IN PRACTICE

Family Practice

This specialty has the broadest range and the least depth of all the branches of medicine--and it is precisely what our country needs today: true primary care doctors. More of the nurse/doctors interviewed for this book were family practice physicians than any other specialty. Some of them chose this field long before they had even experienced other types of medicine, others chose it because they found it would most easily fit with their lives.

Maria Kramer wound up in New York, at a small inner city clinic, though she hadn't wanted to be in the Big Apple. Never an RN, Kramer was an LVN before she started her journey to become a doctor. The worst thing about the whole process for her was that the schooling and training are so rigorous they don't allow you to have a life, which she feels can't help but stunt the growth of medical practitioners.

Dr. P has been all over the country pursuing first a military career as a medical corpsman, then a nursing degree, and finally (when he was not accepted at any allopathic medical school), a Doctor of Osteopathy as the alternative to the more standard medical schooling. His underlying philosophy of patient care and education has guided his steps from the beginning.

Dr. Q would not have done it again. "It took a great financial and emotional toll, for very little payoff," she says. Her journey, too, led from one side of the country to the other--several times. Disillusioned now by the lack of satisfaction in every facet of her practice--pay, collegiality and content-Dr. Q considers the many sacrifices not worth the effort. She keeps her nursing license current.

Amy Richards discovered, well into her nursing career, that she could become a doctor, and that she was a lesbian. Hers is a unique perspective on practicing in a small community with her medical and personal partner. Richards would also like to participate in the larger decision-making going on in this country about the delivery of health care in a compassionate and yet cost-effective and equitable way.

Vicky Brownell went into medicine after being an ob-gyn nurse practitioner. During training she thought she'd like to be an ophthalmologist like her father. But fate had something different in store for her, and Vicky, "who always wanted a piece of power," has found it in family practice.

Gail Garrison has a remarkable talent: she's a natural speed reader. Otherwise, taking 16 hours of organic chemistry, physics, histology and embryology (all with labs) in premed classes and working 32 hours a week would probably not have been possible. Her work in a rural family practice in the South gives her a chance to be of real service to her patients.

These six family practitioners talk about many issues of great concern in medicine today--universal access to health care, attention to quality of life issues for dying patients, the necessity for a life of their own beyond medicine. There is a down-to-earth quality about their vision of medicine that must appeal to patients who are looking for a doctor who will really listen to what they have to say, and speak to them in understandable language. This may be the easiest medical field in which these former nurses can combine the elements of both caring and curing.