bizwomen.com: A service of Houston Business Journal
ER doctor sounds siren for change
Even with a 76-hour-a-week work schedule and eight kids, Dr. Diana Fite finds time to tend to the trauma system
Mary Ann Azevedo
From Houston Business JournalBeing an emergency physician in the nation’s fourth-largest city is no easy task. And the job becomes even more challenging in a city that is known for its lack of trauma care facilities — just ask Dr. Diana Fite.
Fite sees firsthand how such a gaping hole in the health care system can actually make the difference between life and death, and she has made it a personal goal to help improve the situation.
In her role as the newly elected president of the Harris County Medical Society, Fite hopes to help improve the city’s emergency care offerings.
As the first emergency physician — and only the fourth woman — to fill the president’s role in the Medical Society’s 103-year history, Fite hopes to increase awareness to the plight, which she believes is interconnected with a host of other issues the city faces, including a large uninsured population.
“The harsh reality is that anyone can be affected by the lack of ER care in this city,” says 52-year-old Fite, a mother of eight children whose ages range from 11 to 27 years old. “Anyone can not have access to the care they need as quickly as they need it.”
The rest of the article is worth reading. I have trouble getting my tasks done, and I am not the mom to 8 kids!
I don’t know any ER doc who works 76 hours a week. ;)
It has been my assumption, possibly false as some many have become the older I get, that trauma centers have been closing all over the U.S. simple because they can’t generate enough income to keep going. If so, that’s one of the darker sides of Adam Smith’s hand.
When I was stationed in Southern California (or as my wife put it “held hostage by the USAF in the High Desert”) I saw several trauma centers close for what appeared to be nothing more than money problems.
It seemed that the bulk of people who needed those type of “golden hour” services were of a group of (for the lack of a better word)”risk takers” who usually possessed neither the insurance nor the resources to pay for those services.
I don’t know how accurate that assumption is but if it is then what would be the chances of starting a successful program here?