From residency to retirement : physicians' careers over a professional lifetime / Terry Mizrahi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mizrahi, Terry, author.

Series:

Critical Issues in Health and Medicine

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Physicians--Anecdotes.

Physicians.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (277 pages)

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, New Jersey : Rutgers University Press, [2021]

Summary:

From Residency to Retirement tells the stories of twenty American doctors over the last half century, which saw a period of continuous, turbulent, and transformative changes to the U.S. health care system. The cohort's experiences are reflective of the generation of physicians who came of age as presidents Carter and Reagan began to focus on costs and benefits of health services. Mizrahi observed and interviewed these physicians in six timeframes ending in 2016. Beginning with medical school in the mid-1970s, these physicians reveal the myriad fluctuations and uncertainties in their professional practice, working conditions, collegial relationships, and patient interactions. In their own words, they provide a "view from the front lines" both in academic and community settings. They disclose the satisfactions and strains in coping with macro policies enacted by government and insurance companies over their career trajectory. They describe their residency in internal medicine in a large southern urban medical center as a "siege mentality" which lessened as they began their careers, in Getting Rid of Patients, the title of Mizrahi's first book (1986). As these doctors moved on in their professional lives more of their experiences were discussed in terms of dissatisfaction with financial remuneration, emotional gratification, and intellectual fulfillment. Such moments of career frustration, however, were also interspersed with moments of satisfaction at different stages of their medical careers. Particularly revealing was whether they were optimistic about the future at each stage of their career and whether they would recommend a medical career to their children. Mizrahi's subjects also divulge their private feelings of disillusionment and fear of failure given the malpractice epidemic and lawsuits threatened or actually brought against so many doctors. Mizrahi's work, covering almost fifty years, provides rarely viewed insights into the lives of physicians over a professional life span.

Contents:

8. Vulnerability from Within: Hidden Revelations about Disillusionment, Cynicism, Fear of Failure, and Self-Doubt

9. The Personal and the Professional: The Interaction between Private Lives and Public Postures

10. Physicians' Happiest and Unhappiest Times, and Their Wishes and Misses throughout Their Careers

11. Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Notes

References

Index

About the Author

Series Titles

Cover

Series Page

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Meet the Doctors: Career Choices in Their Own Voices

3. Satisfaction and Strains: The Ups and Downs of Being a Doctor, Part I (Early to Mid-Career)

4. Satisfaction and Strains: The Ups and Downs of Being a Doctor, Part II (Mid-Career to Retirement)

5. "Speaking of Their Own": Relationships with Peers, Partners, and Proteges

6. Mistakes and Malpractice: The Bane of Physicians

7. The Physicians on Health Regulations, Reimbursement, and Reform

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based upon print version of record.

ISBN:

0-8135-7004-2

OCLC:

1251444796