03/30/2021
Happy National Doctor's Day! 🥼 On behalf of the , THANK YOU to physicians for everything that you do for us, especially during this last year. We are all so grateful for all medical professionals out there 🤍
To celebrate this day, let's meet our next : Dr. Scott Oxenhandler, an Internist based in South Florida.
We had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Oxenhandler about how his life has changed since the pandemic, how his practice has adapted to the challenges of telehealth, and what the future may hold.
“In my practice at least, I don’t foresee telehealth being the next step forward because a video consultation is just not enough for tracking some of my patients. A lot of my work revolves around managing my patients’ diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, chronic kidney disease, etc, so getting routine lab work and physical exams in person can be invaluable. With telehealth, you can observe things like shortness of breath, but many symptoms unfortunately don’t present well over video.”
“I help run a residency program, supervising the ambulatory part of their training in an outpatient clinic. Many of the residents’ patient interactions have become telehealth-based. While in my office, we are doing almost 95% telehealth, the residents have been doing around 50% telehealth because they treat a different demographic who don’t necessarily have the luxury of telehealth.”
“While I do think telehealth is here to stay, it definitely has its own niche in medicine. It is a great option to prevent exposure to infectious diseases like the coronavirus and is used for patients with mobility issues or stroke. But, like everything in our society, the prevalence of telehealth is primarily economically driven. Since the pandemic started, government and private insurance companies have started reimbursing telehealth at 90%, which really saved the healthcare systems and smaller practices. It will be interesting to see where telehealth goes in the next few years.”
“Throughout this experience, I’ve relied on the basics of equanimity, a concept I learned as a medical student. Equanimity is the calm and collected demeanor that enables a physician to become more calm and rational as the pressure builds, allowing you to improve your decision-making. When you have equanimity, others can sense that in your attitude, actions, and confidence. And I truly believe that even masks can’t hide that! People need to be reassured and supported, especially during this year, and I love the idea that human kindness (and science) can help us get through this.”
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