Which Procedures Add Value: A Paradigm Shift 1971-2011

Wm. MacMillan Rodney, M.D.

December 1, 1989 (Updated 19 Feb 2008)

 

 

            TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER PROJECT

 

In the USA, there has been a dramatic decline in the number of general physicians.  In 1930, over 80% of the physicians in the USA were generalists.  By 1960, the percentage was 50% or less.  In my opinion, the true percentage today is less than 15 %.

            A “generalist physician” predictably provides comprehensive health care unrestricted by age, gender, organ system, and location of service.  The term “primary care” was coined in the late 1980’s, and generic primary care does not follow this operational definition. To survive, family medicine will need to do more than primary care.

Traditional physicians cared for children, delivered babies, managed simple fractures, attended the hospital, made occasional house calls, managed an office, and when all else failed, comforted the dying.  They went from the nursery to the nursing home, without taking the patient to the poorhouse along the way.  As “General Practice” disappeared from the academic environment, there was a corresponding decline in the quantity and quality of the general medical curriculum. Breadth of care in diagnostic and therapeutic skills continued to shrink while technology-assisted procedures grew in various medical and surgical subspecialties.

            Since 1983, a group of educators, supported by the American Academy of Family Physicians, has constructed a series of technology-assisted demonstration projects providing  modern diagnostic and therapeutic skills for all physicians.  Although some viewed this as “proceduralism,” it represented the desire of physicians to remain clinically excellent in pursuit of serving their patients.  No amount of psychosocial expertise can overcome the credibility lost when a physician cannot perform basic clinical services on behalf of her or his patient. 

By developing continuity of care in the office, in the hospital, and with many procedural services, patients and physicians are better served.  A bibliography is presented in the accompanying attachment.1

 

           

Wm. MacMillan Rodney, M.D., FAAFP, FACEP

Meharry/Vanderbilt Professor and Chair 2000-2004

Professor and Chair, UT-Memphis 1989-1998

Residency Director UCLA 1979-84

 

 

1.        Originally presented 1986 at the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Regional Meeting in Palm Springs, Ca. 1986

 

 

 

 

TECHNOLOGY TRANSFERS

AN ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT ON MEDICAL PRACTICE

Wm. MacMillan Rodney, M.D., FAAFP, FACEP

July 1989-present

 

I.          ASSUMPTIONS

A.        In health care, accurate and early diagnosis is of public value.

B.         Dissemination of diagnostic and therapeutic skill to a broader base of physicians is desirable, if the costs are acceptable.  This improves access.

C.        Training resources are limited, costs are significant, and tax support for medical education has been deflected away from the training of generalist physicians. 

D.        Technology is quietly transforming the biomedical model and the psychosocial model.  A new paradigm is evolving.

II.        PREDICTIONS

A.        Offices will continue to evolve into health centers which offer preventive care, team care, patient education, counseling, resource management, procedures and sickness care.

B.         New diagnostic and therapeutic skills will gradually blend the technical power of the hospital into the high touch environment of the office (community health center).

C.        For example, the power of diagnostic imaging will return to the office.  Defragmentation of health care will enhance continuity and patient satisfaction.

D.        Digitized images, computerization, and other advances will create electronic information management systems linking offices into efficient primary care research networks.  Outcomes will be measured, analyzed, and published.

E.         Health care quality will improve, legal liability will decrease, and health care costs will not increase.  Access to health care will be improved.

F.         Parallel health care systems will persist and compete.  Without painful reconfiguration, parallel systems of medical education will persist and compete. 

G.        The absolute numbers of general physicians will grow slowly.  Generic “primary care” will compete with procedurally enhanced generalists for training resources.  Comprehensive care physicians (much needed in rural and underserved communities) will constitute less than 10% of practicing physicians until a sustained crisis precipitates change or until economic and technologic events shape evolutionary change.

 

 

QUOTE TO REMEMBER

"Everyone is in favor of progress, it’s the changes that they don't like."  Anonymous. 

 

 

 

III.       BACKGROUND DATA AND EXAMPLES

A.        Megatrends noted.

1.         These and many other techniques take the physician to the bedside of the patient.  These skills will enhance the profession's number one tool--THE BOND OF TRUST AND MUTUAL RESPECT IN THE DOCTOR-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP.

2.         Other bedside techniques will advance and also create change for the better.  Time and space prohibit a complete list.

B.         Primary care endoscopy arrived in the 1980's.  Listed below are specific examples.  Each procedural skill is followed by the years in which the first and subsequent studies were published.

