The Week of an Administrative Physician

Last week I went to our Dublin administrative office to console our staff about the sudden death over the weekend of our 32 year old beloved co-worker Preneet; conducted three clinician office meetings on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday; saw patients; delivered a eulogy at Praneet's funeral before 400 attendees; interviewed a candidate for Administrator; visited the Berkeley office and consulted with our lead FP there about our office direction and his staffing problems; conducted our weekly business office meeting, while signing checks and reviewing our final contract offer to our Administrator candidate, and contacting the CEO of Children’s Hospital about poor care in the ER and trying to schedule a meeting with him; attended the Children First IPA Board meeting; consulted withe the CEO of San Ramon Regional Medical Center about a new office for us and recent movements of other doctors in the area; gave a day long deposition on a totally bogus wrongful termination and assault and battery lawsuit brought by a wretched former employee; consulted with experts, lawyers, another clinician, our HR Manager and an office manager about what to do with a physician who was possibly impaired; contacted our probably not impaired clinician and worked our way through our course of action; had a radio interview on the subject of primary care; and prepared for a meeting the following week with a physician who was not meeting expectations in various behaviors and documentation. Among other things.

Then over the weekend I asked our scheduler for rounds and call, the beloved Tina Hong, MD, my co-author on a recent Pediatric Puzzler in Contemporary Pediatrics, to do a little rescheduling of rounds and call to account for the temporary absence of our also beloved possibly probably not impaired physician, which she expertly and happily did. So Tina said, “Where have you been, on a cruise? I haven’t seen you!”

Such is the work of administration.

I had to laugh.