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Doc of the Year: Award Comes with Responsibility

 |  By John Commins  
   August 14, 2013

"There is nothing special about me. I am just a doctor trying to do what I know how to do," says Thomas E. Albani Jr., MD, who helped establish and helps run a free health clinic in Ohio. The American Academy of Family Physicians has named him 2013 Family Physician of the Year.

Between his solo practice, his volunteer clinic work and other community and professional service, Canfield, OH-based family physician Thomas E. Albani Jr., MD, figures he puts in "anywhere between 60 to 70 hours or more than that" each week.

 


Thomas E. Albani Jr., MD

(Photo: Ohio State University College of Medicine)

"You get tired, but honestly I feel pretty good," says Albani, 56. "There is that old axiom that if you do what you love you never work a day in your life. That is where I am at. I love what I am doing. If I am having a bad day the thing that makes me the most happy is when I go in to see my patients. They pick me up. I enjoy interacting with folks. It always helps."

Albani's longstanding dedication and commitment to providing healthcare access for the less-affluent in his native Youngstown, OH region have earned him the 2013 Family Physician of the Year award from the American Academy of Family Physicians.

In addition to his nearly 30 years of private practice, Albani helped establish the Midlothian Free Health Clinic, which works out of a church and serves a working poor patient base. The clinic gets no public money and is staffed by volunteers who provide patients with a primary care medical home. Albani, who is the medical director at the clinic, and his staff also help patients navigate the healthcare maze when more advanced, sub-specialty care is needed.

Albani says he feels "extremely happy" to have the opportunity to help people whose health concerns might otherwise not be addressed. "Most of these people are working jobs like McDonalds—low income jobs. They didn't make enough to pay for health insurance and they made too much money to qualify for public assistance. They continue to work because they feel they should. That is the mindset of a large number of folks here," he says.

A community effort

Albani and other providers work arm-in-arm with volunteers from Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Youngstown, which provides the space for the clinic and provides other support. "The church does the nuts and bolts of trying to raise money in the community to take care of patients and I took care of the medical side of it, which was organizing the layout of the church and where we see people and organize the patient flow and what kind of stations we needed."

"Somebody doing triage, somebody doing vitals, somebody doing check in and check out. That was my contribution," Albani says. "By no means am I the big chief in there. It is very much a community effort and a large number of people are there every time to help when we do the clinic."

"We have several thousand patients we see now tied into the program. On any given night we see between 40-50 people," he says. "The first six months it was just me, because I wanted to get the nuts and bolts worked out. Now we have expanded and typically there are five providers there each night, usually physicians I have recruited, but there are two nurse practitioners who help us as well. And we have medical residents who serve as part of their education."

Albani also sits on the board at Access Health Mahoning Valley, which he helped found in 2008, and which provides primary care to residents of Mahoning and Trumbull counties, aged 19 to 64, who are uninsured and ineligible for public assistance.

Essentially, Access Health is a larger version of the Midlothian clinic model, supported by local businesses, health, and political leaders who want to reduce medical costs to the community by helping patients avoid expensive and unnecessary emergency room visits.

"I got involved with Access Health because I had things I could contribute to help guide them, or at least add my two cents worth to help give them some reasonable input on the concrete things we have done that have made a difference at Midlothian," he says.

Malpractice not a concern

"Access Health is on a bigger scale. Instead of one small area with one church that is seeing whatever patients they can see Access Health is trying to replicate that same picture in other parts of Mahoning and Trumbull counties and expand as time goes by to bigger area as well."

Albani enthusiastically recruits healthcare professionals to serve in the clinics, although he meets some resistance from physicians because of malpractice concerns.

"I would say first of all, if you live your life in fear by worrying about things like malpractice you will never accomplish anything," he says. "If that is the case don't see any patient because every single patient can sue you. We are covered by the Good Samaritan laws in Ohio that prevent people from suing you if you are not getting reimbursed. And really if someone wants to sue me because I am trying to help them and I am not charging them for it, go for it. I don't see that as an obstacle, but a lot of people do."

For physicians and other community activists who want to start a clinic, Albani says they shouldn't fixate first on raising money before they actually provide services.

"That is what we did. We started seeing patients. I said I am not worried about the donations. They will come once they see what we are doing and that is exactly what happened," he says. "Nobody wants to contribute any money for an idea. You have to have something to show people that they can see that is tangible and that helps people in the community understand what you are about and what you are trying to do."

"Until that happens," he says, "you are probably not going to be very successful with building a donor base. Besides, you don't need much to start with. In primary care you don't need much in the way of instrumentation. With a very small amount of equipment you can accomplish quite a bit."

"I went into medicine to help people"

While the efforts of Albani and other community activists in Youngstown are unquestionably noble, is it realistic or fair to have a healthcare delivery system that relies upon a small group of volunteers sacrificing a sizeable chunk of their lives in the service of others?

"There is a subset of people who have fundamental problems with the concept of the free clinic to begin with," Albani says. "The feeling is that everyone should have to pay for what they get. I don't believe in doing charity work and that our government needs to set up a system that will cover these people instead of us having to do it for free. The government is living off of our backs."

"Yes, I understand all that but I went into medicine to help people and that is all I can tell you. So, I feel like each of us in our own way do what we can to help the community. That is the basis of everything I do in medicine," he says.

"My whole family has been involved at various times helping with the clinic. They come as they are able to. That is what happens with other physicians. Those who are interested, we rotate them through so they are not there all the time. I am there each week but most people come periodically and that seems to work so that they are not overwhelmed. So it is very doable."

Responsibility goes with the award

While he was first "very uncomfortable" about earning the Family Physician of the Year Award, Albani says the award has practical purposes.

"You don't go into medicine looking for accolades. I'm not out there for awards. There is nothing special about me. I am just a doctor trying to do what I know how to do," he says.

"But as a little time has gone by I've come to realize that there is a responsibility and an obligation that goes with the award. The award was given because they feel I represent what we as family physicians do. That is important at a time when you have the government and insurance companies telling us what doctors are all about. It sets a spark. It's a great example."

John Commins is a content specialist and online news editor for HealthLeaders, a Simplify Compliance brand.

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