TCMS President – Tarrant County Physician Online

PRESIDENT’S PARAGRAPH

Showing Hospitality to the Stranger (and the One with Strange Ideas)

by Stuart Pickell, MD, MDIV, TCMS President

This article was originally published in the July/August issue of the Tarrant County Physician.

MANY MAJOR RELIGIONS ENCOURAGE adherents to break down barriers between people. The Abrahamic tradition, which includes Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, commends the practice of hospitality, of removing barriers and welcoming the stranger as a guest. The Buddhist tradition takes it a step further, teaching that our connections are real and our divisions are not, so that the very distinction between one group and another- between insider and outsider- is an illusion.

Hospitality is the art of creating community. It is an act- a choice- of welcoming the stranger as a friend, choosing amity over enmity. But encountering the stranger can engender uncertainty. We must decide if the stranger will remain a foreigner whom we keep at a safe distance or become a guest whom we welcome in. Put another way, will we demonstrate hostility or hospitality?

Hostility and hospitality, quite different in meaning, derive from the same reconstructed Proto-Indo-European noun ghóstis, which highlights the ambiguity we experience and the choice we must make. The stranger- or even a strange idea- challenges us. The stranger can be a guest or an enemy but not both at once. The stranger’s presence forces upon us a decision that will require us to examine and assess our relationship to the stranger. As a rule, communities are strengthened when they successfully create room for the stranger to feel welcomed.

On a national level, our ability to find common ground amid diverse viewpoints has been a hallmark of American democracy and the reason it has worked. But something has changed. Historically, healthcare policy has been one topic on which there has been broad bipartisan support. The Medicare and Medicaid Act (1965) is a classic example of bipartisan healthcare legislation. But when congress passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, not a single Republican voted for it and not a single Democrat voted against it.

Over the last 45 years, tribalism has become ingrained in our political discourse. John Dingell (D-MI), who served in congresses for 60 years, noted that when he began serving in the House in 1955, members saw themselves first as representatives of their state, second as representatives of an institution like the House or Senate, and only third as members of a party. By the time he left Congress in 2015, the order has reversed.

The way state legislatures draw congressional districts illustrates the extent to which parties in power will go to maintain control. One bizarre example is Maryland’s third congressional district, in which I lived until I was 16. It is called by many the most gerrymandered district in the country.

This practice has had toxic downstream effects. It amplifies the voices of those on the political extremes. Candidates in reliable liberal or conservative districts know that elections are won and lost not in the general election but in the primaries. And to win in the primaries they must “play to the base.”

We come by this honestly. We are, after all, a group-based species. But the resulting tribalism pits in-groups against out-groups, where the respective in-groups wield the political issues of the day to define and secure their status. We divide ourselves up as friends and enemies, creating hostility and polarization.

The cleavage that exists between the two tribes no longer cuts across a variety of social and cultural strata as it did 50 years ago. It’s singular and primal, so much so that a 2019 study showed that a significant number of people in each party consider people in the opposing party “evil” and that the country would be better off if members of the opposing party simply died.

The result is two Americas. At their extremes, one tribe would do away with guns altogether while the other would argue that citizens who so desire should be able to arm themselves with an M1A2 Abrams tank (version three, of course, because it’s the best). One tribe argues that abortion should be permissible to the point of birth while the other would criminalize all abortions. When either one of these Americas- right or left- senses they are losing control, they tend to dig in, inconsistencies and cognitive dissonance be damned. Both Americas defend their tribe even when it makes no logical sense to do so and (depending on the tribe) consider adherence to behavioral codes or resistance against them a moral virtue.

To circumvent this impasse, I believe we must cultivate the middle majority, by which I mean the middle 70 percent. I submit that liberal and conservative leaning people who live on either end of that middle 70 percent often have more in common with one another than they do with the extremes of their respective tribes. We must engage those with whom we disagree not on Twitter or in partisan echo chambers but in a non-partisan forum in which all viewpoints may be seriously considered, including those we find objectionable. Perhaps in such a forum we can entertain the possibility that someone who disagrees with us is not evil and does not harbor ill intent. In such a place, hospitality can be both extended and received, a place where the focus is on what unites us, not what devices us.

This may reveal some significant differences in opinion that make us uncomfortable or create uncertainty and ambiguity, but we are strong enough to manage that. To paraphrase Friedrich Nietzsche, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, and listening to each other with open minds certainly won’t kills us. We must find the intestinal fortitude to endure the discomfort and consider the possibility that those with whom we disagree may have a valid point; they may teach us something we need to know. Listen more, talk less, or as my wife’s license plate holder puts it, “Wag more, bark less.” When it comes to hospitality, people should be more like dogs.

One thing I’ve learned in my practice is that arguing with a patient who refuses to do what I think is in their best interest never convinces them to change their mind, but if I engage them, if I meet them where they are- not as an enemy but as a friend- if I listen to their concerns and their fears and share with them why I think it would be in their best interest to do something, they may take down the walls and adopt the healthier choice. When that happens, I know that it is not because I have made a convincing argument but because I have treated them with respect, listened to their concerns, and built a trusting relationship.

We must seize the opportunity to move from hostility to hospitality, which means engaging the stranger- and those with “stranger” ideas- not as an enemy but as a friend, a guest, a fellow traveler. We must be able to see those with whom we disagree with new eyes and hear them with new ears, and recognize in all of them that we are member of the same tribe.

Catholic priest and author Henri Nouwen put it this way:

Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines. It is not to lead our neighbor into a corner where there are no alternatives left, but to open a wide spectrum of options for choice and commitment.

I would like to see TCMS, and the Tarrant County Physician, in particular, utilized by our members as such a space in healthcare. Maybe then we will rediscover- or perhaps learn for the first time- that we have much in common, that what unites us is stronger than what divides us. Maybe then we will make the stranger a guest, if not a friend.

References:

“Hospes or Hostis.”Accessed May 27, 2023. https://biblonia.com/2020/08/13/hospes-or-hostis/
Seib, Gerald. “Gerrymandering Puts Partisanship in Overdrive; Can California Slow it?” Wall Street Journal. November 29, 2021. https://www.wsj.com/articles/gerrymandering-puts-partisanship-in-overdrive-can-california-reverse-it-11638198550
Edsall, Thomas B. “No Hate Left Behind: Lethal partisanship is taking us into dangerous territory.” New York Times. March 13, 2019. https://ww.newyorktimes.com/2019/03/13/opinion/hate-politics.html
Kalmoe, Nathan and Lillian Mason. “Lethal Mass Partisanship: Prevalence, Correlates, & Electoral Contingencies.” Prepared for presentation at the January 2019 NCAPSA American Politics: 17, https://www.dannyhayes.org/uploads/6/9/8/5/69858539/kalmoe___mason_ncapsa_2019_-_lethal_partisanship_-_final_lmedit.pdf
Nouwen, H. “Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life.” Penguin Books. 1986

PRESIDENT’S PARAGRAPH

How Much Does It Cost NOT to Provide Healthcare Services to the Undocumented?

by Stuart Pickell, MD, TCMS President

This article was originally published in the May/June issue of the Tarrant County Physician.

Note from the author: Although I have sourced much of the content in this article, some of the information comes from off-the-record conversations I have had with people who are or have been in leadership positions within the hospital district. In exchange for their honest assessment, I promised not to quote them.

I SUSPECT THAT, IF ASKED, THE average Tarrant County taxpayer would oppose spending tax dollars to fund healthcare for undocumented residents. I suspect also that they have at best a partial understanding of the issue borne out of media mischaracterizations and confirmation biases- on both ends of the political spectrum. Would that we could focus our attention on the information we need- as opposed to the information we want- when we make policy decisions that impact the community.

