The Gulf in US between Primary Care and Specialty Care

     Because of having to attend to a life-threatening experience, I came to realize there's a gulf between the primary physician's activities on behalf of the patient--me--and the specialist's. 

     I was given of hint of this gulf, when I registered at the Internal Medicine Clinic where my specialist has an office for processing his patients.  The registration form had no obvious section for entering the Primary Care's Physician and place of business.  Moreover, when I journeyed to the Primary Care Facility, La Fe Clinic here in downtown El Paso, I noticed the Provider Xeroxing the list of medicines prescribed by the Medical Internist.  And while she talked about the items on the list with me, she did not bother to write down who she could call at the Internal Clinic to learn further about my case and to establish communication with my specialist!  It was of no concern to her!  That was further suggested by her lack of interest in what tests he had conducted.  Indeed, when I mentioned to her nurse that I had given my permission to the Internal Specialist to make use of the blood samples taken at La Fe the week before, he had probed for my reasons to prompt such a hand-over.

     The point being that with the lack of communication between primary care physician and specialist, there is no sense of a unified team approach to my condition and its amelioration during my care in their hands.  I felt that there were two approaches, two hands-on duplicating tests, and the writing of opinions, which may have few points of convergence in their analyses; and an incredible reduplication of effort.  I think this physical hiatus is the reason the Mayo Clinic stresses among its providers to "travel together" in attending to each patient's list of maladies--at least they'll get the story straight among them.