My grandfather, a family practice doctor in rural Texas, often made house calls with a shotgun – which he called his “snake charmer” – across the floorboards of his pickup truck. He worked alone or with my grandmother, who worked as his nurse and as bill collector. Very few of his patients had any kind of insurance. He did, in fact, accept chickens as payment on many occasions. By all accounts, he was an incredibly gifted physician who was an indispensable part of his community. In many ways, I expected that my practice of medicine would be very similar to his.
Perhaps unfortunately, the world in which this kind of practice is possible or desirable for any physician is quickly disappearing. Health care has expanded to include an astoundingly broad spectrum of options and treatments, but has also become more complex and often cumbersome from a system perspective. Because of...
