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It’s always a question: “Doctor, are you going to be my doctor? Are you going to be the one who’s going to do the surgery?” The answer of course is yes. If a patient comes to me, I am their doctor. And it makes no difference whether the patient is my “private patient” or a patient comes through the clinic, makes no difference at all. If I begin a partnership with a person who’s going to be my patient and their family, I’m their doctor. I am the one responsible for everything that happens to them. The good thing about being a patient in an academic medical center university such as Downstate is the fact that you have such phenomenal energy from all those young people who are striving to become excellent doctors in the future. We have many medical students, many residents, and what they do is actually they learn with the greatest of respects for you as their patient.
They work purely on the supervision of an attending, such as — an attending meaning a regular doctor. And that would be someone like me. They learn from us, they work with us, and sometimes the question comes up, “Do they have to be there?” Well, there are sometimes situations that due to certain cultural or ethnic beliefs or reasons, a person may ask the doctor, “I only want you in the room,” and we will do everything possible to be respectful to a patient. We will do everything possible to respect their wishes. Most of my patients feel like they’re actually contributing to the education of future nurses, future doctors, future surgeons. And so we work in a context of a large team, because it’s very important to… Surgeons frequently are thought of someone who is tough minded, very egotistical. Well, we are driven, that is true, but good surgeons understand that they will work in the context of a larger team. Because what makes us stronger is that ability to interact with others, transmit our knowledge to them because they are actually checking the things that we tell them. And so it’s important for me to be up to date. It’s important for me to give them the actual information that is really vetted by the literature and the patients are the beneficiaries of this learning environment. We move as a team, we work as a team and that includes the patient. And that includes the patient’s family.
