Sincere thanks, Chuck, for honoring my request for columns about how Iowa has changes. Your list is impressive---and sobering. And like Suzanna, I'm not ready for you to go silent on public speaking.
I would add--exposing my bias--the evolving availability of sub-specialty medical and surgical care in "smaller-town" Iowa, enabled by specialists in DSM and other large Iowa cities hitting the road and setting up for the day at a county-seat hospital. In our own group of cancer doctors one-fourth are on the road every day.
This is win-win-win-win: 1) sparing patients and families from making the reciprocal trip; 2) using (and occasionally rescuing) local hospital services including lab, radiology, pharmacy and operating rooms; 3) ratifying and extending the talents and skills of the providers; and 4) enhancing the relationship and communication between the local primary care provider and the visiting specialist.
None of this was done 40 years ago. It has evolved rapidly, largely under the radar, and includes virtually all subspecialties of internal medicine and many surgical ones. In fact, it is now often difficult to find space and time to set up in the small-town hospital.
A significant advance in the availability of medical care in Iowa.
Hi Dr. Bob! You're contribution to this discussion is invaluable, even if it does make me feel like an idiot. Why? I've not only observed the great change you've described in how medical specialists are going to rural Iowa medical centers to serve patients, I've LIVED that myself! How did I overlook such an important thing in my own life? In my extensive cancer treatment over the past 13 years, I've been treated and encouraged right at the Greene County Medical Center in Jefferson first by Dr. Michael Guffy of the McFarland Clinic in Ames, then Dr. Matthew Hill from John Stoddard Cancer Center in Des Moines, and most recently by Dr. Zeeshan Jawa, also of John Stoddard. Throw in the retired Dr. Roger Gingrich at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, and those specialists saved my life a few times! So let's add "huge changes in medical knowledge, technology and service" as one of the big ones of the last 50 years in Iowa.
You've seen a LOT, Chuck. Great observations.
Sincere thanks, Chuck, for honoring my request for columns about how Iowa has changes. Your list is impressive---and sobering. And like Suzanna, I'm not ready for you to go silent on public speaking.
Please don’t stop public speaking! We have not heard enough!
Great list, Mr. Offenberger!
I would add--exposing my bias--the evolving availability of sub-specialty medical and surgical care in "smaller-town" Iowa, enabled by specialists in DSM and other large Iowa cities hitting the road and setting up for the day at a county-seat hospital. In our own group of cancer doctors one-fourth are on the road every day.
This is win-win-win-win: 1) sparing patients and families from making the reciprocal trip; 2) using (and occasionally rescuing) local hospital services including lab, radiology, pharmacy and operating rooms; 3) ratifying and extending the talents and skills of the providers; and 4) enhancing the relationship and communication between the local primary care provider and the visiting specialist.
None of this was done 40 years ago. It has evolved rapidly, largely under the radar, and includes virtually all subspecialties of internal medicine and many surgical ones. In fact, it is now often difficult to find space and time to set up in the small-town hospital.
A significant advance in the availability of medical care in Iowa.
Hi Dr. Bob! You're contribution to this discussion is invaluable, even if it does make me feel like an idiot. Why? I've not only observed the great change you've described in how medical specialists are going to rural Iowa medical centers to serve patients, I've LIVED that myself! How did I overlook such an important thing in my own life? In my extensive cancer treatment over the past 13 years, I've been treated and encouraged right at the Greene County Medical Center in Jefferson first by Dr. Michael Guffy of the McFarland Clinic in Ames, then Dr. Matthew Hill from John Stoddard Cancer Center in Des Moines, and most recently by Dr. Zeeshan Jawa, also of John Stoddard. Throw in the retired Dr. Roger Gingrich at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, and those specialists saved my life a few times! So let's add "huge changes in medical knowledge, technology and service" as one of the big ones of the last 50 years in Iowa.