Private Practice, Academics, and the Future of Spine Surgery with Alan H. Daniels, MD
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What is Dr. Alan Daniels' background and expertise?
This is Carly Beam with the Becker Spine and Orthopedics Podcast, and I'm thrilled to be joined today by Dr. Alan Daniels. Dr. Daniels, thank you for joining us.
Thanks for having me.
So before we dive into our questions, I wanted you to please introduce yourself and share a bit more about your background.
Yeah, so I'm an orthopedic spine surgeon in Providence, Rhode Island at Brown University. I did my training here and stayed on, and one of the main reasons was we have an organization called University Orthopedics, which is a private practice. It's a large orthopedic practice with 70 surgeons that basically is a center that owns our own real estate. We have ancillary services, and we have facilities all over the region, and it just has been a very rewarding way to practice in that I get to – have a very fruitful, I'll say private practice while I also do a lot of academics, teach residents, fellows, and work very closely with the university. So it's really a perfect mix for me.
Definitely. And I'd love to hear, you know, what are the biggest advantages you've been seeing both working from the private practice perspective and then also in the academic setting?
Well, you really nailed it on the head and that there are advantages to each. And that's why it's so nice being in a private academic environment. The advantages of private practice are that we have a lot of autonomy. You know, whether it comes to simple things like hiring and firing staff or figuring out how to allocate funds or even funding research, when you're in private practice, there's less administrative challenges and oversight. And it allows people, especially entrepreneurial people or people with other interests, to be able to continue working forward in your private practice and build it in the way that you see fit. So, you know, we all have people that are our bosses, whether it be my chair or the president of the organization.
But when you're in private practice, there tends to be more ability to, I'll say, form the practice you want to have, whether it being in the days of the week that you're seeing or operating, your travel schedule, your vacation schedule. It's just a lot of freedom. And that pairs nicely with the advantages of academics, which are to work with residents and fellows is really, I would say, the most rewarding thing that I do. Teaching is a lot of fun. It's invigorating to work with young people. Doing research is just a blast. You feel like you're really helping the field move forward. And so to basically be able to pair those advantages together of private practice and academics is really a gift.
When you're thinking about the young residents, fellows, the med students, future of spine surgery, are you optimistic, nervous? What are some of the big lessons that you're preparing them for?
Well, I'm an eternal optimist. I'm completely optimistic. I think despite the challenges of modern health care, there are patients who will need their spines and orthopedic problems taken care of forever. And so the world needs us. And despite some recent news that, oh, maybe robots will be replacing surgeons, that just is not the case. we will be needed by society to help take care of people. And to do so is a true honor and it's fun and it's exciting and the field continues to move quickly. And so I'm completely optimistic about spine. I think There are many challenges that we'll all face that I'm sure we'll talk about today, but our job is just to figure out how to navigate them, to figure out how to advocate for our specialty and for medicine and for our patients in general, and to just figure out how to take the best care of patients we can in the system that we were dealt.
I like that. You're a very glass half full type of guy. Yes. And so you did mention headwinds, especially from the private practice perspective. What are some of the biggest headwinds you're anticipating and how are you going to get ahead of them?
I think the primary headwind that we all have to face is really reimbursement.
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