乌鸦传媒

If you could change one thing about the healthcare system, what would it be? Eliminate Obamacare, says Rep. Phil Gingrey, MD (R-Ga.). That's his answer to just one of the 10 Questions the 乌鸦传媒 staff is asking leading clinicians, researchers, and leaders in their community to get their personal views on their chosen profession. In this series we share their uncensored responses. Here, answers from Rep. Phil Gingrey, MD (R-Ga.).

Gingrey, a native of Augusta, Ga., studied chemistry at Georgia Tech before attending the . After medical training, he moved to Marietta, Ga., to, as his bio says, where he delivered more than 5,200 babies.

Gingrey served on the Marietta City School Board and in the state Senate before being elected to the House of Representatives in 2002. He is currently running for the .

1. What's the biggest barrier to practicing medicine today?

Obamacare. Plain and simple. The president's health reforms threaten tens of thousands of private practices with the very real possibility that they may have to close their doors. Several doctors lucky enough to keep practicing are losing their patients due to being dropped from their provider networks and not being able to provide care under Medicare.

2. What is your most vivid memory involving a patient who could not afford to pay for healthcare and how did you respond?

It would be too hard to pick just one. Early in my career working nights in the emergency room, and later when I was delivering babies as an ob-gyn, I always accepted Medicaid and Medicare. When patients weren't signed up, I always took the time to tell them how to get coverage. If I had to estimate, I'd say that more than 20% of the new moms I cared for were on Medicaid -- even though the reimbursement rates often weren't even high enough to cover my costs. Nowadays, I volunteer as a primary care physician at the Good Samaritan Clinic in my district, where underprivileged and uninsured patients can come for care.

3. What did you most often wish you could say to patients, but didn't?

During my more than 30-year career, I treated tens of thousands of patients in many capacities -- each one to the best of my ability. But as every doctor knows, part of our profession means that some things just don't work out the way you fight for them to. For those patients -- even though they know you did your best -- the word 'sorry' can't even begin to describe how badly you feel for them and their families. You just can't find the words sometimes to let them know how much you wanted to help them.

4. If you could change or eliminate one thing about the health care system, what would it be?

I would eliminate Obamacare. Then, I'd replace it with a plan that emphasizes consumer-driven, free-market principles, that takes power away from faceless federal bureaucrats and puts it back in the hands of doctors.

5. What is the most important piece of advice for med students or doctors just starting out today?

The only reason to choose the vocation of medicine is the love of helping people stay healthy and live better lives. Studying medicine is a long, hard road. If that isn't your No. 1 reason for doing it, there's a good chance you aren't going to make it through 10 or more years of intense schooling. During the first years of schooling, students should specialize, and then try and get experience that will help them decide whether they want to be self-employed, or employed by larger health organizations after they become certified.

6. What is your pitch to persuade someone to pursue a career in medicine?

It's not a glamorous profession, and it's tough. But if someone is considering a career in medicine, it's about the most noble profession someone can choose other than joining the ministry.

7. What is the most rewarding aspect of being a doctor?

As an ob-gyn, bringing a new life into the world is miraculous. Seeing a mother and father's joy with their new baby and [having them thank] you for keeping them healthy is easily the most rewarding feeling a person could ever experience. Hands down.

8. What is the most memorable research published since you became a physician and why?

It is hard to say just one. But I was especially fascinated by the race to perform the first successful human-to-human heart transplant. I read everything I could find on the subject after . It was amazing to me that people could do something like that. It changed medicine forever.

9. Do you have a favorite hospital-based TV show?

When I first started practicing, I liked the show, "Marcus Welby, MD." It did a great job of showing what running a practice is really like. This may not be a popular thing to say with the "House" and "Grey's Anatomy" crowd, but those shows don't even come close to showing what an actual doctor's job looks like. Half the time, the characters on those shows spend so much of their workday worried about their personal lives that they wouldn't even be able to treat a patient with the common cold in real life. And they'd have me believing that they can focus for long enough to perform a surgery? I'm not buying it.

10. What is your advice to other physicians on how to avoid burnout?

For me, that was the best part of running my own practice, and why I'm so concerned about Obamacare. Private practices are being hit the hardest under this "train wreck" law, and, often, they are the ones who can form the best relationships with patients. I didn't get burned out because I really liked giving each patient the best care and attention I could. I was able to see as many or as few patients as I wanted to in a day. That way I could give each patient the care they came for and not feel overworked.

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