After residency, she was hired by the Mason Clinic in Seattle and began working with Glen E. Hayden, MD, and Richard Soderstrom, MD, who mentored her in vaginal surgery.
“It was a time when people coming out of residency went into practice with senior colleagues,” she explained. The senior physicians benefited from exposure to new ideas, and younger physicians gained from the senior physicians’ experience.
“In the end, under this arrangement, the patients benefited.”
Claiming a voice
Among the issues that concern Dr. Levy most are the rapid changes shaping medicine—not all of them beneficial.
“We’re spending too much money on health care and not getting value for what we’re spending,” she says. “It’s not sustainable.”
The move to ACOG provides her an opportunity to help frame how health care is delivered and, ultimately, to help slow the hemorrhage of healthcare dollars in unenriching ways.
“I couldn’t do that in a small practice,” she says. “In my view, the changes have to be geared around what’s best for the patient.”
She also strives to be a mentor to younger physicians, particularly women, in an era when red tape and time constraints significantly limit the altruism that was once the hallmark of the medical profession. She believes mentors remain important in medicine.
“Different people can help you at different times in your career,” she says, reflecting on her own experience and the doctors who shaped it.
“Senior physicians should take responsibility for guiding younger physicians when they come out of training,” she says. “They should graciously volunteer.”
Despite her many responsibilities, Dr. Levy finds time to connect with junior physicians. And despite her many accomplishments, she maintains a refreshing sense of modesty.
“I’m just an ordinary doc,” she says. “The only difference between me and everybody else out there is an intolerance when things aren’t right.”
“I speak out loudly.”
CLICK HERE to read insightful articles from Barbara S. Levy, MD, published in OBG Management in recent years.
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