Letter: Many doctors have no choice but to leave

Tuesday, June 25, 2002 | 8:51 a.m.

Last week, in a story by Adrienne Packer, County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates said UMC physicians were trying to close the trauma center to hurt the hospital and get publicity.

This crisis is not manufactured, it is real. We are not the first state to go through this. To understand the end result of this crisis, we need only to look at what is happening in those states that also fiddled while the system burned. I suggest that West Virginia is a good model because they also started an insurance company instead of dealing with the issue of tort reform.

There are now entire counties of West Virginia without neurosurgeons or orthopedic surgeons. CompHealth, a healthcare recruiting company in Salt Lake City, reports that they now get twice as many calls from West Virginia doctors wanting to find jobs elsewhere. They also get twice as many calls from West Virginia medical centers searching for doctors.

The phenomena of doctors giving up the highest risk parts of their practice is also one that can be seen in all states in crisis. It is not helpful to insult the integrity of those physicians you are trying to retain.

It would be more helpful to recognize them as the dedicated physicians that they are. They are not uprooting their lives to make a statement.

ROBERT KESSLER

Editor's note: The writer is an osteopath.