Blevins, too, disagrees about the impersonality of the clinic structure. "I think physicians are beginning to realize that they can't serve patients and live their own lives as well in private practice. Here you have clearly defined responsibilities and time for yourself," she said.
She said that the "time for yourself" was important enough to offset the financial disadvantages that clinic work has. No clinic can hope to match the $50,000-$75,000 salaries that this decade's medical school students are apparently sniffing out. "I'm making less," Blevins said, "but I might have had to work all hours of the day."
Efficiency in diagnosis was another reason Blevins gave for choosing clinic work. "The resources available to me are amazing. And if I have a problem all I do is pick up the phone and find someone who knows more about the situation," she said.
Other philosophical questions are highlighted by the clinic situation. The patient's right to know what is happening to him becomes more important where future history-taking by different doctors may depend on what the patient knows about what has been done in the past. Both Blevins and Eppinger agreed strongly that the patient has every right to know about his disease and his treatment.
"I'm here for the patient, not the other way around," Blevins said. Eppinger went even further. "I give them the information without being asked for it. Then I ask them to repeat it back. When they're in here, they are frightened and anxious and in their minds there is always a possibility of their having a life-threatening disease," he said. And Eppinger, with his medical school background, firmly believes that knowledge can combat that anxiety.
Both equally strongly, however, denied the patient's right to access to his or her own medical records, saying that it would close an avenue of communication among doctors themselves.
Blevins -- one of two new doctors hired this year by UHS -- said that the fact that she was a woman played a big part in her hiring. "I'm one of their tokens," she said.
She said however that she saw nothing really wrong with that. "I think it is a field in which women have a terrific amount to offer," Blevins said. "Our whole system has been structured so that people can express their feelings to women, and women are allowed to express their feelings. Traditionally women have had the role of caring... I don't think in the past men have been allowed to do that."