A Family Medicine Epitaph

If I could write my farewells to family medicine, it would have to start with Dr. Mahoney at Brookside. A man of many talents, Dr. Mahoney is a boisterous, larger-than-life man frequently spewing one-up knock-knock jokes, talking about pretty ladies, jostling poor time management skills, and most importantly, engaging and meeting his patients at their level. Family medicine at Brookside is how I envision practicing medicine. The patients are diverse, the staff is friendly, and everyone shows passion and flexibility for their work. I didn't encounter negativity as I did at other sites. Between Dr. Mahoney, who laughs more easily than any other doc I've worked with, and Dr. Villanuevo, who smoothly jumps from task to patient, I learned and loved a lot. It was easy to go in and hard to leave everyday.

Brookside specializes in adult, underserved care, especially for a hispanic culture. Mostly, we encountered diabetics and hypertensive patients. But there was also the guy with the skin tag, the young man who went through a slew of tests before finding a pancreatic mass, the hispanic elder who lost a ton of weight in mexico because he became insulin-intolerant, the female with PID who got three speculum exams that day, the IV drug user with a new-onset stroke, two or three PPD-positive patients, two patients with toenail removals, and the young lady with heavy periods and 6.0 Hb.

Looking back, I realize that Brookside was a special place where the right patient population meets the right doctors. For Brookside, your memory uproots feelings of warmth, spirit, care, and diversity.

I finish my FM rotation at the Touro Medical clinic, a more structured, stuffy facility that still maintains hand-written charts. Structure hasn't been a bad thing. I go in, see a few patients, present the patients, then write 4 SOAP notes daily. Weekly, I given presentations -- from topics to journal presentations. My professors expect technical perfection in physical exams and SOAP note linguistics. I've risen to the challenge, and although somewhat gruelling, my note taking ability and neuro exam have seen vast improvements. And I can finally explain relative risk, odds ratios, and the number-needed-to-treat like a pro.

There were also, of course, the patients. Vastly different setting than Brookside, Touro Medical Clinic serves a mostly Caucasian population. Also underserved and mostly medical. What is it with osteopaths and the underserved? not that I'm complaining. That's the population I strive to work with. We saw plenty of interesting cases, along with the normal hypertensives and Diabetics. There was the young woman with Turner's syndrome and menorrhagia. The 48-year-old male with corneal ulcerations, back pain, and GI upset (AI infection perhaps?), the COPD patient who just wanted to be "fixed," the teenagers who wanted to know everything about the male genital anatomy (including the color of a testes), and the cases of lower back pain which required four injections by yours truly.

Between Brookside, my love, and Touro, my challenger, I've thrived in Family Medicine. Probably because I like the world of variety and diversity. A much needed break from the rigors and monotony of surgery.