by Lisa Doggett, MD

with her chronic disease.

Here’s a taste of an hour in Dr. Doggett’s life as the director of a central Austin clinic that serves disadvantaged people. One of her patients was Mauricio, confined to a wheelchair ever since he was burned over 40 percent of his body while repairing high-voltage lines. He was suffering from unbearable pain, was unable to sleep, and he had diabetes. After being discharged from the hospital and cycling in and out of an emergency room, he had racked up tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of unpayable bills, and all Dr. Doggett could do was try to obtain lab work for him and physical therapy, which would be expensive. Her next patient, Faith, had severe asthma and was a regular patient at the clinic. She needed a chest x-ray, but she couldn’t get one since she still owed the hospital $600 for her knee x-rays, an amount that floored Dr. Doggett. Faith also had early-onset arthritis and thyroid problems. Even if she managed to get a chest x-ray through some miracle, she would have to wait months to get into the public hospital’s asthma clinic. For Dr. Doggett, this situation meant that she would have to pour precious minutes, even an hour, into trying to negotiate the x-ray bill down and find her help on getting therapy, not to mention searching for resources that Mauricio needed. All of that extra time meant that when clinic administrators reviewed the monthly tally, she would be rebuked for not seeing enough patients, i.e., being short on “productivity.”

This vignette happened about a month before Dr. Doggett’s MS diagnosis and soon after that, it was Christmas time and she was cast in the role of happy homemaker purveyor of holiday cheer, with relatives coming to her house for the usual festivities.

This book is far more than a slice of life. It is also a journey into the nightmare of the American health care system’s underbelly. It hammers home the reality that most of us, with our insurance policies and connections, lose sight of. It also provides the perspective of disease happening to a physician, revealing her own fears and coping mechanisms.

“Up the Down Escalator” is a riveting read, one that I finished in a day, because I couldn’t put it down. Highly recommended. The book will be available on August 15th online and at bookstores. It is ranked as the number one new release in family practice medicine on Amazon and can be pre-ordered there and on other sites.

BY FORREST PREECE

1. What’s something about you that not many people know?

When I was 22 I left the US and moved to Huancayo in the Peruvian Andes. I had never been on a jet plane. I did not speak a word of Spanish, and I knew no one in Peru. I lived there six months, and my girlfriend, now my wife of 53 years, joined me three months after my arrival.

2. What was your first job?

I had a paper route when I was 12 years old.

3. If you could have dinner with three people – dead or alive, any time in history — who would they be?

Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill.

4. If you had to pick three musicians for a playlist, who would they be?

Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson and Frank Sinatra.

5. Favorite book and TV show

Two books: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, and Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. TV show: MASH.

6. Most powerful movie you have seen The Graduate

7. Favorite place in Austin

Our home

8. Favorite restaurant and watering hole

Gusto Italian Kitchen + Wine Bar

9. What did you want to be when you were growing up?

Absolutely nothing!

10. Which living person do you most admire?

David Brooks

11. What makes you happy?

Time with Claire

12. Best advice you ever received See the world as a place of abundance.