Harvard psychologist William James, in his presidential address to the American Philosophical Association, stated, “We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources.”¹ From this case the notion that we use only 10 percent of our brains, a myth so perpetuated by self-help books throughout the 20th century that by 2014, a survey revealed that roughly 50 percent of teachers around the world believed the myth to be true. ² But James was not asserting that we use only a small part of our brain; he contended that we do not engage it fully. What he described is consistent with what we now know about attention and flow states. To solve problems, our brains work best when we focus our attention. This is also true for communities. If we want to address community concerns seriously, we must focus our attention not just to what we see on the surface, but on the currents that run underneath it. However, when it comes to healthcare and undocumented residents, you can’t finish the question before the knives come out and the war paint goes on. But this question is more nuanced than a soundbite debate regarding immigration. Let me provide some context and propose a path forward.

The County Health System

JPS is the “safety net” facility for those who “fall through the cracks” in our healthcare system. The county health system traces its origin to 1877 when the then-future mayor Jogn Peter Smith donated five acres of land south of town to provide medical care to city and county residents.³

The first public hospital opened in 1906. Associated with the Fort Worth Medical College, it was called the City-County Hospital and was free to all accident victims and others by agreement.⁴ In 1914, a new hospital was built across the alley from the medical college which, by this time, was affiliated with TCU. This building, at 4th and Jones, still stands and is now the Maddox-Muse Center. By the 1930s, the city had outgrown this facility and a new City-County Hospital was built on the land originally donated by John Peter Smith. In 1954, the hospital changed its name to honor the land donor.

Until the 1950s, faith-based healthcare institutions managed many of the hospitals and health networks in Texas. Fort Worth’s first hospital was St. Joseph (1885).⁵ The demand for reliable access to healthcare services for the indigent drove initiatives to create a taxing mechanism to improve healthcare resources in growing Texas communities. This resulted in a Texas state constitutional amendment in 1954 permitting the creation of county-wide hospital districts in counties with a population of at least 900,000 to better serve those communities. ⁶ Tarrant County formed its hospital district in 1959, centered around JPS. As needs increased, the facility grew, and in 2008, it acquired St. Joseph Hospital, which was torn down in 2012 to create space for ongoing expansion.

Because the hospital districts fall along county lines, they come under county jurisdiction and are overseen and managed by the county commissioners court. By statute, every Texas county must have a county judge and four county commissioners, each representing a district consisting of one-fourth of the county’s population. Every county, from Harris County’s 4.7 million residents to Loving County’s 83 residents, has four commissioners and a county judge. The commissioners courts are responsible for setting policy and determining budgets, many of which are dedicated to roads and bridges, law enforcement, and the hospital districts. ^7,8 According to the Texas Health & Safety Code, the county must “provide health care assistance… to each of its eligible county residents.” ⁹ But who is “eligible”?

JPS has enjoyed excellent executive leadership, as evidenced by their ranking in Washington Monthly as the best teaching hospital in the county. ¹⁰ Yet while the executive team has significant authority to create a vision, establish priorities, and execute the network’s mission, it’s the Board of Managers- the JPS governing authority- that funds it and determines eligibility criteria. This board consists of representatives appointed to two-year terms by the commissioners court.

In 1996, Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act deeming undocumented residents ineligible for many federal, state, and local public benefits, but it allowed states to expand benefits if they wanted to. ¹¹ This created some uncertainty at the state level. In September 2003, a Texas law went into effect that deemed undocumented immigrants eligible for non-emergency care subsidized with local funds. According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the JPS Board of Managers interpreted this law to be a mandate and voted to allow undocumented immigrants to enroll in JPS Connection starting in January of 2004. ¹² The following month, Senator Jane Nelson wrote a letter to then Attorney General Greg Abbott seeking clarification regarding the statute. ¹³ Five months later, the Attorney General rendered his opinion that the code “permits, but does not require, a hospital district to provide nonemergency public health services to undocumented persons who are otherwise ineligible for those benefits under federal law.”¹⁴ A few weeks later, the JPS Board of Managers rescinded their expansion policy, although those who had already enrolled were permitted to remain in the system.

Cracks in the System

Texas has the ignominious distinction of leading the nation in uninsured residents. At 18 percent, our uninsured rate is over twice the national average. ¹⁵ There are many factors, including Texas’ decision not to accept federal funding for Medicaid expansion (as of July, Texas will be one of only 11 states that has not accepted it) and a knowledge gap on the part of currently eligible people who don’t know how to enroll.^16,17 But another driving factor is undocumented residents, the number of whom living in Texas is anyone’s guess.

Castigating immigrants, documented or not, as “the problem” obfuscates the bigger picture. We live in a transportation hub that provides ready access to much of the world. Immigration is considered a good thing. People come here because our expanding economy offers them jobs. Immigrants constitute 23 percent of the Texas workforce. A 2019 DFW survey revealed that immigrants made up 46 percent of our workforce in construction, 30 percent in manufacturing, and 26 percent in restaurant and food services. They contributed $119 billion to the Texas economy in personal income. Furthermore, 71 percent speak English, about 59 percent own homes, and 79 percent have lived in Texas for at least 10 years. ¹⁸ A recent national study focused on the experiences of undocumented immigrants revealed that immigrants typically pay more into the health system through taxes and premiums than they use in the form of healthcare services. ¹⁹ They do the same for the Social Security trust fund, something the Social Security Administration has known for years.²⁰

And yet, at least in Tarrant County, undocumented immigrants struggle to access healthcare. they go to JPS at a discounted rate (typically 40-80 percent), but because of their legal status they often forego routine care even if they can swing a hammer of lift a beam or scrub a floor- they keep working for fear of losing their jobs. For the undocumented, the fear of discovery and deportation is real. They don’t just fall through the cracks; they hide in them. This works until a chronic problem becomes and urgent one, and they can no longer work and must seek care. With the average three-day hospitalization costing $30,000, the patient will still owe $6,000-$12,000 after discounts, which most cannot afford.²¹ Since they cannot enroll in federal programs, JPS will end out absorbing the cost.

JPS probably provides a lot of uncompensated care that we don’t know about. It would be illegal not to provide care in an urgent/emergent situations- not to mention unethical- so why don’t we focus our attention on the cost of NOT taking care of undocumented residents?

The fact is, no one wants to talk about this because its political kryptonite. State legislators say this is a county issue. The county commissioners say it’s the Board of Managers’ decision, but the Board of Managers is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the county court. Everyone says it’s a federal issue, and yet when Medicaid expansion comes up the state turns it down. Geez.

I attended First Tuesdays at the capitol on March 6th, where I had the opportunity to sit down with the legislative aid for a Republican senator. When Medicaid expansion came up, she admitted, of the record, that Texas should accept it, but that this issue is a non-starter for her senator. Why? As Robert Frost put it,

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know what I was walling in, or walling out. ²²

Likewise, before we say we’re not going to provide basic healthcare services, shouldn’t we want to know all the facts? The JPS Health Network’s report regarding healthcare planning for Tarrant county states that its critical for the system to “continue to shift the emphasis from hospital care- for medical and behavioral health issues- to ambulatory care to decrease the need for preventable and costly inpatient care.” ²³ But our current policy creates a Gordian Knot in which a sizeable number of Tarrant County residents are forced to do the opposite. So, they wait until they can no longer work, at which point the problem may require a hospitalization and a more expensive “fix.”

