Our U.S. medical care seems to get worse and worse. I could not believe the article in the 5/12/09 New YorkTimes by Milt Freudenheim stating that the prestigious Mayo Clinic and also the Cleveland Clinic are teaming up with CVS drug stores to offer Retail clinics. These are staffed by nurse practitioners, not physicians.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has come out strongly against these clinics. Nurse practitioners do not have adquate pediatric training and children must never,ever, be seen in one of these clinics. A child can become ill very quickly and die if a fatal diagnosis is missed. Even well-trained pediatricians often have to search hard for a correct diagnosis. I had a child that my partner saw on a Friday and did a spinal tap looking for meningitis. I had to convince the parents to let me repeat the tap the next day. The spinal fluid was filled with pus. That child would most likely have died had she been seen in a Retail clinic by a nurse practitioner.
I cannot believe that the Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic are so hard up for patients that they would allow their good names to be tarnished by teaming up with CVS drug stores to sponsor Retail Clinics. What could they be thinking? If general practitioners and pediatricians were paid adequately, more medical students would consider going into these specialties. I shudder when I hear the incomes that some of the other specialists make.
There are now 1000 Retail clinics in the country and Wal-Mart is planning to have 400 of these second-rate medical facilities by 2010. No one should ever have to accept such inadequate medical care. Our U.S. health care is an embarrassment when you look at the medical care received in France, Australia, and some of the other places where good health care exists.
By Dr. Charlotte Thomposon.
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