Dr. Anthony Blalock

In less than a year, Dr. Anthony Blalock, now the youngest president-elect of the Louisiana State Medical Society, is scheduled to become the 133-year-old organization’s youngest president.

Blalock, a nephrologist and chief medical officer at Our Lady of Lourdes in Lafayette, is 36. He sought a leadership role in the Medical Society because of all the changes and uncertainty facing the healthcare industry.

“For me, it was a kind of a real call to arms,” Blalock said. “It was the right set of circumstances, the right time to step forward, particularly because we have so many young physicians who are uncertain about their futures.”

More and more physicians have become provider employees rather than joining a practice or starting their own, he said. A number of doctors who are in a practice are looking to work for hospitals or other providers.

Blalock said he saw a leadership role in the Medical Society as an opportunity to try and help serve and preserve some of healthcare’s essential qualities, qualities that drew him and so many other physicians to the practice of medicine.

His age, he said, is both an advantage and a disadvantage.

Blalock has been in organized medicine for around 10 years and has worked with doctors of all ages. He sees himself as someone who’s been around a while but who can relate well to younger physicians. Blalock said he is not all that far removed from some of the challenges involved in starting a practice, of learning to balance family life with the rigors and time demands of a practice.

Having someone who can connect to established doctors and those new to the profession is important, Blalock said.

“There are so many things that are happening at such a rapid pace in healthcare,” Blalock said.

Electronic medical records and computer physician order entry are looming on the horizon, and both will dramatically change the way physicians deliver healthcare in Louisiana and the United States, Blalock said. He hopes to increase the number of younger physicians involved with the Medical Society and to raise those physicians’ consciousness when it comes to healthcare issues.

His goal, he said, is to remind those doctors that they have a need and a responsibility to help continue to advocate for their fellow physicians and their patients.

Among the biggest challenges physicians will face over the next few years are the changes in reimbursements and the changes in physician autonomy, Blalock said. Those adjustments will fundamentally alter the way doctors practice in the United States.

Physicians will have to be increasingly cognizant of core measures, Blalock said.

“Every single thing they do as physicians either currently is or soon will be monitored and recorded and available,” Blalock said. “And that there is an increasing cost focus to all these discussions; everyone from Medicare to private insurers to patients are closely monitoring every medical decision that’s being made.”

Doctors are going to have to be aware of that and learn how to operate under a fundamentally different model when it comes to the decision-making structure, Blalock said.

Although he has spoken to some physicians who feel that all the added scrutiny is not a plus in the work environment, Blalock said he sees it differently.

“The way I have talked to our doctors about it is that yes, there are more people at the table that are monitoring quality measures and treatment and those type of things, but the goal at the end of the day is to try and provide evidence-based, high-quality healthcare,” Blalock said. “That’s the reason that most of us got into practice.”

Medicine isn’t the only industry where monitoring takes place, he said. The airline and pharmaceutical industry have been for years.

That’s the nature of computer access, Blalock said. The trick is how one uses that data; the goal everyone is working toward is to analyze the information correctly and use it to improve the quality of healthcare services.

The next three to five years are going to be very challenging, Blalock said.

It will be difficult at times to keep up with all the decisions being made and all the new requirements being added, he said. Physicians will probably have to get more creative to meet those challenges, but the doctors he has worked with are more than equal to the task.

“I’m honored to have that opportunity and honored to try and lead this (society) forward,” Blalock said. “There’s an ancient Chinese proverb, or curse depending on how you view it, that says, ‘May you live in interesting times.’ We’re certainly going to be doing that.”

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