A Proposal

What we need is to get past the political campaign slogans and focus our attention on the actual problem. Immigration reform is a valid concern and should be addressed, but it’s not the issue here. Our issue is local, and it impacts the people with whom. we live and work, and those we hire to work for us. The undocumented residents in Tarrant County aren’t leaving anytime soon. Furthermore, they contribute to the economy and pay taxes. What we need, then, is a task force to examine seriously and assess honestly all the issues that contribute to the problem. They should focus their attention not on the surface concerns that we find in a political campaign ad but on the underlying currents, the factors that make this problem more nuanced than can be contained in a soundbite. This task force should be apolitical by intention (to the extent that anything can be) and include people who care about the community, economic development, fiscal responsibility, and, of course, healthcare. TCMS is well positioned to help lead this initiative. We represent a variety of political viewpoints, but we share a common concern for taking care of our patients individually and collectively.

Factors this task force should consider include:

How Harris, Bexar, Dallas, and Travis Counties are managing this issue.
The number of people living in Tarrant County who are barred from county healthcare services.
The impact undocumented residents have on the community, including:
- Their contribution to the economy
- How much they pay in taxes
- How much we are spending urgently treating preventable conditions.

Money is a finite commodity, so it, too, must be included in the conversation. Tax dollars should be spent wisely. County Judge Time O’Hare pledged to do this during his campaign, especially regarding the hospital district.²⁴ He also promised to cut taxes, fund law enforcement, and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. ²⁵ This alignment of priorities suggests that hospital district funding may be in peril.

But it doesn’t need to be. A serious study may reveal that we are “wasting money” by NOT providing these services, especially when we factor in the cost of uncompensated urgent and emergent care and the loss of worker productivity. We won’t know unless we ask. Furthermore, the surge in property values, and therefore property taxes, has afforded the state a $32.7 billion surplus. ²⁶ Many constituencies are vying for that money- the taxpayers themselves, law enforcement, teachers- and all should be given serious consideration. But could we not give serious consideration also to addressing the healthcare needs of some of the most vulnerable individuals in our community by allowing undocumented residents to access the county healthcare network?

Once we know what we’re dealing with, we can begin to chart a course forward, riding the underlying currents rather than fighting them until we arrive at a destination that demonstrates hospitality, compassion, and fiscal responsibility. We may even find that the most fiscally responsible thing we could do is to offer basic primary care to these populations through a creative collaboration between JPS and other community resources. But we won’t know unless we ask.

References:

James W. The Energies of Men. Science. 1907; (Vol. 25, No 635 (March 1, 1907)): 332-323.
Howard-Jones PA. Neurosciences and education: myths and messages. Nature reviews Neuroscience. 2014; 15 (12):817-824. doi:10.1038/nrn3817
History of JPS. Accessed March 25, 2023, https://www.jpshealthnet.org/about-jps/history
Site of the Fort Worth Medical College. Historical Marker for the Fort Worth Medical College. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=53215
Park KB. St. Joseph Hospital. Texas State Historical Association. Accessed March 25, 2023, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entris/st-joseph-hospital
McKinley RD. Texas Hospital Districts: Past, Present, and Future. Affairs DoP; 2019. August 2019.
What Is a County Commissioner? Texas Association of Counties. Accessed March 19, 2023. https://www.county.org/About-Texas-Counties/About-Texas-County-Officials/Texas-County-Commisioner
What Does a County Commissioner Do in Texas? Texas Association of Counties. Accessed March 19, 2023. https://www.county.org/About-Texas-Counties/About-Texas-County-Officials/Texas-County-Commissioner
Health and Safety Code, Texas State Legislature §61.022 (2023). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/ Docs/SDocs/HEALTHANDSAFETYCODE.pdf
Editors T. Introducing the Best Hospitals for America. Washington Monthly 2020.
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. 1996.
Allison A. Local, state policies may contribute to higher cervical cancer death rate for Hispanic women in Tarrant County. Fort Worth Report. November 22, 2021. https://fortworthreport. org/2021/11/22/local-state-policies-may-contribute- to-higher-cervical-cancer-death-rate-for-hispanic- women-in-tarrant-county/
Nelson J. Senator Jane Nelson to Attorney General Greg Abbott, February 4, 2004. In: Abbott AGG, editor. Letter from Senator Jane Nelson to Attorney General Greg Abbott seeking a clarifying opinion regarding the eligibility of undocumented residents for health care services under the Health and Safety Code Section 285.201 as added by Chapter 198, Acts of the 78th Legislature, Regular Session, 2003. ed 2004.
Abbott G. Opinion No. GA-0219. 2004.
Percentage of Population Without Health Insurance Coverage by State: 2019 and 2021. United States Census Bureau. Accessed March 25, 2023, https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/ interactive/population-without-health-insurance- coverage-2019-and-2021.html
Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions: Interactive Map. Kaiser Family Foundation. Updated February 16, 2023. Accessed March 25, 2023, https:// www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/status-of-state- medicaid-expansion-decisions-interactive-map/
Barton K. Tarrant County residents have access to free health care, but some say awareness is a barrier. Fort Worth Report. October 11, 2021. Accessed March 19, 2023. https://fortworthreport.org/2021/10/11/ tarrant-county-residents-have-access-to-free-health- care-but-some-say-awareness-is-a-barrier/
Garcia Z. Immigrants are crucial to Texas’ economy. FWD.us. Updated February 23, 2022. Accessed March 19, 2023. https://www.fwd.us/news/ texas-immigrants/
Ku L. Who Pays for Immigrants’ Health Care in the US? JAMA Netw Open. Nov 1 2022;5(11):e2241171. doi:10.1001/ jamanetworkopen.2022.41171
Goss S, Wade A, Skirvin JP, Morris M, Bye KM, Huston D. Effects of Unauthorized Immigration on the Actuarial Status of the Social Security Trust Funds. Actuarial Note. April 2013. Accessed April 2, 2023. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/NOTES/pdf_notes/ note151.pdf
Why health insurance is important: Protection from high medical costs. Accessed March 27, 2023, https://www.healthcare.gov/why-coverage-is- important/protection-from-high-medical-costs/
Frost R. Mending Wall. North of Boston. 1914;
Health Care Planning for Tarrant County and the Role of JPS Health Network. 2018. February 27, 2018. https://www.tarrantcountytx.gov/ content/dam/main/administration/JPS/CBRC%20 Report%20FINAL%20%202%2021%2018.pdf
Allison A. Commissioners court elections could shift priorities of JPS Health Network during pandemic. Fort Worth Report. February 2, 2022.
Judge Tim O’Hare website. https://www. electtimohare.com/
Harper KB, Schumacher Y, Fort A. How could Texas spend its record $32.7 billion surplus? The Texas Tribune. March 13, 2023. Accessed March 27, 2023. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/03/13/ texas-budget-surplus/

PRESIDENT’S PARAGRAPH

by Stuart Pickell, MD, TCMS President

This article was originally published in the March/April issue of the Tarrant County Physician.

Why Do We Not Have a Pediatric Residency Program in FORT WORTH?

WHEN I MOVED BACK TO FORT WORTH in 2001, I wondered why we had so few graduate medical education (GME) programs. I came to understand, from those who should know, that Fort Worth simply wasn’t an “academic” city. We had one of the finest osteopathic medical schools in the country, several excellent medical centers, and a fine children’s hospital, but relatively few residency positions for a city our size. In 2011, the Texas Legislature, concerned that the physician workforce would not keep pace with Texas’ rising population, established a goal of 1.1 residency training positions for every Texas medical school graduate. Physicians often remain near where they train, so the reasoning was and continues to be sound. Achieving and maintaining this goal helps to build and sustain the physician workforce.

