Being a high-quality physician is about so much more than having a board certification or working for a well-known health system, two clinicians wrote in a Dec. 3 op-ed published in JAMA.
Alok Khorana, MD, an oncologist at Cleveland Clinic, and his wife Melissa Khorana, RN, executive director of The Arc of Greater Cleveland, came to this realization after going through a seven-year healthcare journey with their son Matthew, who has Down syndrome.
At age 17, Matthew became irritable and physically aggressive. He also experienced intermittent bouts of abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting. Matthew underwent numerous endoscopies and evaluations from seven different specialists, but no one could diagnose him.
It wasn't until seven years later that Matthew got an actual diagnosis when his family moved to a new town. Instead of taking Matthew to a physician at one of the two nationally ranked health systems in their community, Dr. and Ms. Khorana asked the parents of other children with intellectual disabilities for recommendations.
After about a 15-minute evaluation, Matthew's new primary care physician identified celiac disease as a potential diagnosis, which was confirmed several days later.
"What allowed Matthew's doctor to identify the diagnosis that so many others had missed? Certainly, she was compassionate and well-trained, but so were the prior clinicians," Matthew's parents wrote.
What made her stand out was that she cared about people with intellectual disabilities and took the time to review the few studies available on gastrointestinal and mood disorders in Down syndrome.
The healthcare industry places such a huge emphasis on quality measures, but at the end of the day, the best physician is the one who can make your loved one feel better, Dr. and Ms. Khorana concluded.