I have had the honor and privilege of collaborating with three Kitsap Health Officers, including Dr. Willa Fisher, Dr. Scott Lindquist, and Dr. Susan Turner. After becoming a practicing physician, my reverence for the public health system has continually grown. I literally cannot do my job without the support of the dedicated employees working there.
Battling organized racism has never been about a single person or one moment in time—it is about exploring deeply ingrained beliefs each of us hold about those individuals who we see as different from ourselves. Outcome disparities due to race are not limited to the healthcare arena; they affect our education system, justice system, law enforcement, social media and everyday life.
In this case, CPS called upon child abuse pediatrician Dr. Elizabeth Woods, a new director at the Child Abuse Intervention program at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma. Although she told me on the phone she had “14 years of child abuse experience,” in actual fact, Dr. Woods resume tells a different story. She completed only a residency in general pediatrics in 2010 and has not completed a child abuse fellowship.
It seems perverse to deliver healthcare services at a place called the Minute Clinic. The kind of physician-patient relationship that can be cultivated in a minute is not one to write home about. While CVS and Walgreens see geriatric primary care as yet another untapped gold mine, for me, the relationship memorialized in Norman Rockwell’s “Physician” resonates as much today as it did 90 years ago. Seamless ecosystems are no match for a “willingness to place professional expertise at the feet of childhood magic.”