Fortunately, with no help from Tarrant County, Texas achieved its goal in 2017 (see Table 1). However, the impending graduation of student from new medical schools in the next two years will increase the demand for PGY-1 positions. the Burnett TCU School of Medicine will graduate its first class in May. A year later the Sam Houston University College of Osteopathic Medicine and the University of Houston College of Medicine will graduate their first classes. By 2024, to maintain the minimum 1.1 ratio, Texas will need to increase the number of residency positions by 5 percent, and to maintain its current 1.16 ratio, it will need to increase the number of positions by 10.8 percent.

In the last few years, Tarrant County’s medical community began meeting the challenge by starting several new residency programs. This is a welcome, albeit long overdue, development. Baylor Scott and White and Texas Health Resources have led the way to these recent changes by starting programs in internal medicine, ob-gyn, emergency medicine, and general surgery- this in addition to the programs already established at John Peter Smith and Medical City. The elephant in the room is pediatrics.

Why does Fort Worth, the 13th largest city in the country and home to the 13th largest children’s hospital, not have a pediatric physician residency program? I include the word “physician” because Cook children’s does have a pediatric residency program for nurses. In fact, it has one of the only 34 such programs in the country, but it does not have a program to train physicians- and its the only children’s hospital that has a program for nurses and not physicians. But as the population grows, won’t we need more pediatricians? Regional growth trends suggest we will. For instance, in just the last five years:

• The U.S. population increased by 2.7 percent

• The Texas population increased by 5.8 percent

• The Fort Worth population increased by 9.3 percent

• Fort Worth went from being the 16th to the 13th largest city in the country

• The number of PGY-1 pediatric residency positions in Texas increased from 211 to 213, or 0.95 percent

Looking at the 30 largest cities in the United States, Fort Worth is the only one that doesn’t have a pediatric residency program. Jacksonville, FL, which ranks just ahead of Fort Worth in population, for now, has a pediatric residency program, and it doesn’t even have a medical school. Fort Worth has two medical schools.

Within Texas you will find residency programs in the larger cities – Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, and Austin – but you will also find them in El Paso, Corpus Christi, Lubbock, Temple, Galveston, and Amarillo. The only other cities in Texas that have a medical school and no pediatric residency program are College Station, Edinburgh and Conroe. So, why not Cook Children’s?

I’ve asked this question to more than a few people affiliated with Cook Children’s – some who would like to see a physician GME program and others who would not. While they disagree on the proposition, they generally agree on the historical timeline and current sentiment. Cook Children’s, the result of a merger of Fort Worth’s two children’s hospitals in the 1980s, had a unique vision from its inception. Like many large children’s hospitals, it offered state-of-the-art care for pediatric patients, but it also vowed that patients would only be treated by board-certified pediatricians, i.e., no students or residents. Since most of Fort Worth’s hospitals didn’t have GME programs, Cook Children’s was not an outlier.

What made Cook Children’s particularly unique was its size and resources combined with its lack of GME entanglements. Cook Children’s leveraged this latter feature to recruit physicians who wanted to be clinicians, not educators. A vocal minority of the current medical staff have embraced this feature and do not want it to change. There is also a vocal minority who knew Cook Children’s wasn’t an academic institution when they joined but believe now that it should be. Many others – probably a majority, although no formal vote has been taken – would be fine with a GME program if one existed, but they could go either way.

In recent years, the subject has been revisited several times. About five years ago, Cook Children’s hired Germane Solutions, a GME consulting firm, to examine the viability of a GME program and assist in its development. Their findings are proprietary, but the consensus of the people with whom I talked is that Cook Children’s is positioned to have an outstanding GME program if it wants one. Furthermore, it would enhance the hospital’s national profile and be a financial boon to the local economy. But the success of a GME program hinges on having a medical staff who supports it. One vocal minority does, the other does not. And while the support doesn’t need to be unanimous to make it work, it wasn’t clear that enough of the middle majority supported it to the point it would reach the critical mass needed to make it worth pursuing.

Some theorize that demand for more pediatric residency positions among graduating medical students is lacking, and there is some truth to this claim. In the 2021 match, there were 1.47 pediatric PGY-1 positions for every graduating U.S. medical student who applied for one. But this doesn’t tell the whole story. Between 2016 and 2021, a concerning trend emerged. While nationally the number of pediatrics PGY-1 positions increased by 6 percent there was a 14 percent decrease in the number of U.S. medical graduates applying for them.

Fortunately, foreign medical graduates have filled the void, resulting in a match-fill rate consistently over 98 percent, which makes pediatrics appear both desired and competitive. But shouldn’t the decreased domestic interest in pediatrics provoke more questions? Why are U.S. medical students not considering pediatrics?

One perennial concern is low pay relative to other specialties, including pediatric subspecialties. As one of my residency attendings used to quip, “Little people, little money.” This must be on the minds of even the most altruistic of medical students for whom the average student loan debt upon graduation is over $200,000. But perhaps students everywhere are picking up on a trend that Cook Children’s is actively embracing- a hidden curriculum embedded in the cook Children’s philosophy as evidenced by the presence of a residency program for nurses but not physicians, that the future of primary care pediatrics is really nursing.

“Baylor Scott and White and Texas Health Resources have led the way to these recent changes . . . this in addition to the programs already established at John Peter Smith and Medical City. The elephant in the room is pediatrics.”

I hope this is not the case, because while value the contributions that nurses and APPs bring to the clinical care team, their training is qualitatively and quantitatively different from that of a physician. These teams should be supervised by physicians, and those physicians need to be trained… somewhere.

Why no Cook Children’s? Medical staff aside, they have the resources. So, how many attendings does Cook Children’s need to reach the critical mass necessary to start a residency program for physicians as well as nurses. A hospital with their resources could have a large residency program. To make a comparison, Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles is roughly the same size as Cook Children’s could start with eight, the same size as Texas Tech’s program in Lubbock. considering that physicians often practice where they train, could Cook Children’s not do this for the community’s sake?

The Cook Children’s Health Care System and its flagship hospital are. a well-kept secret that will not reach its full potential until It becomes an academic training facility with education and research affiliations. To illustrate this, U.S. News & World Report ranks the top 50 children’s hospitals in 10 different specialties. Most hospitals comparable to Cook Children’s rank in nine or 10 of these specialties, often in the top 30. Cook Children’s ranks in only six, the highest being neurosurgery at 20. The others come in at 38, 41, 43, 48 and 50.

The hospital website states: “As one of the fastest growing areas in the United States, Cook Children’s is continually looking ahead to meet the needs of a very diverse population.” No one will argue with this. Cook Children’s is one of the finest children’s hospitals in the United States. As a city and as a medical community we should be- and are- proud of it. But can it not look further ahead and become home to one of the finest pediatric residency programs as well? Becoming an academic center will enhance its national profile and bolster the pediatric workforce in Texas by exposing students to high-quality pediatric primary care and specialty services early in their training, while providing an exceptional place for them to continue their training and work after they graduate.

Most things worth doing require effort. Starting a new residency program is no exception. Some physicians to me that now is not the right time, that in the wake of COVID-19 they don’t have the bandwidth for it. But will there ever be a “right” time? wll there ever be a time when the stars in heaven align, and there is a unanimous agreement that the time has arrived?

First century rabbi Hillel the Elder once said, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?” Indeed. Given the need and the benefit to the community, perhaps now is the right time after all.

