Brigham and Women’s Hospital loses 10 doctors to Beth Israel

The resignations will take effect by mid-February and leave the MGB practice, Brigham and Women’s Physician Group, with only four physicians, according to a Nov. 12 email obtained by the Globe. Brigham leaders sent the email to primary care doctors at the hospital after nine physicians had given notice but before the 10th doctor announced plans to leave.

“While we recognize that professional transitions are ultimately a choice of the individuals making them, we also acknowledge the many challenges facing our profession and the day-to-day work of all [primary care physicians],” said the email from Dr. John Lewis, interim director of primary care at the Brigham, and four other hospital leaders.

The Brigham leaders said they have worked hard to “improve the work experience” of primary care physicians and will continue to focus “on job do-ability and provider well-being.”

On Tuesday, an MGB spokesperson said the state’s largest health care system is working with Beth Israel Lahey to ensure that patients who want to stay with their primary care doctors can follow them to the new location.

“We will also be offering options to patients who prefer to stay with Mass General Brigham,” said the spokesperson. MGB plans to contact all affected patients over the next few weeks to make sure their care isn’t interrupted.

Doctors at the Brigham and Women’s Physician Group declined to comment on the exodus.

Paul Levy, who served as chief executive of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center from 2002 to 2011, said the move of the 10 doctors will cost MGB millions of dollars in lost revenue. Primary care physicians, he said, refer patients to the hospital for a wide range of procedures, from colonoscopies to heart surgeries — and all that treatment will likely shift from MGB to Beth Israel.

“It’s both an economic and symbolic blow to MGB,” said Levy. “This ripples through the entire MGB health system.”

It remains to be seen how many patients will follow their doctors. A Beth Israel spokesperson said the system would “work closely with patients looking to receive their care” at its new Beth Israel Lahey Health Primary Care practice in Wellesley that will open in coming months.

Most of the 10 physicians have worked at the Brigham practice at 850 Boylston St. in Newton for many years, according to one of the people with direct knowledge of the situation. Over the past decade, three of the doctors have received awards from Brigham leadership for excellence in primary care.

“It’s unfortunate that they’ve reached this point in their careers and they felt that they had to leave the MGB system,” said another one of the people knowledgeable about the departures.

The move by the doctors at the Chestnut Hill practice is only the latest sign of unhappiness among primary care physicians at MGB.

On Friday, almost 300 primary care physicians employed by MGB notified federal regulators that they want to join a union, citing “burnout” and the “corporatization of medicine” at the health system.

The doctors signed cards saying they wanted to join the Doctors Council of the Service Employees International Union, Local 10MD. Organizers delivered the cards to the Boston office of the National Labor Relations Board along with a petition to hold an election.

A vote to unionize could take place in as little as two months, according to the Doctors Council. If it passes, the resulting bargaining unit would be the largest union of attending physicians in Massachusetts.

There has been a crisis brewing in primary care medicine in the US for decades. Many physicians complain of working long hours with an ever-growing list of responsibilities but without an increase in pay and resources. The workloads of the Chestnut Hill practice doctors — who oversaw care for 1,300 to 1,500 patients each — was roughly in line with the figures found in various US and international practice settings cited in research, ranging from 1,200 to 1,900 patients per physician, according to a 2016 article in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.

But the frustration of primary care physicians at MGB seems particularly acute. In a Globe story Monday, Dr. Kristen Gunning, one of the primary care doctors organizing the union, said she and her colleagues face overwhelming workloads, insufficient pay for the hours they work, a shortage of office staff, and frequent turnover of doctors in their practices.

Gunning, one of about 20 physicians at a practice located near Mass General, said she is considered a part-time employee because she sees patients for 16 hours a week and, in theory, performs four hours of administrative duties. In reality, Gunning said, she works 45 to 50 hours a week.

An MGB spokesperson has said that the health system recognizes primary care physicians face “unprecedented volume and stress.’’ But the best way to address the challenges is “by working together in direct partnership’’ rather than by forming a union, which “can lead to conflict and potentially risk the continuity of patient care,’’ the spokesperson said.

The decision by the doctors at the Brigham and Women’s Physician Group to move to Beth Israel comes a year after Beth Israel stunned the medical world in Massachusetts by wooing away Dana-Farber, which for almost 30 years had a nationally acclaimed adult oncology partnership with the Brigham. Dana-Farber and Beth Israel are planning to build a $1.68 billion, 300-bed cancer hospital in the Longwood Medical Area in the coming years.

Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jonathan.saltzman@globe.com.

No Byline Policy

Editorial Guidelines

Corrections Policy

Source