I was born twice at Georgia Baptist Hospital, later called Atlanta Medical Center. Once in January 1970, and later in 1998 when I began my general surgery residency.
With the demolition of the hospital tower, a piece of American health care will die. I am devastated by this loss and see the destruction of this institution as a metaphor for what’s happening to health care in the United States.
Georgia Baptist Hospital dates back to 1901, when pastor and physician Dr. Leonard “Len” G. Broughton founded the three-bed infirmary focused on training nurses and meeting the needs of the underserved.
As the institution grew, it was sold in 1913 to the Georgia Baptist Convention as a nonprofit hospital. During the subsequent years, it remained a financially sound institution and served as a vital resource for the community.
Seated in the heart of Atlanta, Georgia Baptist was legendary for innovation, teaching and excellence in clinical practice. This nimble training program used its small but mighty resources to pioneer minimally invasive surgery in the South.
Hospital developed national reputation for training physicians, nurses
The hospital gave birth to legendary surgeons like Dr. Alva Hamblin Letton. The first program director, he led the nation with his advocacy efforts to initiate screening mammography and Pap smears.
Credit: hand
Credit: hand
As president of the American Cancer Society, he worked with President Richard M. Nixon to launch national legislation funding the war on cancer. Letton was just one of many trailblazers this hospital attracted and produced.
Georgia Baptist maintained a leadership role in training surgeons of the highest quality. So many of the doctors who are at the heart of Atlanta’s medical community came out of this institution.
And not just physicians.
The hospital’s commitment to excellence extended to the teams of nurses trained through the Georgia Baptist School of Nursing. This program, which grew out of the original infirmary, was the oldest in Georgia and remained intricately tied to the hospital’s mission.
It was these dedicated nurses who enabled the hospital to care for its patients with the diligence and compassion that became its hallmark.
As the first woman ever trained as a surgeon in the history of this hospital, I proudly claim that it wasn’t just the surgeons who trained me, but equal part the nurses. They took me in and made sure I would succeed.
My experience at Georgia Baptist inspired me to avoid any institution where the people running it didn’t take the Hippocratic oath — where the focus was not on the patient, and where profit guided decision-making.
How ironic, then, that it was the profit motive that killed Georgia Baptist.
And it’s what’s killing health care across America.
Here’s why ‘we’ are to blame for the collapse of hospitals like Georgia Baptist
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Georgia Baptist was bought in 1999 by Tenet Healthcare. Three years later, executives boasted that they had “a terrific year” (the best in their company’s history), while those of us delivering medical care worried that we were being provided with the cheapest resources possible.
Residents, not orderlies, were made to transport patients for testing and procedures, which meant less time for education.
As the nurse-to-patient ratio grew, so did the pocketbooks of the hospital’s investors. Providers were spread thin as more was demanded from each of us. Patient needs were not being met.
For those who wonder what will happen as health care services companies and private equity take over medicine, let the story of Georgia Baptist Medical Center serve as a cautionary tale.
When institutions place profits over patients, when the bottom line guides decision-making and when those who need care can no longer afford it, we look for someone to blame.
That someone is us.
How long will it take Americans to learn from hospital closures?
We have allowed for-profit hospitals and private equity to engulf health care. We have permitted healing to take a back seat to earnings.
As a consequence, we are left with a health care system that serves neither the patient nor the medical professionals who care for them. A system that is costly and broken.
Professor John E. McDonough of the Harvard School of Public Health describes this practice as “for-profit business in its most aggressive form.”
The fall of Georgia Baptist should serve as a metaphor for the fall of American health care.
The question now is whether we’ll learn from that demise, or whether we’ll continue to let profit-driven entities hollow out the institutions that once made American health care a beacon of innovation and care.
The question is: What will we do to ensure future generations have somewhere to be born again?
Shanda H. Blackmon, M.D., M.P.H., FACS, is a professor and cardiothoracic surgeon, executive director of the Baylor College of Medicine Lung Institute and Olga Keith Weiss Endowed Chair in Surgery for Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. This op-ed reflects her personal opinion and is not necessarily the opinion of the Baylor College of Medicine or the institutions in which she practices.
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