References:

1. The Texas Hospital Association’s educational series on hospital finance: “Graduate Medical Education, Part 5” – https://www.tha.org/wp- content/uploads/2022/04/Financing_GME_FI- NAL.pdf

2. Data for 2011-2019 may be found in a paper written by the Academic Quality and Workforce of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board: “The Graduate Medical Education (GME Report: An Assessment of Opportunities for Graduates of Texas Medical Schools to Enter Residency Programs in Texas.” This was a report to the Texas Legislature per Texas Education Code, Section 61.0661, October 2020, p.x.

3. See: The Kaiser Family Foundation website: https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/total-medical-school-graduates/

4. See: https://www.residencyprogramslist.com/ in-texas

5. “The Graduate Medical Education (GME) Report: An Assessment of Opportunities for Graduates of the Texas Medical Schools to Enter Residency Programs in Texas.” October 2020, P. 17

6. Cook Children’s Hospital consistently ranks between the 10th and the 18th largest children’s hospital in the United States depending on whether we are looking at licensed beds, staffed beds, and when the reporting was obtained.

7. See U.S. Census data at: https://www.census. gov/
8. See data from the National Residency Matching nrmp.org/
9. Not surprisingly, every U.S. city with more than one medical school has a pediatric residency program, except Fort Worth.
10. Information obtained for this article synthe- sizes conversations I had with 10 different people, all of whom are knowledgeable of Cook Children’s Medical Center (CCMC) and the movement to develop a physician residency program. Because of the sensitive nature of this topic, I promised that I would not reveal their names or quote them directly but would make a good faith effort to com- municate their understanding of the issue. They did not all agree on whether CCMC should pursue a residency, but they did agree on the major points outlined in the article. Of the 10, eight are or were employed by CCMC, almost all in leadership posi- tions. Three of those have retired and five remain on staff. The other two, both physicians, are lead- ers in the medical community and/or at CCMC and in a position to speak to this topic.
11. See: https://educationdata.org/average-medi- cal-school-debt
12. See https://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/ pediatric-rankings
13. See: https://www.cookchildrens.org/about/ history/
14. Mishnah Avot 1:14. See: https://www.sefaria. org/Pirkei_Avot.1.14?lang=bi

PRESIDENT’S PARAGRAPH

by Stuart Pickell, MD, TCMS President

This article was originally published in the January/February 2023 issue of the Tarrant County Physician. You can read find the full magazine here.

IT IS AN HONOR AND A PRIVILEGE TO serve as president of the Tarrant County Medical Society for 2023. I aspire to lead as ably as those who have preceded me and to move the ball forward on the many priorities we have as physicians and citizens of Tarrant County. To that end, I posed several questions at the installation event in November that I will follow up on this year, using this space as a launchpad for discussion. At the root of these questions is identity- our identity as physicians and leaders in our community.

For many physicians, and I know this is true for me, there is a sense that, like Harry Potter’s wand, we didn’t choose medicine- it chose us. We have a sense of “calling” to the profession, as if by something external to us or deep within us- either way, something so profound and unknowable that it may defy articulation.

The language of “calling” resonates with nem although for me it was problematic because I had two. When I was five years old, I told my family that when I grew up, I was going to be a minister, a doctor, and a fireman. I have done all three. Firefighting didn’t stick.

What did stick was ministry and medicine. I hoped it would be one or the other, but it never was. In college, I took classical greek and 400-level biology and chemistry courses and majored in history because I liked it. i sought advice from people I respected who were ministers and physicians and they all said the same thing: If you’ve ever thought about doing something besides ministry or medicine, do that instead. As my wife would say, “Hmmmm.”

Years later, and several years into a full-time ministry position, I told a parishioner about my dilemma. He also happened to be a therapist, which only reinforced my commitment to Calvinism. After patiently listening to me explain all the reasons why it wasn’t practical to do both, he looked at me and asked, “Why not?”

Hmmmm.

Ministry and medicine are similar. They are both vocations in the truest sense of the word, a word derived from the Latin vocare, which means “to call.” Both are professions to which the people in them tend to feel a sense of calling that compels and propels them to serve.

It makes sense that medicine, as a profession, would be hardwired toward serving others. After all, our calling first had to be validated by a medical school that saw in us what we saw in ourselves. We had to be chosen by someone else to become part of a tribe. Do you remember how you learned that you had been accepted to a medical school? I do. I got a letter. I think it’s fitting, however, that student admitted to TCU’s Anne Burnett School of Medicine literally get a call- by telephone- telling them the good news. And admissions committees seek candidates who have integrity and demonstrate empathy; people who are team players and servant leaders. This is and always has been at the core of our identity as physicians.

How we grow into that identity, and how our call to serve becomes manifest, will be as unique as each one of us. People who are called are called not just to be but to do- to apply their knowledge and expertise in a unique and meaningful way. In a way, physicians don’t have a career so much as a mission- which, at the risk of sounding pedantic, comes from the Latin word mitterre, which means “to send.” The English word is rooted in medieval Christianity, but today’s “mission” is more likely to describe the driving principles of an individual, or a business, or a non-profit group or a healthcare institution. it speaks to their identity, their raison dêtre. We are called, and we are sent, sent on a mission to serve the people in our charge- our patients- and the community in which we all live.

So, how are we doing? Are we fulfilling our mission? In many ways, we are doing quite well. We have excellent physicians in just about every specialty. We have fine institutions for adults and children and one of the best county health systems in the country. But we still have pressure points. How does the execution of our mission, individually and corporately, impact the larger community- not just us or our practices or our institutions but the people we have been called to serve?

Throughout the year I will use this space to explore this question, examining our individual and corporate roles and responsibilities as physicians in the hope that doing so will promote a constructive dialogue that furthers our mission to serve the larger community. Some of the pressure points I see and hope to explore include:

- The inadequacy of Graduate Medical Education in Fort Worth, and especially at Cook Children’s Health System. The Cook Children’s Health System and its flagship hospital are among the finest in the country. It has excellent leadership and medical and support staff. But would the community not be better served if it leveraged this prestige and became an academic center as well, training physicians and pediatric specialists who, by the way, often practice near where they train?

- Lack of access to the county healthcare system for undocumented county residents. Undocumented residents can receive emergency care at a reduced rate (which is often still too expensive for most) but are ineligible for the preventive care that might have averted the need for emergency services in the first place. Even Project Access can’t access county health facilities for use by our member physicians who are willing to donate their time and expertise to do necessary but non-emergent procedures.

- Lack of physician input in the assessment, planning and implementation of strategies to address community healthcare needs and crises. Such planning should start with physicians, the people in the community who know the patients personally and who, because of these relationships, the patients trust to act in their best interest. COVID – a crisis made worse by its politicization – quickly devolved into divisive rhetoric that led to a profound mistrust of medical authorities, especially at the national level. Our member physicians voluntarily stepped into this nightmare. We partnered with neighboring county medical societies and aided the local health authorities with its media information operations, providing an honest assessment of available information to inform and educate physicians and the public. And yet, when it came to planning and implementation, the local authorities turned to non-clinical hospital leadership for input and direction.

Working together to address challenges and overcome obstacles is the center of our mission, a mission that emanates from a calling, a calling that forges our identity as physicians. What makes our calling and its ensuing mission so important, and our profession so rewarding, is the relationship we share with each patient – one that is founded on empathy, trust, and mutual respect. It’s the one thing that remains constant in the chaos, because when our patients don’t trust anyone else, they still trust us.

Our mission is not about us – it’s about our patients and our community. And if our mission is to improve their health and safety, we must be willing to take an honest look at ourselves, to understand where we have been, assess where we are, and anticipate where we are headed. And if we discover that our mission is no longer serving our patients or our community, we must have the courage to change it.

