctoring with the Stars!" would provide a much-needed reality-check against the public's skewed view of doctors. Through documentary-type coverage of the stars during their monthlong training to become physicians, the public would see what genuine footwork was required of real doctors engaged in actual dances with life and death.
Even I am sometimes confused by media portrayals of doctors. After watching just a few episodes of "Private Practice" I once showed up at work in high-heels and a Chanel white coat, expecting to sit with colleagues all day around the break-room table until our one shared patient-of-the-day showed up and interrupted the fun. One day, I began shouting out inaccurate diagnoses and ordering every imaginable diagnostic test for patients simply because "House" had made that seem not only right, but also righteous. And after season four of "Grey's Anatomy" -- well, let's say I realized that not all doctors need to experience delusional psychotic breaks or personality transplants within the course of their careers.
Besides, if "Doctoring with the Stars!" succeeded in transforming waning stars into shining new careers as doctors, it could help alleviate our country's physician workforce shortage. Already, within the next 15 years, we expect to face at least a 125,000 physician shortfall.
To expand audience interest, we could change the locale week-to-week. Competing star-physician couples could discover the unique challenges of providing health care in urban settings, rural areas, impoverished communities, and many other places where large audiences of underserved Americans await decent health care access.
Perhaps the most logical first version of the new show should be "Enhancing with the Stars!" Here, we'd pair stars with renowned plastic surgeons in a faceoff, waiting to see which pair performed the most satisfactory lip or cheek enhancements on audience volunteers.
Another viable and related version could be "Operating with the Stars!" We'd watch stars cut it up on stage with master surgeons who each week concentrated on whatever human organ (or sub-organ) was relevant to their subspecialty (or sub-subspecialty) practice. Besides allowing for a limitless variety of weekly topics, this program format over time would educate us about often-ignored aspects of our own human anatomy -- like the mysterious islets of Langerhans, the impish uvula, or the "... .
In "Babying with the Stars!" we'd watch stars delivering more than lines. Star-psychiatrist couples in "Brainstorming with the Stars!" could compete to help troubled people who failed Doctor Phil's advice.
Finally, we consider "Primary Caring with the Stars!" Here, primary care doctors -- mostly from internal medicine, family practice, geriatrics and pediatrics -- are coupled with our stars. Sure, we may encounter difficulty locating enough primary care doctors for the show, especially when it comes to geriatricians or internists for adults. In advance of our population bang of aging baby boomers, the Institute of Medicine already estimates a current shortage of 12,000 geriatricians. A study in 2008 revealed that only 5 percent of medical students were choosing general internal medicine for a career path. Still, as the saying goes, "The show must go on."
In these primary care episodes, no one constantly yells "STAT!" or "Shock 'em!" Blood doesn't gush, and organs aren't rushed into clinic for lifesaving transplants. Rarely does anybody die or give birth during scheduled office appointments.
But patients needing more than 15 minutes of attention do show up -- every 15 minutes. In particular, the adult patients bring long lists of lingering concerns that have been awaiting medical evaluation, many of those concerns older than the doctors themselves. They bear bags containing medication bottles that require reconciliation or refill.
In the impinging background, paperwork piles up. Reimbursement claims regularly boomerang back from insurance companies as denials. The electronic medical record must be constantly fed with data entry and billing codes. Phones routinely ring with requests from the nurses' stations, inquiries from the patient call center, questions from colleagues. Nobody really knows where the break-room is located.
In these "Primary Caring" episodes, under significant budgetary constraints and administrative scrutiny, our star-physician pairs will be challenged to provide quality medical care to each and every patient, judged against 25 standards of excellence and, at the same time, patients' ratings of their performance.
Bonus points will be awarded for any glimmer of glamour that the couples can bring to primary care. We in the audience watch, mostly waiting to see if any star-physician couple simply makes it through the hour.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Kate Scannell is a Bay Area geriatrician and syndicated columnist. Her new novel is "Flood Stage."
© Copyright 2010, Kate Scannell