A DOCTOR’S VIEW : Learning to Heal on Tight Budget

The initial effect was to get tough; you insulated yourself just a little bit more when confronted with a client with a problem, and you had no place to send them for optimal treatment.

Then you get clever. You use everything at your disposal in your office or clinic to help a patient get better. You look up the drugs, talk to peers, look at problems all the ways you can without necessarily spending money. Third, you learn how to fight, how to say no, how to go to war.

The final step is that you learn how to beg. You get on the phone and beg your colleagues. Many good doctors cannot abide bureaucracy. But, if you beg well, they will take one or two of your patients.

The population is so great, however, that after a doc takes in four, five or six of your patients, he has to stop. So, you learn how to beg and how to spread the pain.