1. My professional focus is to be the best possible diagnostician – to get answers for problems that have defied definition or that are unusual in their presentation, confounding the routine approaches of others.
2. Our purpose in our medical community is to be held as the “go to” place for the most challenging diagnostic and treatment dilemmas.
3. Although our highest expertise is the Infectious Diseases subspecialty, I do not think a subspecialist is complete or optimally equipped without respect for and expertise in the parent specialty of Internal Medicine, lending a broader scope to any subspecialty problem that presents for consultation. We look beyond what we are called to do and do what needs to be done in order to comprehensively address every patient’s medical interests.
4. We do not look to move a case to other physicians, unless other specialty surgical or medical expertise is absolutely required, in which case I refer to only physicians to whom I would send my own family, and I remain connected to the case.
5. My operative premise is that “the buck stops here.” So, we do not conclude that a problem sent to us is “not an infection”, and then dismiss the case to wind its way through the medical care system (hand-off or push-of a case). Once we have signed on as your doctor we are joined to you to develop the case to its conclusion – to get the patient to the right people. And any other problems we discover along the way to evaluating those for which we were consulted will be addressed until they are optimally handled. In a word, we are not subspecialty myopic.
6. We take the physician-patient relationship as a sanctified one in which we are ethically bound to be entirely accountable to you and an advocate for your best self-interests against any outside parties that might compromise your care and outcome – insurers, hospitals, home health companies, other healthcare providers.
7. We emphasize communication of my thoughts and ideas, our diagnostic and treatment plan, results of testing, and our conclusions to you and anyone you deem relevant to your care. We are committed to extraordinary coordination of your case management with all others involved.
8. We are honored by the responsibility implied by your entrusting yourself or your loved one to our care and we will not fail to do the best possible job.
9. We approach every case with an open mind, using the scientific method to rigorously develop a diagnostic and treatment plan that balances risks and benefits for your best possible outcome.
10. We will treat you with the integrity of complete frankness and disclosure about our opinion of your circumstances, including conclusions that you may not wish to hear or accept (such as the possibility of psychiatric illness presenting as physical problems).
11. Our focus is to return you to your life: family, school, work, etc. We have succeeded when your medical problem/illness is a sideshow, rather than defining your life.
12. Our staff are told to deal with those coming to us by The Golden Rule – to do so with regard to appointment scheduling, updates on time delays, and reacting to calls needing an urgent response.
Ed Rensimer, MD