Clinics no quick fix
One quick question about the
Or put another way, would these MinuteClinics represent the end of civilization in Boston as we know it, or would they simply be a symptom of everything wrong in society in the year 2007?
Oh, I know, I know, every harried mother and overwrought father within Route 495 is undoubtedly thinking that these fast-serve clinics are a going to be a godsend in their mile-a-minute lives. The kid has a rash -- head out to see the nurse practitioner at the CVS, and hey, pick up some Tide while you're at it.
Because that's all we have time for these days, impersonal drive-through treatment centers offering medicine by slogan. As the chief executive officer of MinuteClinic said, "You're sick. We're quick!"
What's next in their ad campaign? How about "You've got ills. We've got pills!" And conveniently, you can fill the prescription written by the nice CVS nurse practitioner with the equally nice CVS pharmacist.
Then maybe, "Don't pout with gout." Or, "Get bold with the common cold." For the more exotically afflicted, how about, "You think it's bad with scabies, try getting rabies!"
CVS's basic premise for the concept is that people's lives have become too busy for doctors visits, and that patients are too impatient to wait the days or weeks it takes to get an appointment. So customers can head to the clinic at their local CVS, the first of which is proposed for Weymouth, and for $59 and a wait of under 20 minutes, they can get to see someone who can prescribe medication. All this, and no appointment necessary.
A classic win-win, right?
We'll make your pain wane.
Sure, maybe in Oklahoma, Orlando, or Orange County, but not in Boston, the undisputed medical capital of the world, and not among Bostonians, among the most sophisticated people in the United States, whether we'd like to accept that fact or not.
We have the best hospitals. We have the most talented medical specialists. We have the most medical researchers. Amid all this, do we really want to subject ourselves to chain-store healthcare?
Stomach ache? Piece of cake.
And there may be a more significant reason to be against this, one having nothing to do with the quality of care and everything to do with how people, how society, spends time.
It wasn't all that long ago when the average Jane and Joe would take the time to establish relationships with their doctors, who would get to know them inside and out, and doctors would take the time to nurture relationships with patients.
But now look what's happened. Modern technology was supposed to free people up, to give everyone more time. The computer was engineered to supply information in moments that used to take days or weeks to find. The cellular phone was expected to lend freedom. E-mail was supposed to make communication a breeze.
But no. The Blackberry is an outright addiction. It can be a tie game, bottom of the ninth at Fenway Park, and half the guys in suits are clutching those little styluses, oblivious to the moment, trying to get off one last e-mail before they call it a night. Drive down Newbury Street on any given afternoon and more than half the pedestrians are yakking on cellphones, oblivious to each other.
We can have all the information in the world, but rather than creating the luxury of time, it's causing a constant frenzy. Technology hasn't allowed people to leave their responsibilities behind; it's made people bring their obligations every single place they go.
And thus, the MinuteClinics, guaranteed to be as popular as they are impersonal. So back to my first question: They are merely a symptom, not a cause. And what really ails us isn't curable by even the best nurse practitioner inside the walls of a CVS -- even if we're guaranteed to never have to wait.
Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. His e-mail is mcgrory@globe.com 