February 8, 2007

State Journal-Register
Via e-mail

To the Editor:

The recent heartwarming article about Dr. Bob Farmer resonated with me (“Doctor listens to learn what ails his patients,” Jan. 30). As a family physician practicing in Springfield for the past 30 years, I can readily identify with the joys of everyday patient care as he described. But modern medicine is becoming so complex and high tech that at times it can be downright impersonal. We all need our primary care doctors like Dr. Farmer to act as our friends, interpreters and guides through this new confusing landscape.

As an adjunct faculty member at the same medical school from which Dr. Farmer graduated —Southern Illinois University School of Medicine—I’ll be sure to recommend his book to my students. Hopefully after reading it, they’ll be inspired to follow Dr. Farmer’s footsteps and become primary care physicians. With looming shortages in primary care, we desperately need more doctors to specialize in family and internal medicine and pediatrics. However, the current medical environment in Illinois does little to encourage this, with its long office hours; decreasing Medicare, Medicaid, and insurance payments; and rapidly escalating practice costs.

Sadly, I can also identify with Dr. Farmer’s lament about a hostile medical liability climate: something nearly all Illinois doctors face. How frustrating for his patients in St. Clair County to lose such a gem of a young doctor.

Fortunately, medical liability insurance costs have slightly decreased over the last year due to the comprehensive litigation reforms enacted in Illinois in 2005. We are starting to see more balance in our out-of-control legal system — a welcome sign if we really want to keep our doctors in Illinois. The reform law is decreasing costs exactly as our legislators designed it to do. If we hope to increase the number of our graduates choosing primary care careers, especially in Illinois counties without doctors, we need to preserve these hard-won reforms. Those of us currently in practice, our potential future “Dr. Farmers,” and all of our patients are depending on it.

Sincerely,

Jane Jackman, M.D.
Family physician
Springfield, Illinois

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