                        1.         Procedural skills established and accepted in Family Practice

                                    a)         Flexible Sigmoidoscopy                        1982-1989; replaced by colonosocopy

                                    b)         Endoscopic Biopsy                               1984-1989, A nonissue by 2000

                                    c)         ENT Endoscopy                                   1988-1991;  never became popular

                        2.         Procedures established, but still contested

                                    a)         Colonoscopy                                        1986, 1988, 1992, 1996, 1998,2005

b)         Esophagogastroduodenoscopy              1979, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1997, 2005

                                    c)         Polypectomy                                        1991-1996, bundled into colonoscopy

                                    d)         Endoscopic Hemostasis                        1991-1993, bundled into EGD

3.         Videoendoscopy transforms the nature of care by blending distinct technologies.  Interspecialty boundaries are transformed.      1985, 1986, 1987

            C.        Women’s Health Care Emerges as an area requiring special skills.

1.         Colposcopy training in Family Practice residencies follows a dissemination curve similar to that of flexible sigmoidoscopy.             1987, 1990, 1994

2.         Ultrasound improves access to maternal and fetal health care in a community health center.  Training pathway for obstetricians and OB-capable family physicians is created.                                                              1988-1992, 1995, 2001,2004-6.

3.                  A structured course in obstetrical emergencies (ALSO) is adopted by the American Academy of Family Physicians in 1993.  By 2008, over 60,000 physicians and nurses in 26 countries had been trained.                                                

4.                  Cesarean section skills (operative obstetrics). 1995, 1996, 2002, 2004, 2006

D.            Enhancing family medicine curriculum in maternity (OB) care, emergency medicine, public health, and dentistry in the development of health centers for underserved communities.      

 

 

 

 “Study the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future, practice these acts.  As to disease, make a habit of two things: to cure, or first above all, do no harm."  Hippocrates 460-377 B.C.

 

 

IV.       REFERENCES

A.                 ENDOSCOPY AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

 

1.         Rodney WM, Felmar E.  Why flexible sigmoidoscopy instead of rigid

sigmoidoscopy.  J Fam Pract, 1984; 19:471-476.

 

2.         Rodney WM, Beaber RJ, Johnson RA, Quan M.  Physician compliance with colorectal cancer screening (1978-1983):  The impact of flexible sigmoidoscopy. 

J Fam Pract, 1985; 20:265-269.

 

3.         Rodney WM, Ounanian LL, Werblun MN. Second-generation video sigmoidoscopy.  Am Fam Phys, 1985; 31:127-132.

 

4.         Corey GA, Hocutt JE, Rodney WM:  Prototype study of nasolaryngoscopy

            outcomes in family practice. Fam Med 1988; 20:262-265.

 

5.         Rodney WM. Procedural skills in flexible sigmoidoscopy and colonoscopy for the family physician.  Primary Care - Gastrointestinal Disease, WB Saunders, Philadelphia. March 1988; 15(1):79-91.

 

6.         Rodney WM, Hocutt JE, Coleman WH, Weber JR, Swedberg JA, et al. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy by family physicians: A national multisite study of 717 procedures.  J Am Bd Fam Pract 1990; 3:73-79.

 

7.         Rodney WM. Flexible sigmoidoscopy and the despecialization of endoscopy: an environmental impact report.  Cancer 1992; 70S(5):1266-1271.

 

8.         Rodney WM, Dabov G, Orientale E, Reeves WP.  Sedation associated with a more complete colonoscopy.  J Fam Pract 1993; 36(4):394-400.

 

9.         Rodney WM, Weber JR, Swedberg JA, Gelb DM, Coleman WH, Hocutt JE, Huston T.   Esophagogastroduodenoscopy by family physicians Phase II: a national

multisite study of  2,500 procedures.  Fam Pract Res J 1993; 13(2):121-131.

 

10.       Conwell CF, Lyell R, Rodney WM.  Prevalence of Helicobacter pylori in family

practice patients with refractory dyspepsia: a comparison of tests available in the

office.  J Fam Pract 1995; 41(3):245-249.

 

11.       Hopper W., Kyker KA, Rodney WM.  Colonoscopy by a family physicians: a 9-

year experience of 1048 procedures.  J Fam Pract 1996; 43(6):561-566.

           

12.       Pierzchajlo RPJ, Ackermann RJ, Vogel RL. Colonoscopy performed by a family physician: a case series of 751 procedures. J Fam Pract May 1997; 44(5):473-479.

 

13.       Pierzchajlo RPJ, Ackermann RJ, Vogel RL. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy performed by a family physician: a case series of 793 procedures. J Fam Pract Jan 1998; 46(1):41-46.

 

14.       Carr K, Worthington JM, Rodney WM.  Advancing from flexible sigmoidoscopy to colonoscopy in rural family practice.  J Tenn Med Assoc 1998 (Jan):32-34.

