Communicating with your medical colleagues is not an onerous task; you just have to do it.

One of the APMA staff members came to me recently and said that a member of her family was having difficulty following surgery. The staff member was worried and looking for a referral for her family member, but didn’t know where to start. This was not a lower extremity-related illness, so I sent a note to a couple my physician friends. By the next day, I had advice and referrals to pass onto that staff person.

The point of this story is that it can be very helpful to have relationships with physicians outside the podiatric medical community. Podiatrists and other physicians share a lot of common ground: concerns about health care reform, our communities, families, etc. And of course, the patients podiatrists see generally have other physicians caring for them, so that is an immediate connection.

Communicating with your medical colleagues is not an onerous task; you just have to do it. Where do you start? If you practice in a hospital setting, you already work with other doctors who are probably affected by many of the same issues as you. That’s a good place to begin. You should also get to know the other physicians in your practice community. Determine from your medical records which primary care physicians see most of your patients. Simply pick up the phone and introduce yourself. Or, at this time of year, you can send a holiday card. Wish them a happy holiday and ask if you can get together after the New Year. It’s a good opportunity, especially to thank any doctors who have been making referrals. And before I communicate with someone who I don’t know well, I quickly do an internet search to find out what else we might have in common. Knowing where they are from, where they went to school, or if we have friends in common helps form a personal connection, which paves the way for better communication and a more relaxed conversation.

When you find out that people are people, you tend to treat them as you would a friend, and try to find ways to work together. Building these relationships is a very easy thing you can do to help advance Vision 2015 and the Today’s Podiatrist campaign, as well as improve your practice and patient care. And hey, you might also develop some great friendships in the process.