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Note from Dr. Rob:
Welcome to a new addition to the blog. A HUMAN guest writer! My hope is to give a space for especially talented writers to get their stuff out there for the world to see. So this is the bio of Jacqui O’Kane, a fellow PCP who has suffered in the crushing fee-for-service “system.” She checks all the boxes for me: smart, funny, and very thoughtful…all with a snark that my readers will be happy with.
To get the ball rolling I asked her to write a bio and this is what she produced. Enjoy!!!
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Dr. Jacqui O’Kane has spent the majority of her life in the Peach State, with several noteworthy years in the state that harvests three times as many peaches (the Palmetto State, naturally). She herself has cultivated neither peaches nor palms, instead reaping a domestic product that is truly gross: the relative value unit. The relative value unit—or RVU, as fellow residents of the state of insanity known as fee-for-service call it—has no inherent worth. Rather, it purports to represent the amount of work she does, which could best be described as “a lot.” However, because she is a family physician and not a cardiologist or neurosurgeon, her patient care is considered relatively valueless. Indeed: All physicians are equal, but some physicians are more equal than others.
When she is not generating too few RVUs, Dr. Jacqui enjoys reading, writing, singing, gardening, hiking, traveling, and making gerunds. She particularly treasures time spent with her family. Dr. Jacqui is outrageously grateful to her husband Stephen, who takes excellent care of their daughters and pets. Unfortunately, due to her needing to input ever-more information into her hospital system’s electronic medical record system to continue receiving a paycheck, Dr. Jacqui’s family time is rarer than sushi.
Dr. Jacqui dreams of practicing medicine in an environment in which listening, critically thinking, and demonstrating concern for others is rewarded more than arbitrary codes. She craves more quality time with patients and less time clicking boxes to satisfy insurance companies’ so-called “quality measures.” Wonderfully, that world already exists, and the marvelous Dr. Rob Lamberts was among the first to teach her about it. Dr. Jacqui is grateful to Dr. Rob and other trailblazers for sharing with her the gospel of Direct Primary Care (DPC). She intends to practice in the DPC model as soon as her current state of indentured servitude is complete. Meantime, she is thrilled that Dr. Rob invited her to be the first non-feline regular guest contributor to his blog. What a llamazing privilege!