Dr. Lisa Price Stevens has known she was going to be a doctor since she was 7 years old. Her mother was a public health nurse and later became a director at a small community hospital, where Lisa spent a lot of time watching her while she was young. “I kind of grew up in medicine.” Idealistically, she wanted to do great things in medicine like “work in Haiti” and “help the poor.” But she fell into the more traditional career path and progression once she completed residency.
After a few years practicing and teaching in private practice and academic hospital environments she felt the call to “find her true north.” She’d had visions of being a Marcus Welby-type physician, but she just didn’t feel like she was doing what she had set out to do in being a doctor. She’d read that “if you walk in your purpose you will collide with your destiny,” so she did some soul searching to re-examine her professional life. She wanted to make a real difference in people’s lives.
Dr. Stevens had always assumed that working in community health meant living in some far off place. After doing some internet research, she discovered that smaller cities and urban areas are underserved too. She could have the best of both worlds – live where she wanted to live (Richmond) and help people in need.
So she reached out to the primary care association in Virginia, Virginia Community Healthcare Association, to see what her options might be. Faced with a child nearing college age and still paying off her own school loans, she was interested in loan repayment as well. She learned there was an opportunity for someone with her skills and experience in her own backyard, and that loan repayment could come with it.
Dr. Diane Reynolds-Cane, the Medical Director at the Daily Planet, had just accepted an appointment by Gov. Bob McDonnell to license and regulate health care providers as the director of the Virginia Department of Health Professions. The Daily Planet needed a new Medical Director. Virginia Community Healthcare Association connected them with Dr. Stevens.
After an extensive interview process, Peter Prizzio, the Daily Planet’s CEO, offered the Medical Director position to Dr. Stevens. She came aboard on July 1.”Working at the Daily Planet just feels right,” says Dr. Stevens. She gets to work with those who need her skills the most, while using her leadership skills and affecting change at a grass roots level.
What’s been the biggest surprise about working in community health? “It’s not been so much a surprise as a reaffirmation,” says Dr. Stevens. The people and community she supports are “truly caring people. They care about their families, they care about the future, and they care about their health. They could be any one of us – we’re all just a financial catastrophe away from where they are.”
The Daily Planet serves a predominantly male population in their forties, mostly African American. They are seeing more women, many of whom are dealing with homelessness or lack of insurance issues. They come from all walks of life – the previously rich who have lost everything, and those who have always been poor or abused.
Despite the challenges that face her, Dr. Stevens finds the working environment and work/life balance very comfortable. She usually sees 15-20 patients a day plus attending to her administrative duties. There is no weekend work and no on-call. The multi-disciplinary team approach used in community health creates a great whole patient-centered atmosphere, attending not just to medical needs but also to vision, behavioral health and pharmacy/medication education needs as well. She manages to keep her schedule within a 40-hour week which allows her to spend time on other leadership and grass roots activities.
One of the best things about working at the Daily Planet is the amount of time she can actually spend with her patients. There are still the quick 15 minute sick visits for many, but she has the latitude to spend 30-45 minutes with a new patient to gather information and really gain an understanding of what is going on with their health and in their lives. The other great thing is there is “no such thing as a typical day.” Every day is different and rewarding.
The biggest hurdle Dr. Stevens faces is lack of access to specialty care for her patients who need it. Since most specialists are not adequately reimbursed for treating the underserved, there is some resistance to providing specialty care to the underinsured and uninsured. That lack of reimbursement is a major issue of health care reform.
Another key component of health care reform is addressing the shortage of primary care physicians. One of the keys to combating the shortage is the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Loan Repayment Program. Dr. Stevens has taken advantage of this program to address her own medical school debt. She never really knew that loan repayment was an option outside of being in the military or working in a far off place. When she started researching community health as a career opportunity, she found loan repayment was available to her. With most medical school grads facing $200K in student loan debt, Dr. Stevens says “it’s the only way to go,” and has become a proselytizer for the NHSC.
“The application process was not hard. The folks from the NHSC guide you through it, and all the information you need is readily available,” said Dr. Stevens. She feels the application process was fair and not difficult to navigate or terribly time-consuming, especially considering the pay-off. She has been granted a loan repayment award.
Summing up her experience working in community health, Dr. Stevens says it’s “been great.” “It’s been truly a gift,” she says. “It’s the perfect setting.”
No comments:
Post a Comment