Future Primary Care Doctors Needed?

The islands have an ongoing need for medical professionals of all types. If you have any chance to come down to check out the opportunities, the hospitals and clinics would be happy to vie for your services.

Come on down, Doc! I'd love to personally introduce you to the beauty of St. Croix and its residents.

As one who's had a heck of a time getting primary care here, I agree with Alexandra 1000 percent -- there is always room for qualified medical folk in every profession.

So tell me, how would you feel about taking on a nice woman who just happens to be a bit complicated (read: a couple of conditions you'll only read about in your residency and, beside me, never see again in your life) but who still needs care and meds for some more common conditions? **gringrinwinkwink*

This is FamilyDoc, my registration is now complete and my posting name is registered as CFMDoc. It's great to hear that primary care physician opportunities may be available in the USVI! I have been searching online to find an idea of demand and have found nothing available, although I have seen some indication of medically underserved areas in St. Croix. Of course, I am currently in my first year of family medicine residency and won't be available until late 2008. But, in the ideal world, I could secure a position now for when I am finished residency.

Sorry HipCrip, but you're going to have to wait awhile before I can take on this new patient. 🙂

CFMDoc, I got nothing but time and don't plan on going anywhere except the bi-monthly trip to PR to see my fave doc (so far)!

Soak up everything you can from your residency and let me know when you'd like to come down for a pre-move visit. 😀

--HC

I read that we are in desperate need of good primary health care - my husband is a nurse practitioner with 40 years of experience including on going further education - he is on the faculty at the University of Washington and provides excellent primary health care right in the center of the island. He works with all of the specialists, both here and in the States, has prescriptive authority and specializes in the treatment and care of ongoing chronic disease. He is also an excellent diagnostician and is excedingly well respected in his profession and by all the Physicians on St Croix.
If you need a good primary health care provider, you could do a whole heck of a lot worse.
By all means encourage new blood, but pleas edo not give a false impression of our existing facilities.

jane,

I love nurse practioners -- they have been my first choice or care mant, many times in the past. I would adore meeting your husband in the hopes that we could develop a professional relationship -- it would be the answer to a prayer. I only wish I had known he was out there long before now.

Please understand that I would NEVER intentionally provide a false impression of anything. I can only speak from my experience, which is that STX can be a real challenge for people with complex medical problems, not only in finding a primary care doc, but sometimes in finding a doc who has a wheelchair friendly office, etc. I have been personally told by three primary care physicians and two i CAN ONLY Aspecialists on island that they are unwilling to take me on as a patient because of my medical history. I have seen one doctor who insisted on speaking only to my husband while ignoring me, even as he performed a procedure on me. And I have spent ten hours at a time in the Gov. Juan Luis Hospital ER waiting for care because the one doc who is willing to do a few basic things for me (namely order tests an write prescription refills) only keeps his office open from 8am until 11 am.

I totally understand how my posts could be upsetting to the wife of a dedicated health care professional who strives to give quality care to allwho need it. I'm hoping that you will also be able to understand where I'm coming from -- how devastating it is to know that there is no one on island that you have found who is willing to help you through flare-ups in your chronic pain because the only pain management specialist on island tells you to not bother coming to him because you're "medication only" and he's just not that interested in that area of medicine, ande because the primary docs have decided that you're already on too many pain meds and/;or are scared of being flagged by the DEA if they prescribe the drugs you need to survive each day?

Given how wonderfully friendly I have found the residents of the island, I hope that you could understand how hurtful it can be to be told more than once to your face that you're such a medical oddity that a doctor "is scared" to have you as a patient? And how frustrating -- and scary -- it is as a woman to go years and years between annual exams because you can't find a doc who is willing to handle your (well, my) everyday needs of combatting lung and kidney infections, let alone one willing to make the extra effort needed with paraplegics quadriplegics, people with cerebral palsy, etc. to care for your reproductive health?

I am terribly sorry if my comments were offensive to you or your husband. He sounds like the answer to my prayers, and I'd love to meet him and see if we can work together if he'd be willing. And while I will be the first to say we are blessed to have him, I will never tell any qualified medical professional that their services aren't needed here in the Caribbean.

--HC

(My apologies oneagain to jane, and to all, for this rant.)

Don't worry no offence taken - you can reach him on 778 7788 and ask for eric nelson.
I just get sick of a certain segment of the population insisting that there is no competant health care here and that they have to go to Florida. My husband is at the top of the game and he is not alone.

I have found the primary health care perfectly adequate for my needs. Of course, I don't need much, thankfully.

Specialists are where we go off the track. There is no rheumatologist on STX and only one orthopedist. I would think, with the number of "older" folks here, it would be a wonderful opportunity for an MD who wanted a change of lifestyle and practice.

Interestingly, I have a friend who is a spinal surgeon - he wrote letters to the hospitals on both STT and STX with his curriculum vitae - he's been practicing spinal surgery for over 20 years. STT never answered. STX told him they don't need him unless he wants to give pain injections, which isn't his passion in life. He was really quite dismayed by their response, or lack thereof. To my way of thinking, there has to be a proportionate part of the population here with back conditions...STX appears to be one of the un-friendlier islands toward those with mobility challenges, so maybe folks just go to Puerto Rico and call it done.

We have another friend who has looked into the employment situation at the hospital here on STX - unfortunately, the pay is not commensurate with the responsibility and work load...and STX lost another fine physician who could have contributed so much. I don't know if that is the difference in government run hospitals versus private - I know very little about the medical community and common practices here - but there are very qualified physicians who would love to be here but for whatever reason just can't get the mojo happening.

Becky R,

You hit it on the head with the observation about specialists. There aren't any pulmonologists in all of the USVI -- it is necessary to go to PR for treatment of lung diseases. There is one urologist on STX full time who, for some reason, has not returned any of the three calls I've placed to his office requesting an appointment, including one that made it clear it was a semi-urgent situation (ended up using the ER again for soemthing that should have been handled in an office visit). There is another urologist who flies in from STT once a week, so the cost of seeing him his frighteningly high to pay for his travel etc. (A 20 minute office visit with a minor procedure that my husband has now taught himself to do for me at home came to $655.) In addition to being expensive, he is, IMO, a misogynist -- he repeatedly talked only to my husband, even going so far as to ask my husband to make decisions for me. (Even though this often happens to wheelchair users, it was clear this doc's problem was with strong women who dare to ask questions.) There is only one psychiatrist on island who will see private patients.

Fortunately, we do have great access to technology like MRI and CT scanners.

--HC