Annals of family medicine
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Annals of family medicine · Jul 2023
The Warmest of Handoffs: A Neighborhood Physician's Transfer of Care.
Transitioning care of a patient from an outgoing to an incoming physician provides a precious opportunity to transfer knowledge and trust. We explore this process from the perspectives of 2 practitioners, an incoming physician who recently completed training and a retiring physician leaving a practice of 40 years. The method we arrived at for this transfer provided the space for collaboration on what the essence of caring for a unique individual will entail. ⋯ It involves worrying and watching and relaxing into hopefulness. It is both witnessing and launching a life's work. It is reliving and inheriting and reinventing relationship.
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Annals of family medicine · Jul 2023
The Limits of Professional Identity: A Lesson From My Grandfather.
My grandfather was a prominent Jewish physician in Nazi Germany who escaped the Holocaust with his family but nevertheless came to a tragic end. As I, an American family physician, learned more about him, I was surprised by how much I identified with him. I was struck by how his success in his career had not been matched in other areas of his life, leaving him little to fall back on when his professional status was taken away. My grandfather's story has given me insights about him, my family, and myself and has taught me important lessons about the balance between professional and personal life.