 

15.             Rodney WM.  Flexible sigmoidoscopy: The unkept promise of cancer prevention.  Am Fam Phys 1999; 59:270-273.

 

16.             Rodney WM.  Will virtual reality simulators end the credentialing arms race in    

gastrointestinal endoscopy or the need for family physician faculty with endoscopic           skills?     JABFP 1998; 11(6):492-495.

 

17.       Rodney WM, Richter R. Virtual colonoscopy:  Can we screen for cancer of the colon?       ……...Curr Surg.  2003;60(2):130-134.

 

18.        Newman RJ, Nichols DB, Cummings DM. Outpatient colonoscopy by rural family            …..physicians, Ann Fam Med 2005; 3: 122-125.

 

19.        Wilkins T, Gillies RZ.

Office based unsedated  ultrathin  esophagoscopy in a primary care setting. Ann Fam …..Med 2005; 3: 126-130.

 

20.          Hahn RG, et al. Use of the thin colonoscope. J Am Bd Fam Medicine 2007

 

B.        RURAL AND UNDERSERVED--WOMEN'S HEALTH CARE CERVICAL CANCER SCREENING/COLPOSCOPY

 

21.       Felmar E, Cottam C, Payton CE, Rodney WM. Colposcopy: It can be part of  your practice.  Primary Care and Cancer, 1987; 7(4):13-20.

 

22.       Rodney WM, Felmar E, Richards E, Morrison J, Cousin L. Colposcopy and cervical cryotherapy: Feasible additions to the primary care physician's office.  Postgrad Med, 1987; 81(8):79-86.

 

23.       Rodney WM, Clement K, Euans D, Huff M, Hutchins C, McCall JW.  Colposcopy in family practice: pilot studies of pain prophylaxis and patient volume. Fam Pract Res J 1992; 12:91-98.

 

24.       Rodney WM.  Onsite colposcopy services in a community health center.  J Am Bd Fam Pract 1998; 11:80. (letter)

 

            C.        DIAGNOSTIC ULTRASOUND AS A SYMBOL OF TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

 

25.       Hahn RG, Ho S, Roi LO, Bugarin-Viera M, Davies TC, Rodney WM. Cost effectiveness of office obstetrical ultrasound in family medicine: Preliminary considerations.  J Am Board Fam Pract, 1988; 1:33-38.

 

26.       Hahn R., Ornstein S, Davies TC, Roi L, Rodney WM, Garr D, et al. Obstetric ultrasound training for family physicians: Results from a multi-site study.  J Fam Pract 1988; 26:553-558.

 

27.       Morgan WC, Rodney WM, Garr DA, Hahn RG. Ultrasound for the primary care physician:  Applications in family-centered obstetrics.  Postgrad Med, 1988; 83(2):103-107.

 

28.       Rodney WM, Prislin MD, Orientale E, McConnell M, Hahn RG. Family practice obstetrical ultrasound in an urban community health center: Birth outcomes and examination accuracy of the initial 227 cases.  J Fam Pract 1990; 30:163-168.

 

29.       Rodney WM, Deutchman ME, Hartman KJ, Hahn RG.  Obstetric ultrasound by family physicians.  J Fam Pract 1992; 34(2):186-200.

 

30.       Connor PD, Deutchman ME, Hahn RG.  Training in obstetric sonography in family medicine residency programs: results of a nationwide survey and suggestions for a teaching strategy.  JABFP 1994; 7(2):124-129.

                       

31.       Deutchman EM, Connor P, Hahn RG, Rodney WM.  Maternal gallbladder assessment during obstetrical ultrasound: results, significance, and technique.  J Fam Pract 1994; 39:33-37.

 

32.       Dresang LT. Rodney WM, Dees J. Teaching prenatal ultrasound to family medicine residents. Fam Med 2004; 36: 98-107.

 

33.      Dresang L, Rodney WM, Koch P, Leeman L, Palencio M. ALSO in Ecuador:      Teaching the Teachers. J Am Board Fam Practice 2004;17(4): 276-282. http://www.jabfp.org/cgi/content/full/17/4/276

34.      Dresang L, Rodney WM, Rodney KMMR. Prenatal ultrasound: A tale of two cities.   J Nat Med Assoc Feb 2006; 98[2]: 161-171

       http://www.nmanet.org/JMNA_Journal_Articles/feb-06-jnma/OC167.pdf

 

D.        THE IMPACT OF EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS ON THE PRACTICE ENVIRONMENT

           

35.       Rodney WM, Beaber RJ:  Maximizing patient care services to improve funding in a      family medicine residency.  J Med Ed 1984; 59:567-572.

