Cnidium wrote:I like Kramer, he is one of the only two surgeons I am considering for an implant.
However, I do question the reality of his practice of being so responsive and open to contact with his patients. I am not saying this is a bad thing, IMO its a very good thing to do. But is it sustainable? I would think that being a high volume surgeon, Kramer would reach a critical mass of patients where statistically the number of potential patient's contacting him post-surgery and the number of questions / concerns / complaints would eventually add up to an incredible amount of time.
What does Eid do different in this scenario part of his practice?
You are making a good point. I was never a patient of Kramer. He was on my shortlist with Eid and Perito. I removed Perito from that list for reasons, and Kramer removed himself by never responding to my enquiry. But from reading here, it is of course obvious he is a great surgeon and a really nice guy.
I have never communicated with Kramer myself, but I have in PMs been forwarded emails that Kramer has written to other FT members. And I can compare them to all the emails I have gotten from my doc, Eid.
And there is a difference. I was always amazed by the length of the Kramer emails I saw. He really lays out the text and can, from what I have seen, easily write dozens of lines in an email which is (or could have been) a quick reply to a direct question.
Eid (based on my communication with him), is different. He is extremely responsive as well. No matter when i have contacted him, via email or SMS, and no matter how long after the surgery, he has always responded within a day. We are around 12 hours apart in terms of time zones, so sometimes an hour response time from his side still means almost a day for me. But he's always been extremely fast.
But - he is also shorter. He gets right down to the issue. Often he doesn't even bother to write a greetings phrase. Heck, he sometimes even doesn't bother to put a capital letter in the start of a sentence. He just cuts straight to the point. Short and concise. But always providing the information asked for. I get the feeling that he often replies the emails on the run. Maybe from his phone. Which is a good way to avoid lengthy emails... Of course he throws in some 'glad to hear you're doing well' etc as well. But he still keeps it all short and direct.
In my case, being the way I am, I have no issue with his direct style. When i contact my doc, I want to get my issues answered, and get those answers fast. And Eid does exactly that. For me it wouldn't add much if he wrote a few lines about the weather in New York, asking me how that holiday I told him about worked out, etc.
I would rather find that strange, since I would assume these guys are extremely busy.
It is a fact that any day only has 24 hours for each and everyone of us. Which means that every minute spent on 'meaningless but polite' conversation is a minute less spent on sleep, education, family time, surgery, research, seeing patients or whatever. There is no way around that fact. If you spend 1 minute instead of 5 minutes on writing an email, it will mean you spend 1 hour instead of 5 hours writing 60 emails. And those 4 extra hours can be used for your family, research, stress relieving activities (such as taking a walk in a park, working out, watching a movie...) or whatever.
So maybe Kramer, being the way he is and only meaning well with his best intentions, has set himself up for this. After all, he has done over a thousand of implants. If he gets emails from all those patients telling him about their lives and wives, updating him on their lives in general, that is a hell of a waste of time for Kramer to read all those thousands of emails. Even worse so if replying to them.
Personally, I wouldn't bother my doc with such nonsense. I would simply think that if all other patients wrote him this nonsense, then he'd be overloaded. I feel it lies in our responsibility as patients to make careful use of the trust we have been given when shared their email addresses and their phone numbers. If we abuse that trust, sharing all sort of irrelevant info with them, then things will eventually crash and there will be changes in their responsiveness.
And as professionals, they must set boundaries and limit their screen time. They are firstly there to treat patients and respond to real medical issues and questions. Not to chit chat with us about our families, holidays etc.
I would also like to say that I think it is remarkable how some people here goes out on FT and ask this assumed one patient in Florida to stop bothering Kramer.
None of you could possibly know the true story. And IF this patient has been treated poorly and Kramer has screwed up with him (which of course even the best can do on a bad day), then he has all the right in the world to 'bother' Kramer. I would say far more right than a happy patient has to update Kramer on his 'life and wife'.