My practice or ours?…
I was at a business meeting the other day when one of our clinic administrators asked me, “how is your practice?”
This was an innocent question, and one intended to ask me how I was doing. But I found the question so strange that it threw me off at the time and I have been thinking about it now for days afterward.
Is asking about my practice odd from someone who works with and for me? Isn’t the real question, “how is our practice?”
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
I have never thought of myself as an individual practitioner. I have always felt that I was part of a group of people who deliver care to the people we take care of when they become patients. I even try not to refer to patients as “mine.” I do not possess or own a patient; people voluntarily make appointments, have surgery, and refer their family and friends. The patient chooses the doctor, not the other way around.
I have been wondering about this reference to my practice as if it was separate from my partners, staff and administration. I need all the help I can get every day simply to see one patient in the office. A scheduler has made the appointment, a records person has contacted the appropriate place to get the medical chart, and a front desk person checks the patient in prior to the assistant bringing them to the room. During the visit I need help setting up procedures and cleaning up the room after. Our laboratory staff draw blood on a moment’s notice. Checkout staff make sure the patient knows if there is any followup needed. Our business office handles contracting with insurance and billing appropriately. Our administrators oversee the whole thing.
I am part of a team. When a team leader asks me about my practice as if I wasn’t part of the team I find that strange. I realize this is not the case, but language matters.
Last and most importantly, when I use the pronouns I, my, mine and me instead of we, our, ours, us I am leaving out the most important member of the team, the person who is being treated as a patient.
We are all a part of the team: patient, doctor, staff, and administrator.
So I ask you, “How is our practice?”
-TB
