Opinion
People want, need medical homes
LETTER — Posted Sept. 3, 2007
Regarding "New evidence finds disparities aren't usually due to bias" (Article, Aug. 6): I agree with the AMNews article showing that medical homes reduce or eliminate health disparities. After our rural county's only ob-gyn died in 1989, our practice rotated sequentially through a three-month operative obstetrical training experience and returned to the county to provide obstetrical services (nonoperative and operative) as well as postpartum tubal ligations.
During a five-year period when only family physicians were delivering babies in our county, the minority infant mortality dropped 67% -- below white infant mortality.
Medical homes are what people want and need, but primary care is dying while insurance companies and hospitals make sure they profit. Our only hope is that more responsible leadership in the halls of government will prevail. It is my opinion that this will not happen unless more physicians run for public office.
Oscar F. Lovelace Jr., MD, Prosperity, S.C.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2007/09/03/edlt0903.htm.