Organized medicine helps us identify challenges, assess the adequacy of our mission, and if needed, adjust it. I am honored to be a part of that process and look forward to continuing our conversation.

Meet Stuart Pickell, MD, Our 2023 TCMS President

By Allison Howard

This article was originally published in the January/February 2023 issue of the Tarrant County Physician.

“IN MANY WAYS, MEDICINE IS A FORM OF MINISTRY,” SAYS DR. STUART PICKELL.

HIS PERSPECTIVE ISN’T SURPRISING. When you get to know Dr. Pickell, one thing quickly becomes clear – if he is interested in a project or an organization, it is because it involves serving the community. It is his desire to help others that threads his varied passions together – including his careers as both a Presbyterian minister and a physician.

“When I was five, I told my family I was going to be a minister, a doctor, and a fireman,” says Dr. Pickell. “And I did all three.”

While his stint as a fireman was limited to volunteering during high school, the experience impacted his future. During that time, Dr. Pickell became an EMT and worked for both firefighting and ambulance services. This early introduction to medicine helped to cement an interest in patient care that would continue to influence him in the years ahead.

Still, Dr. Pickell did not take a direct route to healthcare. When he attended the College of William and Mary, he was undecided between medicine and ministry. Instead of picking a degree that would only fit one or the other career path, he decided to study history and use his elective courses to take prerequisites for both seminary and medical school.

“I was in Williamsburg going to William and Mary, which is in a town where it’s always 1773,” explains Dr. Pickell. “So I was living there, with a lot of primary sources around me, and it made researching and the study of history more interesting, and it came to life more. And I knew that for ministry or medicine, it didn’t really matter what I majored in.”

Dr. Pickell was still unsure of his future path when he graduated, so he worked at a community hospital and church for two years before he decided to pursue a career in ministry, following in his father’s footsteps.

He received his Master of Divinity at Princeton Theological Seminary, and shortly after graduating, began working as the associate minister for youth and families at First Presbyterian Church in Fort Worth.

While he was enthusiastic about the job itself, leaving the East Coast to move to Texas was not originally appealing to Dr. Pickell. His interactions with some colorful Texans he met at Princeton did not leave a favorable impression. This, combined with sports rivalries imprinted since childhood, made the move less than ideal . . . so much so that it inspired some literary liberties.

“I actually rewrote the story of Jonah in the Bible; recasting it with Jonah as me and Nineveh as Fort Worth,” he says, laughing. “It was sort of therapeutic for me.”

Looking back, though, Dr. Pickell has no regrets about making the move. Texas was his future and is a place he now is grateful to call home.

“It was the second-best decision I’ve ever made – after marrying my wife,” he says.

Dr. Pickell enjoyed serving in the Church, but he still carried the desire to heal bodies alongside souls.

“I’d sit in my office, and I’d look out the window and think, ‘I don’t know if my calling to ministry is actually inside the church,’” he remembers. “‘I think maybe my ministry should be a ministry of presence, of being in the community.’”

He was hesitant, though. At that time, Dr. Pickell was still paying off student loans from his seminary and college degrees, and, perhaps more importantly, he was raised to believe that one was supposed to pick one career and stick with it.

It was the late Gordon VanAmburgh, a beloved counselor and First Presbyterian church member, who asked Dr. Pickell an important question that set him on a new trajectory.

“It was just two words, but in many ways, they changed my life,” Dr. Pickell says. “I said to him, ‘You know, I just don’t know that it’s feasible to have two careers.’ And he looked me in the eye and said, ‘Why not?’”

Dr. Pickell didn’t have an answer to that, and it led to decisions that would completely reshape his life. He applied to medical school and was accepted to
UT Southwestern, where he pursued his medical education.

Though Dr. Pickell was grateful that his prerequisites were completed, it was challenging to jump into his classes after taking an extensive break from the hard sciences.

“I wasn’t sure I was going to stay,” he says. “I liked the idea of being a doctor, but the first year was pretty rough for me. They were talking in biochemistry about discoveries five years earlier as if they were ancient history. It had been 10 years since I had taken biochemistry, so I was like, ‘I am totally lost here.’”

Though it was challenging, Dr. Rob- ert Sloane applauds him for taking the plunge to practice medicine.

“Knowing the time commitment required, it took courage on his part to train in medicine in addition to ministry,” says Dr. Sloane, who wrote a letter recommending Dr. Pickell’s acceptance into UT Southwestern. “[H]e is always caring and compassionate in his endeavors. He is committed to his work and careful in its

performance.” During his time at UT Southwestern, Dr. Pickell met his wife, Emily, while serving as an interim pastor for two small churches in and around Clifton, Texas, during a summer break. They married in the middle of his third year. Dr. Pickell completed medical school followed by a residency in internal medicine and pediatrics (Med-Peds) at the University of Mississippi Medical

Center. After completing his residency, Dr. Pickell joined an all-Med-Peds practice in Nashville but decided to return to Texas a year later. He has worked as a Med-Peds physician in Fort Worth ever since. Currently, he is a member of Texas Health Physicians Group.

For over 20 years, Dr. Pickell has thrived in building long-term relationships with patients and guiding them through complex ailments.

“Medicine is an applied science,” he says. “I like to apply principles to people to help them, whether it’s spiritually or physically, emotionally – whatever.”

Though his patients have remained at the center of his career, Dr. Pickell has maintained active participation in professional groups and committees throughout his work as a physician – including a great deal of work in ethics.

He has served on several ethics committees, including the Tarrant County Academy of Medicine’s (TCAM) Ethics Consortium, which he has chaired
for many years. And in 2016, Dr. Stuart Flynn, dean of the Anne Burnett School of Medicine at TCU, appointed Dr. Pickell to lead in the development of the medical school’s ethics curriculum.

While Dr. Pickell continues to lead the ethics curriculum, he has also expanded the reach of TCAM’s Ethics Consortium through the development of Healthcare in a Civil Society, an annual forum that has typically featured content experts from the Tarrant County community. Dr. Kendra Belfi, Dr. Pickell’s predecessor in chairing the TCAM Ethics Consortium, is grateful for his contributions to ethics in medicine.

“Dr. Pickell is a deep thinker and an articulate leader, who brings professionalism to everything he works on,” she says. “When I was about to retire and needed to find someone willing to take over chairmanship of the Consortium, I asked him to consider it – and he did. He has now been chair of the Consortium for longer than I was and has taken us to new heights.”

Throughout his years of practice, Dr. Pickell has concluded that successful leaders inspire others more through ac- actions than words.

“The biggest part of being a leader is leading by example; being willing to do what you’re asking other people to do,” says Dr. Pickell.

He speaks from experience. In addition to his work in ethics, Dr. Pickell is Project Access Tarrant County’s medical director, has served on over a dozen TCMS and TMA committees, and has worked in executive leadership positions in organizations as diverse as a health in- formation exchange company, a pioneer ACO, and an innovative primary care practice model.

“Leadership is now more about building effective teams, which is why articulating the vision is so important,” he says. “It’s not just that you have a vision and expect everyone to follow you like the Pied Piper. You must communicate it to the team, sell it to them, invite them to own it.”

Sharing a vision is key as a doctor, and it is something that Dr. Pickell believes is fostered by organized medicine. He likes to compare the relationship that physicians have with TMA and TCMS to those he shares with his own patients, many of whom he has treated for decades.

