Health care in Southern Nevada. Admit it: You can’t read the phrase without mentally supplying an orchestral da-dum! The topic is so complex and monolithic it makes us stiffen with anxiety (or, alternately, induce snores). But let’s talk about what we do know: It’s no surprise that a state whose official bird is the Marlboro Light doesn’t rank too high when it comes to the health of Nevadans and our access to health care. Just a quick browse at a website such as statehealthfacts.org reveals we’ve got significantly more uninsured adults than the national average, and more uninsured children as well. Our kids are more obese and our teens more likely to die when they’re young. It’s enough to make you want to collar the nearest doctor — someone, anyone sporting a stethoscope — and ask them to please, please, please put things in perspective.
We followed exactly that impulse. For our second annual Health and Medicine Issue, we formed a steering committee of medical professionals to get a second opinion — and a third and a fourth, and so on — on health care in Southern Nevada. Through an in-depth, online survey, the 17 members of The Desert Companion Health and Medicine Steering Committee told us what they think are the biggest problems with health care in Southern Nevada. They told us what patients can do to make their medical visits more informative and productive. They shared with us what keeps them practicing in Nevada — a challenging environment for anyone in health care. You’ll find their answers throughout this issue under the heading “The DC Docs.” The hardest part was fitting all their insight and generous wisdom into the magazine.
Some of their answers surprised us, but a few common themes emerged. For instance, we asked them how to choose a good doctor. Nowadays, your impulse might be to Google a prospective physician, but almost universally, our docs cautioned against putting too much stock into online reviews. “Online reviews can be manipulated and, if not, disgruntled folks tend to be over-represented; an unhappy person talks to many and a happy one to few,” wrote Dr. Herve Bezard, echoing the views of many on the committee. Dr. Sean Palacios added: “Online reviews tend not to be a good source, since usually only the angry patients take the time to write something on the Internet about physicians.”
Dr. Nick Vogelzang advised looking for a good communicator: “Pick a physician with whom you can easily communicate, who speaks well and slowly, who explains carefully and who is not rushed.” In this age when waiting rooms sometimes seem more like cattle corrals, that’s something to appreciate.
The DC Docs also urged people to take more responsibility for their health — not through complicated home diagnostic tests and obsessive self-monitoring, but rather through tackling those age-old hobgoblins: quitting smoking, cleaning up your diet and getting off the couch more often. “People would be better off concentrating on their weight, exercise and not smoking,” wrote Dr. Stephanie Wishnev.
Because sometimes the doctor won’t be in. Indeed, another touchy topic we explore is how we can keep our best docs in town (see page 52). It’s a snarl of a topic with no easy answers, but many of our docs spoke their minds. Dr. Joseph Adashek wrote: “Obviously, being the lowest paid doctors in the country is detriment to good health care. Having patients not be able to get Medicaid is another. It is pure economics: Other places pay doctors twice as much! How can we get doctors here when we promise them half as much money?” There are many such honest prescriptions in the pages to follow.
Thanks to Dr. James Atkinson, Dr. Herve Bezard, Dr. Sean David Palacios, Dr. Judy Craythorn, Dr. Stephanie Wishnev, Dr. Dino Gonzales, Dr. Leslie Sims, Dr. Warren Wheeler, Dr. Nicholas Vogelzang, Dr. Ron Kline, Dr. Leonard Gallia, Dr. Kelly Van Wagner, Dr. Celeste Bove, Dr. Joseph Adashek, Dr. Traci Grossman, Dr. Lisa Glasser and Dr. Keith Boman. Our DC Docs took time out of their hectic schedules to provide our readers with a free — but priceless — consultation. Read and be well.