Primary Care for New Housestaff
To make life easier for incoming medical housestaff, the Department of Medicine, the Graduate Medical Education Office and primary care physicians at BWH collaborated to offer interns a primary care doctor.
Primary care physicians throughout the BWH system were asked if they could take an extra patient or two patients in their panels. Interns were then matched with a physician, although they could choose not to receive care from that doctor. Most interns welcomed the convenience of not having to search for a doctor and being able to receive care right at BWH.
“We wanted interns to know it’s important to us that they take care of themselves and that we are willing to help them do so,” said Lori Tishler, MD, of General Medicine and Primary Care/Brigham Internal Medicine Associates, who came up with the idea after hearing from interns who had difficulty finding primary care physicians.
While this program was originally offered to Department of Medicine interns, Tishler and Robert Goldszer, MD, MBA, associate chief medical officer and director of primary care, are happy to help housestaff from other departments pair up with primary care physicians as well. “If other interns call us, we will try to match them with primary care physicians as well,” Goldszer said. “The health of all of our housestaff and colleagues is important to us.”