We began the day talking to Liz Fisher who works in the administration side of medicine. She works with her husband where they together set up a clinic with the goal of reducing costs for patients. She talked about the rising cost of medicine for patients. She stated that this was mainly attributed to insurance. Ms. Fisher mentioned how in many cases the cost for someone uninsured would be less than that of someone insured. At their clinic, the fishers cut out the middle man of the insurance meaning that salaries don’t have to be paid between the physician and the patient. This was really interesting as there are constantly stories about the unreasonable nature of medical bills and this would help alleviate many of those fears. The next person we met with was Dr. Limkakeng an emergency room physician. He walked us through some of his old cases teaching about treating a patient, the first being a man who had jumped out of a two-story building. This man had serious damage to his left ankle (seen below). He told us about the systematic approach starting with the ABCs: A (Airways) B (Breathing) C (Circulation) D (Disability). The ABCs are necessary because this man had serious damage to the lungs that would have gone unnoticed without them. We then met with Josh Waynick who works in the rehab part of physical medicine. He talked about all of the different parts of being a PA talking about how there are many groups and people that come together. He then talked us through ableism and how it applies in the medical world. We finished the day with a talk from Dr. Lawal who talked a lot about heartburn; when the sphincter opens a bit and the acid comes up (reflux). He talked about the many ways to reduce this including eating 3-4 hours before sleeping and 5 small meals instead of 3 big ones. It was a very informative day with many different subspecialties to learn about.
