Dr. Victor Sierpina, who will retire this month after 28 years seeing patients at UTMB, had to chuckle recently when he told one of his longtime patients about his plans.
“Why is it whenever I find a good doctor, they leave or retire?” the elderly man asked.
“But Anthony, I’ve been your doctor for 20 years,” the doc had to remind his patient. But at 80-plus years old, Anthony was still none too happy.
“It’s hard for folks to adjust to changes with a trusted health professional,” Sierpina said in a recent interview. “I get that. It takes time and effort to build the communication links and understanding that only develop with repeated interactions over time.”
Sierpina, who has been with UTMB since 1996 after 10 years of being a “country doc” in the mountains of Colorado, is a staunch advocate of the doctor/patient relationship.
Patients sometimes find it difficult to establish long-term relationships with their care providers for any number of reasons.
“As a result, people end up spending countless hours in Urgent Care or the Emergency Room for issues that could have been handled more expeditiously by a competent, compassionate doctor who knew them well,” Sierpina said.
“A foundational principle of family medicine is comprehensive continuity of care. This allows the patient and doctor to develop a relationship of mutual trust and understanding,” he added. “Over time, the doctor learns the patient’s history and life story. The doctor can pick up subtle cues on behavioral and physical issues that the best artificial intelligence or chatbot wouldn’t see because the pattern is rooted in a deep knowledge of the patient, their family, work, community, beliefs and lifestyle.”
For patients who are looking for a primary care physician for the first time or need to establish a relationship with a new doctor—as Sierpina’s are doing now—the doctor said to look for signs of longevity.
“Looking for a doctor who is committed to living and staying in a community, owns a home, has family roots, is involved in local events. These are all good markers of some predicted longevity,” he said.
The doctor/patient relationship is far from one-sided, of course. On the flip side of the equation, Sierpina tells those he mentors, medical students, residents and other learners that building relationships with their patients is the most rewarding part of practicing medicine.
Like any relationship, this takes effort, he said, recommending that health care providers take advantage of communication tools like MyChart and offer patients educational materials that are easy to understand and read.
He especially stresses the importance of being available quickly and responding to patient inquiries in a timely manner.
“It’s essential,” he said. “Being there for them in all circumstances, even making house calls, seeing them through hospital care, through hospice care, through giving birth, raising kids. It’s all a rich part of being a physician and an honor that each doctor and each patient can be grateful for.
“Taking interest in the whole person, not just the disease, pain or condition they have builds a bond of human-to-human trust that goes to the root of good medical practice and extends beyond the therapeutic relationship,” he said.