“You develop relationships and leverage them to get things done,” says Dr. Pickell. “And I think that TMA and the county medical societies are in some ways like that. They are relational, and they provide an organizational force or impetus that amplifies the message we are trying to communicate individually within our practices, broadcasting it to a larger audience than any of us can reach individually.”

As he both leads and provides support on varied projects, Dr. Pickell does it with the vision of supporting the future of medicine. In addition to his work on the ethics curriculum at the Burnett School of Medicine, Dr. Pickell has served as a preceptor to advance medical students’ hands-on education since 2002 and as an associate professor for the Department of

Internal Medicine at the Burnett School of Medicine since its inception.

Dr. Pickell’s passion for education is no surprise to those who know him; he has long desired to foster young minds in his work for both the body and the spirit. And it is a passion that extends beyond the students under his direction to the patients he cares for.

“Perhaps the most succinct statement
I could make is that I have entrusted my three children to him twice,” says Dr. Steve Brotherton, a friend, and patient of Dr. Pickell’s. “First as the youth pastor at our church, then again as their personal physician, just as I have entrusted my own health.”

“You know, I’ve always been a generalist,” says Dr. Pickell. “I like to do a lot of different things. Some people will focus on one thing and really excel at that one thing. I’ve never been wired like that.”

In many areas – ministry to medicine, education to private practice, ethics theory to hands-on application – Dr. Pickell has spent his career striking a balance between a mixed set of interests. But this extends beyond work and professional organizations.

“Husband, father, healer of bodies and souls – most know these plain facts about Stuart Pickell,” says his longtime friend Robert Johnson, who Dr. Pickell met during his time at seminary. “But there

is so much more to him: musician, actor, closeted NASCAR fan . . . and good and generous friend. For the nearly forty years I have been friends with Stuart, I have found him to be a man of great intellect, compassion, humor, and faith.”

He enjoys playing the guitar and piano, as well as writing music and essays when

he has the chance. In one particularly rewarding venture, one of the songs he wrote for a youth event in the 90s was recorded by a friend and got air time on a Denver radio station.

Dr. Pickell grins. “Yeah, that was a pretty neat experience.”

But his favorite pastime is being with his wife and their two sons, Jonathan and Will. If the family is able to spend time
at their weekend house in Clifton, even better.

“I love going down to Clifton and just being in the country,” says Dr. Pickell. “People in small towns have a strong sense of place, of community. They are grounded. I didn’t experience that growing up; maybe that’s why I like it.”

As he begins his term as TCMS president, Dr. Pickell is looking forward to using the “President’s Paragraph” to share his top concerns about medicine, such as the need to increase GME slots and funding for Project Access.

More than anything, he wants to start conversations since they are the first
step toward making tangible changes. He wants the message from TCMS to be very clear so those we interact with, such as hospital leaders and local politicians, understand the medical society’s purpose and the perspective of physicians throughout Tarrant County.

“It’s important to stay centered on why you’re doing what you’re doing,” he says. “When it comes to a ‘mission,’ I think the ‘why’ is really important. For me, this goes back to my faith. I do what I do because I believe that a loving God – who loves everyone else as much as me – has called me to serve in this way.”

We are excited to have Dr. Pickell lead us as we move forward with TCMS’s mission of advocating for the physicians and patients of Tarrant County.

And Just Like That

President’s Paragraph

by Shanna Combs, MD, TCMS President

This article was originally published in the November/December 2022 issue of the Tarrant County Physician.

Dr. Combs giving her first speech as the 2022 TCMS president

And just like that, my year as the Tarrant County Medical Society president is nearly over. It has been a pleasure to serve in this role, and while my time is almost up, I wanted to look back over the past year.

My time started at the end of last year during an early reprieve from the COVID pandemic. The Gold-Headed Cane and President Installation was our first in-person event since the start of COVID. It was an amazing night of getting to see old colleagues and meet new ones. It was also amazing to have four female physicians being honored in one night; it was great to share the evening’s celebration with Drs. Susan Bailey, Teresa Godbey, and Angela Self.

Being inducted by Dr. Angela Self as the new TCMS president

Unfortunately, the year took a step back due to the COVID pandemic, and we once again had to change to a virtual meeting for the TMA Winter Conference. As we have done multiple times during the pandemic, we were able to pivot and carry on. Locally, our TCMS leadership came together to promote fellow physicians to seek out positions at TMA.

As we moved to April, we started to see light and were finally able to hold TexMed in person, the first time since 2019. The best part of the meeting was seeing the inauguration of our own Gary Floyd as TMA president. Moving into summer, we were able to have a Women in Medicine event where we gathered for some much-needed stress relief making bath bombs. While we were not all successful at making the bath bombs, we had a great time gathering again in person.

Making bath bombs at the Women in Medicine event

When the Dobbs decision came out in June, I had multiple opportunities to speak with local and national media about the importance of the patient/physician relationship, and how this decision has many far-reaching implications in medicine. I will continue to work on advocating for doctors and patients to make their own medical decisions without intervention from outside forces.

At the Young Physicians Mixer

During July, I had the privilege to welcome our new Tarrant County medical students from the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine and the Anne Burnett School of Medicine at TCU to TCMS and the world of organized medicine. It was refreshing to meet with these young students and to cheer them on as they begin their journey to having the greatest job on the planet: being a physician.

As we moved into the fall, we had another opportunity to gather again at the TMA Fall Conference. We are slowly finding our way through this COVID pandemic, returning to some form of normalcy. While I cannot quite say it seems to be over, as this has been said too many times before, we continue to find a way through.

Speaking to the incoming class of medical students

While my tenure as TCMS president may be coming to an end, I will continue to contribute to the work of our county, state, and national medical societies. If I have learned anything over the past year, it is that we must be at the table and part of the discussion; otherwise, people who don’t practice medicine will continue to try to tell us how to do our job. We have worked too hard to become physicians to allow others to practice medicine for us, and it isn’t in the best interest of our patients or our vocation – the work that still is, despite so many challenges, the best job on the planet.

It’s Not Okay

President’s Paragraph

by Shanna Combs, MD, TCMS President

This article was originally published in the September/October 2022 issue of the Tarrant County Physician. You can read find the full magazine here.

On June 23, 2022, the Tarrant County medical community lost an amazing physician, who died by suicide. He was a remarkable person whose work touched so many lives—he was always willing to help others. He is greatly missed by all who knew him.

Unfortunately, physician suicide has become an all-too-common occurrence in the United States.

• Approximately 300–400 physicians die by suicide each year in the U.S.

• Among male physicians, the suicide rate is 1.41 times higher than the general male population.

• Among female physicians, it is even more pronounced at 2.27 times higher than the general female population.¹

As terrible as this sounds, there is hope. Physicians who are proactive about their mental health are able to take better care of their patients as well as have more resilience in the face of stress. However, this is not so easy to accomplish.

There is already a stigma associated with mental health, and it is made even worse for physicians due to the concern of needing to report a diagnosis to our medical boards, licensing organizations, as well as to credentialing offices in the hospitals and health systems we work in. We as physicians also have difficulty taking care of ourselves in general, let alone when it comes to mental health, as we are the healers and must be perfect.

The truth is, being a physician is hard. We train for many years to be able to do the work that we do. We often share our war stories about medical school and residency, but when it comes to the deeper struggles we have, we tend to keep those to ourselves. We push them down and hide behind a smile (or a mask) and continue to pretend that everything is okay.

But it’s not okay.

