About the Paw Paw tree,,,

Well, the proverbial cat is out of the proverbial bag; and not a minute too soon--hope it wasn't a plastic one.

Yes I am going to Paw Paw, to a clinic that is run by a local foundation, but which has not had a full time doctor since I inherited Dr. Lucy Young's practice and took them to the Wholistic Health Center @ St. John's Lutheran Church in Mendota Il.  Some of these patients still see me, over 33 years later.

There are numerous reasons to make these rather drastic changes...but don't worry--- I still make house calls to "whosoever wants"  (One person in particular will be visited on an ongoing basis.)  I am also offering some friends the option of continuing with me, including whoever reads this blog.

So Reuben Schuler, don't worry, I'll still see ya--as often as  I can.  (Coming for the wedding, I presume? Then I will "house call" you in Mobile, for a few days!:)

(Walk-ins welcome)

The point is that medicine has become so complex, with no advantages truly seen to require all the dodgy commercialized stuff we invent--too many cooks and too much broth spoils the patient. So I have to find a way to simplify/slow down, just to keep up!  Because it takes me 2-3 times more minutes to do even an adequate job on an individual patient; Hospital records are even worse.  Thus I cannot keep up, without frankly endangering my charges.

I find that my practice, rather like my Dragonspeak, becomes unmanageable at some point.  And has to be completely replaced.  I have been in Mendota 10 years now--and the first time it was 18 years before it reached the breaking point of unwieldy records and "irreducible" and burgeoning complexity. So one can see that the burden has at least doubled, even though my capacities have not.  I am (sadly said) the same person, hopefully slightly wiser for having seen a lot of pathology and pathos, as when I came here.  That's no longer considered enough. But this more rural clinic is more of what I originally signed up for--as you will see when you visit us. We open Jan 7 but I hope there will be an open house as well.

So it seems slightly appropriate to sort of re-start where I began; up in "Forgotonia." (An old political term for Northwestern Illinois which Dennis may recall...

 What I most regret is that I will no longer have much of a Hispanic practice, and my Spanish will be atrophying--as it is already because of  excellent translations by Maria, Sandy's and my sidekick for the last few months, and so delightful--but she will be staying in my former office to help with all my previous patients, maybe the majority of whom were Hispanic...but the Latino demographic is changing rapidly as are  their desires and needs; as their more productive and  actually--they never boast about it, by the way--tolerant culture is becoming more and more like the rest of us. Alas. (Those who boast of their tolerance have to do so because they have even less than average--unsuprisingly.)

Perhaps I can take a few pictures of the clinic and post them here--it might save the reader several thousand words.  The decor is 100% Norman Rockwell. A good fixer-upper!!!

I may mention more, however, in the future about this move, as I make it.  I am still working for MCH, I must add, so I am still an employed physician, without which I could in no way do this.  We will know in about 2 years how well this is going to work--but it may be a new paradigm for me--that is, providing a needed service in an under served area, as opposed to strictly earning my salary, dollar for dollar, which I cannot do in the present multi-physician office.

I apologize for posting twice today--see previous-- on two different subjects--but I am still somewhat subject to the "stream of consciousness" style with which I grew up. Have u noticed?