The Doctor Crisis: How Physicians Can, and Must, Lead the Way to Better Health Care
Many doctors are feeling pessimistic about the future of the medical profession. For them, doctoring seems harder and less fulfilling than ever before. Cochran, a physician-executive with the Kaiser Permanente medical organization, and Kenney, a health care writer, consider the causes of physician frustration and futility. As they see it, the contemporary “doctor crisis” exists because physicians cannot always put care of their patients first. Bureaucracy, a fear of liability, reduced payments, and excessive regulations are some of the many factors that prohibit doctors from placing “the patients’ needs above all else.” Part of the remedy is for physicians to assume active leadership roles. Doctors are positioned to play the major part in any ideal health care system that is patient-centered, easily accessed, fair, safe, affordable, efficient, high-quality, and innovative. Much of the book chronicles Cochran’s role in changing the culture and reshaping the medical group of Kaiser Permanente in Colorado. The Doctor Crisis asserts that health care will only improve when the careers of physicians are fortified and their roles as leaders expanded. --Tony Miksanek