SuperDoc Flies Away

There’s a scene in the movie Superman 2 where General Zod and the Phantom Zone villains are attacking the city, and they throw a bus at Superman. Naturally, he survives the attack – but then, to everyone’s disbelief, flies away from the melee. “Superman, come back!” the people shout, spirits dashed from this seeming betrayal by their beloved hero. Superman has a plan, and will return to save them all, but they don’t know that yet. They’re shocked, hurt, and more than a little afraid.

Dr. Jacob Reider is not Superman. He isn’t faster than a speeding bullet, he can’t fly, and I doubt he’d be much help to planet Earth if General Zod ever came back. But when I called his office last week and was told he’d stopped practicing medicine, I felt like the people in the movie did when Superman flew away. I mean, Superman doesn’t leave. He just doesn’t. He’s always there, like the ocean, or the sun, or the air you breathe.

That’s how it was with Dr. Reider. He was young when I met him, and that was good, because I figured my family could stick with him until he retired in 25 years or so. And what a relief, because it sure took me long enough to find him. By the age of 30, I’d seen my fair share of doctors, what with having heart issues, asthma, and frequent bouts of bronchitis and pneumonia. And though some of the doctors were okay, most were either parental or patronizing. None seemed to have time for questions. And on the few occasions when they did make time, I felt like they just weren’t listening.

Then I got pregnant and wanted to try water birth. My OB/GYN office waited until I was 7 months along to decide they wouldn’t do one, so off I waddled in search of someone who would. My doula said she’d supervise a water birth at home, but I didn’t have the guts for that. She handed me Dr. Reider’s card and suggested I try him.

I will never forget the first time I met this man. He walked into the exam room with a zen-like serenity about him, and after he introduced himself, I explained my situation. “I’ve never done a water birth before,” he said, “but I’m willing to try it.” I appreciated his honesty and told him that’d be fine. But then he said he’d have to find out if the other doctors in the practice would be willing to do one as well, in case he couldn’t be at the birth for some reason. My heart sank. Here we go, I thought. Here comes the run-around. Then Dr. Reider did something amazing: he pulled out his cell phone and called each of his co-practitioners, right then and there, to get their answers. Both said yes. He hung up the phone and smiled. “Looks like you’re all set,” he said.

Intellectually, I know what happened that day was simple, really. All he did was make two phone calls. But I’d never known a doctor to do such a thing. Doctors make you wait for answers. They tell you what you want to hear, like my OB/GYN did, and then change their minds when they feel like it. Or they just blow you off completely. So, needless to say, I liked Dr. Reider immediately.

I never got my water birth, but it wasn’t his fault. The hospitals in this area just aren’t water-birth-friendly, and I ended up needing a c-section anyway. Because he was a family doctor, though, my husband and son could go to him too, and so I saw him a lot over the next seven years. During that time, I came to learn many things about him. First and foremost, I found he was a true listener, and a patient listener to boot – one who took care to ask questions and hear the answers…one who made decisions with me instead of for me. I also found out he was a man of many talents; in addition to practicing family medicine, he was also a computer guru, an IT specialist, and a teacher at Albany Medical College. Plus he had a family…so his life must have been insanely busy - and yet he never acted rushed, distracted, or impatient with me. Not once. Not ever.

He was there for me when I had the baby blues after my son Jonah’s birth…and when, in the midst of those baby blues, my best friend committed suicide. He noted when, at two months of age, Jonah was staring at lights instead of people. “Hey, buddy,” he said gently, “there’s a human in here.” I asked if I needed to be worried about that. “Not yet,” he told me, “but we’ll keep an eye on him.” At Jonah’s 18-month-old visit, he encouraged us to get his hearing checked because Jonah wasn’t talking. Three months and many tests later, our son was diagnosed with autism. I’ve heard horror stories from fellow parents of kids with autism, of doctors who discouraged them from seeking help. “He’ll talk when he wants to,” they’d say. “Let’s just wait and see.” Because of this, their kids were diagnosed much later. And here was Dr. Reider, noticing a problem when Jonah was a tiny infant, then getting him into an early intervention program before he was even two years old – something now recognized as vital to success in helping kids on the autism spectrum. I will forever be grateful to him for that.

As Jonah got older, he developed anxiety about being put into an examination room – so Dr. Reider started seeing him on Saturdays, out in the waiting room by the fish tank, when the office was virtually empty. Speaking softly, he’d examine Jonah with care and compassion. I appreciated this so much; my little boy couldn’t understand what was happening and I was helpless to do anything about that. Dr. Reider always made our visits so much easier than they would otherwise have been.

Later, I struggled with depression. Dr. Reider suggested I see a therapist, and I did. I saw several - and liked none of them. I felt they were following formulas…reciting textbook answers to generic problems. Finally, I asked Dr. Reider if I could just talk to him. “But I’m not trained as a therapist,” he protested. “You’re a better listener than any therapist I’ve ever seen,” I replied. So for a while, he saw me once a week for an hour, and subsequently helped me more than any therapist ever could have. I could go on and on about him. This doctor has done more for me and my family than all the other doctors I’d ever seen in my life, combined. Easily. I took stacks of his business cards and handed them out to random people. “Need a doctor? I’ve found the best,” I bragged. In fact, in December of 2007, Dr. Reider was named to the Best Doctors in America ® database of the top 5% of doctors in the whole country.

Now, I’m not saying Dr. Reider is a perfect man. He’s the very devil to reach on the phone; on more than one occasion I called the office to ask if they’d have him call me, only to wait days for the phone call that never came. He was always very apologetic about this, and from reading his blog I knew he was often in the office until 8pm calling patients back who wanted to talk with him. His forte – listening – somehow also became a detriment. I don’t know how physician’s practices operate, really, but as his practice grew, it became apparent that he was taking too much time with his patients. Nurses knocked on the door to “hurry him along,” and I found I’d better grab the first appointment of the day or I’d have a long wait before getting in to see him. He was well worth the wait, though, and obviously other patients felt this way as well, because once you were with him, you had his undivided attention.

I don’t know why the practice couldn’t limit the amount of patients, or what other piles of red tape got in the way behind the scenes, but obviously he grew frustrated with the system and left because he couldn’t practice medicine on his terms, delivering the care he felt all patients needed. He sent an e-mail out a few days after the office told me he’d left, saying, in part, “My work in information technology has led to an extraordinary opportunity. I was recently appointed Medical Director for Misys Healthcare - a large, vibrant company doing great work to help physicians spend time with their patients - and not on the paperwork and administrative hassles. This appointment offers me the chance to fix healthcare for everyone. It's a job that only someone who has worked in the system as a physician can do. But it is also a facet of this profession that will require full-time focus for now. I have, over the past several months, tried to continue being your physician while I did the other work, but I have found it to be impossible to be the kind of doctor you deserve. So at this point, I have suspended my practice in Slingerlands.” He signed it, simply, “Jacob.”

Like those folks in Superman 2, I am shocked, hurt, and more than a little afraid. I do like the other doctors in his practice and am fairly sure my family will stay with them. But I’ve lost my SuperDoc - and frankly, that sucks. It’s nothing less than a tragedy that this doctor isn’t going to be seeing patients anymore. He’s too damn good at it to quit. But quit he has, and there’s nothing I or anyone else can do about it.

We can only trust that, like Superman, he has a plan, and will eventually return to save the day.