The other day a patient asked me about my hobbies. Aside from doing some exercise, reading, and involving myself in my kids lives (to the extent that want such)….my hobbies are medicine and my website (which is to say….also medicine).
It is this passion for what I do that keeps me motivated and engaged and which is what fulfills me and what drives our office staff to engage with patients and focus on excellence. It’s called ‘love’ for what you do, and it was wonderful to see this expressed in Dr. Robert Wachter’s Op-Ed piece in the NY Times this weekend
The focus of his Op_ed is about the failure of objective measurements of performance in medicine (and teaching) to truly reflect the quality of care we are looking to identify. In the end, very simply, the most expert of the measurers notes that it is ‘love’ for the profession that drives quality.
That you cannot measure the love I have for my profession, that you cannot measure the effort our staff puts forth in small ways to make our office run smoothly to take care of you, is something we know acutely. We also know that we love what we do, we do it well, and no measuring stick that the so called ‘experts’ develop can objectively identify what truly makes our office and this practice special.