A family practice that has been serving residents in the Grand Falls-Windsor area for 10 years is closing its doors.
Dr. Sarah Clancy recently announced that her family practice will be shutting down in December. The reasons behind the decision, Clancy explains, are complex. However, it boils down to frustration with what she calls a lack of movement on the evolution of family medicine.
She says they are seeing some solutions, but they are Band-Aids, and what’s happening is patients have multiple points of access, but no continuity of care.
Clancy says there have been multiple tipping points for her, and she has been wavering back and forth a lot. She has been following most of her patients for 10 years and has developed relationships with them.
She says she cares deeply for her patients, and she knows when she makes such a decision she is “sending them out to the ocean to drown” because there’s nowhere else for them to go. Adding to that, Clancy says with others closing their practices she has been losing many of her support systems.
Clancy says she is fully responsible for her patients and their results as they come in daily by electronic medical record. She says if an urgent medical record comes in while she is on vacation, it is her responsibility to contact the patient. Clancy says the constant burden is impossible for one person to handle. She says the health care system needs to evolve to support what physicians need to do their work.
