What is a PCP? It’s an acronym for “Primary Care Physician”. This is the doctor you go to for your check-ups, who keeps tabs on your cholesterol, who tries to get you to quit smoking and eat better, who gives you your referrals if you’re in an HMO.
PCPs don’t get TV shows made about them. Why? Because most of those shows are “medical dramas” and what’s more dramatic than life and death situations? That’s why those shows concentrate on surgeons, coroners, and Emergency Room doctors. There’s a lot of boring repetition in the life of a PCP. But PCPs are the people who are the first line in preventing life and death situations.
Those check-ups, the cholesterol tests, the prostate exams… they catch stuff before it puts your life in imminent danger. And while the docs who get to deal with daily high-tension drama get the glory (and quite often an attitude to go with it), the PCP is the doctor we often take for granted.
So, while I may occasionally say some negative things about doctors on this site, my PCP is one of the few doctors I really trust.
So to him, and the PCPs like him, toiling in the trenches of runny noses and yearly physicals, I just want to say that you are appreciated, you are valued, and you rock.
- Greg Bulmash