 

36.        RodneyWM, Zeffer K, Burnett H.. Patient “drop-outs” in a family practice   residency: System-dependent versus physician-dependent factors. Fam Pract Research J 1985; 4: 226-233.

 

37.       Rodney WM, Richards E, Morrison JD, Ounanian LL.  Constraints on the  performance of minor surgery by family physicians:  Study of a "mock" skin biopsy procedure. Family Practice-An International Journal, 1987; 4:36-40.

 

38.        Larimore WL, Griffin ER.  Family practice maternity care in central Florida.  Increased income, satisfaction, and practice diversity.  Florida Fam Phys 1993; 53(1): 28-30.

 

39.       Larimore WL, Sapolsky BS.  Maternity care in family medicine: economics and malpractice.  J Fam Pract 1995; 40(2):153-160.

 

40.       Harper MB, Mayeaux EJ, Pope JB, Goel R.  Procedural training in family practice residencies: current status and impact on resident recruitment.  JABFP 1995; 8(3):189-194.

 

41.       Deutchman ME, Sills D, Connor PD.  Perinatal outcomes: a comparison between family physicians and obstetricians.  JABFP 1995; 8(6):440-447.

 

42.       Rodney WM, Hahn RG, [Crown LA-forced to disclaim authorship], Martin J.  Enhancing the family medicine curriculum in maternity care (OB) and emergency medicine to establish a rural teaching practice.  Fam Med Dec 1998; 30:712-719.

 

43.       Rodney WM, Hahn RG.

The impact of the limited generalist (no OB, no procedures, no hospital) model on primary care training and practice.

 J Am Board Fam Pract 2002; May-June 15:191-200.

 

44.      Rodney WM, Deutchman ME, Hahn RG.

Advanced Procedures in Family  Medicine: The Cutting Edge or the Lunatic Fringe? J Fam Pract 2004; 53:209-212.

 

45.       Rodney WM, Hardison D, McKenzie L, Rodney-Arnold KM.

Impact of Deliveries   on Office Hours and Sleep Cycle. J Nat Med Association October 2006; 98: 1685-1690.

 

E.         OPERATIVE OB-GYN

 

46.       Deutchman M, Connor P, Gobbo R, FitzSimmons R. 

Outcomes of cesarean  sections performed by family physicians and the training they received: a 15-year retrospective study.  J Am Bd Fam Pract 1995; 8(2):81-90.         

47.       Heider A, Neely B, Bell L. Cesarean delivery results in a family medicine residency  using a specific training model. Fam Med 2006;38: 103-109.

 

 

V.        MISCELLANEOUS RESOURCES

 

            A.        Website: www.AAFP.ORG

 

                        American Academy of Family Physicians

                        Phone: 1-800-274-2237

 

                        1.         Task Force on Obstetrics, 1989-1995

Concise bibliography describing the scientific basis for prenatal, perinatal, and postpartum care by family physicians.

2.         Commission on Scope and Quality of Practice (overview of policies from AMA, JCAHO, HCFA, and other health care agencies).

                        3.         AAFP Task Force on Procedural Skills, 1993-1995.

                                    Miscellaneous data and policy.

 

B.         Procedural Skills and Office Technology Bulletin at PSOT.com, Advanced Family Medicine Specialists, Association for Rural and Emergency Medicine; www.psot.com

 

C.          Wm. MacMillan Rodney, M.D.  Check the internet (www.psot.com), fax 901-754-8119,   

or  e-mail Wmrodney@aol.com.

       

VI.       NEEDED DEFINITIONS AND UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

 

            What is a general practitioner?              What is a family physician? 

            What is a primary care physician?         What is a generalist?

What are the educational implications if these terms are used interchangeably?

            Reference: Halvorsen JG. J Am Bd  Fam Pract 1999; 12:173-177.

 

Should society train a better generalist or is this best left to nurse practitioners and physician       assistants? See Barondess and Greimeder   JAMA 2000:284: 2873-4.

               

                Grumbach, K.  Specialists,  technology, and newborns-Too much of a good thing. New Engl J Med      2002; 346:1574-5

 

Fisher ES. Medical Care—Is More Always Better? New Engl J Med 2003;349:1665-67.

 

VII.     DISCUSSION

 

A.      Without faith and courage, you will practice no other virtue—Andrew Jackson

 

B.   The medical specialty that cannot provide its own training, certification, and privileges has been reproductively sterilized.

 

 

 

Your  consideration and comments are always appreciated,

 

 

 

            Wm. MacMillan Rodney MD

            Clinical Professor of Family Medicine

            wmrodney@aol.com

            www.psot.com

 

Workshp/transfer.tech.2.19.08