"Primary care: Is there enough time for prevention?" is the first paper to measure physician workload. With each new health discovery the number of health issues per person increases. We evaluated whether a primary care physician had enough time to perform all the services recommended by the US Preventive Services Task Force and found it would take 7.4 hours a day. The idea that there may be more work to be done than a physician has time for is a new finding and points out some of the reasons patients don't get all the health care they need.

Most people expect their doctor to be aware of all their health issues and help them stay healthy. They also expect that their doctor will discuss everything they need to know about their health when they go for a check-up. In fact your doctor doesn't have enough time to discuss all the important issues with you and they have even less time if you bring a list of medical concerns that you have saved up all year to discuss with him/her. It is important to go to your check-up and focus only on the things that will improve your health and keep you healthy. In addition, be informed on what sorts of screening tests, such as Pap tests or cholesterol checks, or health habit changes that you might need. That way you can make the most of your time with your doctor.

The idea for this paper came from my own personal frustration as a family doctor that I wasn't able to give my patients all the time and information they needed. No matter how organized I was I still couldn't finish everything by the end of the day and often remembered things I should have done in the car going home. I began to wonder if the problem wasn't that the task of providing all the needed care wasn't bigger than I expected. So a group of physicians and researchers got together to measure the true workload of primary care physicians. We were surprised how much time it actually took.