We as a profession need to start taking care of ourselves and looking out for our colleagues. It is okay to tell someone when you are struggling and to seek out help when you need it. A psychiatrist friend puts it best—“Everyone needs a therapist. I have one.” At some point we all learned the physiology of the human body, and of the brain specifically. Sometimes that brain needs a little extra help from chemistry, and that is okay as well. If you have a thyroid problem, you do not put up a fight about taking a thyroid pill. The same goes when our brain chemistry needs a little help. We also need to reach out to one another, to check in and see if our colleagues are really doing okay and if they need any help or support. It’s okay to not be okay, but we need to recognize this and seek out the help we so desperately need, and to help our colleagues obtain the help that they need.

We also need to work from an advocacy standpoint so that physicians can seek the help that they need without the fear of needing to report their illness. All other aspects of medicine and healthcare are taken care of in a private manner between a physician and a patient. Why should mental health be any different? Until this changes, no number of wellness programs, resilience building, etc., will be able to fix the problem.

I encourage everyone to seek help when needed and to reach out to our colleagues, partners, and friends. We have worked tirelessly to get to the point we can practice medicine, and those around you want you to stay here.

References
¹John Matheson, “Physician Suicide.” American College of Emergency Physicians. Accessed August 3, 2022.

https://www.acep.org/life-as-a-physician/wellness/wellness/wellness-week-articles/physician-suicide/#:~:text=Each%20year%20in%20the%20U.S.,times%20more%20often%20than%20females

Mental Health Resources

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
1-800-273-TALK (8255)
Available 24/7

Crisis Text Line
Text TALK to 741-741
Available 24/7

Physician Support Line
1 (888) 409-0141
Open seven days a week,
7:00am – 12:00am CST
Psychiatrists helping their U.S. physician colleagues and medical students navigate the many intersections of our personal and professional lives. Free and confidential. No appointment necessary.

Emotional PPE Project
emotionalppe.org
The Project connects healthcare workers in need with licensed mental health professionals who can help.

Fort Worth OB/GYN: “There’s no hard and fast line where…the mom’s life is at risk.”

TCMS President and OB/GYN Dr. Shanna Combs spoke with Dallas Mourning News journalist Allie Morris about the impact of ambiguous reproductive health restrictions on the health and wellbeing of women suffering from severe pregnancy complications. Here is an excerpt:

Texas is now preparing to ban all abortions, following the reversal of Roe vs. Wade, with no exemptions for rape or incest, only for cases that put the pregnant person “at risk of death or … of substantial impairment of a major bodily function.”

Doctors say the problem is that those situations are not black and white.

“There is no hard-and-fast line where all of a sudden the mom’s life is at risk,” said Dr. Shanna Combs, an OB-GYN in Fort Worth. “So she’s infected, but she’s not septic. Does she have to be hemorrhaging before you can intervene?”

You can read the full article here.

I’ve Done My Research

President’s Paragraph

by Shanna Combs, MD

This article was originally published in the March/April 2022 issue of the Tarrant County Physician. You can read find the full magazine here.

“I’ve done my research.”

These can be some of the most dreaded words to hear as a physician from our patients and their families. We can spend seven-plus years in medical school, residency, and sometimes fellowship, studying our field before we embark on our journey to practice medicine. We also hone our craft through continued learning throughout our careers. Yet, we are often confronted with the above phrase. Since when did Dr. Google become such an expert that it can supersede our years of training and practice?

This became ever more apparent as the COVID-19 pandemic started over two years ago. (Yes, we have crossed over the two-year mark and are still counting). With a lack of information and understanding of this novel virus as well as increased access to information on the internet, we in science and medicine saw people seeking out answers from all the resources they had access to. This unfortunately led to propagation of numerous pieces of misinformation, distortions, and half-truths. Add to this the politicization of our nation and the polarization regarding best measures on how to handle the COVID-19 pandemic, and unfortunately, we in science and medicine are left as the ones not to be trusted.

As a women’s health physician, I am confronted with this on an almost daily basis. While the internet can be a valuable resource of information, it can also be a not so valuable resource of misinformation, lies, and myths. Misinformation was commonly passed along in relation to women’s reproductive health even before the advent of the internet. Unfortunately, nowadays it has a much wider reach with the “expertise” of Dr. Google to further spread these untruths.

What are we to do in this constant back and forth of the internet versus the doctor?

For me, I try to meet my patients and their families where they are. I work with them to better understand where they are coming from as well as who or what their source of information is. I cannot undo the vastness that is the internet and Dr. Google, but I can work to build a relationship with my patients and their families to come to shared decision making to provide the best care for them.

“For me, I try to meet my patients and their families where they are. I work with them to better understand where they are coming from as well as who or what their source of information is. I cannot undue the vastness that is the internet and Dr. Google, but I can work to build a relationship with my patients and their families to come to shared decision making to provide the best care for them. “

While this is helpful in individual encounters of patient care, I also feel that it is important for us as physicians to be out in the public arena as well. Because of this, I never turn down an opportunity to speak when asked, and I am always happy to provide my expertise for those in the media. As physicians, we have a duty to educate. This is a responsibility not only to the individual patients we take care of, but also to the public. By offering education that is based in science and grounded in our years of continued study and experience, we can work to counteract the vast amount of distorted information that is out there. I, for one, will continue in my efforts to dispel myth and spread truth.

President’s Paragraph

Terrible Twos

By Shanna Combs, MD

This piece was originally published in the January/February 2022 issue of the Tarrant County Physician. You can read find the full magazine here.

Welcome to 2022! This is going to be our year. Things are going to be better. So long, COVID . . . Oh wait, maybe not. Doesn’t this all sound a little too reminiscent of the start of 2021? As I write this, we are in the beginning stages of a new variant, Omicron. There is still much we do not know about this variant, and hopefully, by the time you are reading this, it will have turned out to be not as bad as the last one.

Thinking back to the start of 2021, we were elated to have new vaccines to fight off and end the COVID pandemic. Many of us in healthcare were racing to sign up to get our shot and show it off on social media. We finally had some armor to protect us in this fight, and soon enough it would be available to protect our families, friends, and patients. Yet the conversation quickly turned to, “It was made too quickly,” “You can’t mandate that I get the vaccine,” “I am healthy; why do I have to get the vaccine?” or “It is all fake news.” So now, here we are, entering the “terrible twos” of the COVID pandemic. If there is one thing that has been demonstrated during the COVID pandemic, it is that the innate trust in physicians, medicine, and science is, unfortunately, no longer so automatic. We as physicians must continue to be voices for science and for medicine who, at the end of the day, want the best health outcomes for our patients.

As we enter the terrible twos of the pandemic, I encourage my physician compatriots to be the voice that our patients and our society need to hear. Whether that is in your day-to-day interactions with patients, conversations with family and friends, or in public venues, we must continue to be the voice of medicine. Ways to amplify that voice exist within our own county, state, and national medical society. Those of us in medicine often focus on what makes us different, but now more than ever we need to focus on what brings us together.

We are all tired and exhausted from this fight, and more than once I have heard others as well as myself say, “Can’t we just go back to how it used to be?” Unfortunately, I hate to say, COVID is with us for the foreseeable future. Yet, those of us in medicine went into this field for a reason. For me, that reason always comes down to my patients. I want to provide the best care to optimize the health and well-being of my patients. During these terrible twos, I call on my colleagues to remember why you embarked on this journey of medicine, and when you see a colleague struggling, help them to remember why they came to this profession. Not only can we be the voice of medicine to our patients, but we can also be the voice of support and camaraderie for our fellow physicians.

As we embark on this new year, I want to say that I support you as a fellow physician, and I look forward to the amazing work that you all contribute to your patients and to our society. Thank you for what you have done and what you will continue to do.