DR. MICHAEL PATTERSON
Focus Through the Generations (FTTG) offers insight from four different generations of the nation's top ophthalmologists. Hear from the experts themselves on their varying life experiences in the industry.
Dr. Michael Patterson has written numerous scientific articles, papers and posters for national publications. He received his medical degree from the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine and completed his residency at Palmetto Health / University of South Carolina School of Medicine.
hear from dr. Michael Patterson
Our host, Polly Neely had the pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Michael Patterson for an exclusive discussion regarding his life and industry experiences. Get to know Dr. Patterson a little deeper in this episode of “Focus Through the Generations”.
Polly Neely: Thank you so much for joining us today for Focus Through the Generations. This is a unique time in our industry where we have four actively practicing generations of ophthalmologists. It's really pretty amazing. So we decided we're going to make this some entertainment and utilize the brains of these guys. So here we go. Today, we have with us Dr. Michael Patterson. Dr. Patterson, thank you so much for joining us this evening.
Dr. Michael Patterson: Thank you for having me.
Polly Neely: We are really excited to pick your brain about the generation that you are in, in these four generations. So I'm going to ask you just to introduce yourself and tell us just a little bit about you and where you practice and so forth.
Dr. Michael Patterson: All right, Michael Patterson, as you said, I'm a practicing ophthalmologist in Crossville, Tennessee, as well as Cookeville, Tennessee. I worked with Eye Centers of Tennessee. My father started the practice about 35 years ago, and I have been here for right at, five years, and we have eight locations. I'm a comprehensive ophthalmologist; that's married and I have three kids with another one on the way. So that's about the scope of what I'm doing right now.
Polly Neely: You’re a pretty busy guy.
Dr. Michael Patterson: Very busy.
Polly Neely: COVID didn’t stop you, did it? That’s awesome, I'm so happy for you. What are the ages of your children?
Dr. Michael Patterson: We've got a nine-year-old, a seven-year-old, a three-year-old and one to come.
Polly Neely: That's awesome. Boys, girls?
Dr. Michael Patterson: We've got two girls, a boy, and one boy on the way.
Polly Neely: Oh, good, you’ve got a nice even platform there. There won't be any arguments there, be a lot of tiebreakers though.
Dr. Michael Patterson: That's right.
Polly Neely: Women will win though, they always do. All right. Well, I'm so happy that you joined us this evening. One of the things that we are kind of wanting to ask in your generation, so pardon us, if it seems silly to you, but Dr. Patterson, when you were 12, did you see yourself becoming an ophthalmologist?
Dr. Michael Patterson: No.
Polly Neely: What did you see yourself becoming when you were twelve and what changed your mind?
Dr. Michael Patterson: Probably at that time in my life, I was going to be a professional sports player. My parents were just hoping that I learned how to graduate high school, chances of becoming an ophthalmologist was pretty low. I was into sports, I played four sports through high school and so never really picked up a book to read until I got into college. I finally realized I needed to do something with my life.
Polly Neely: That's awesome. Well, I know they're glad you did what you did and that you're now able to carry this practice on. So I know you know, they're proud of you for doing that. That's a great story though. Where do you see yourself in 5 to 10 years from now, Dr. Patterson?
Dr. Michael Patterson: Well, I mean, hopefully they haven't ran me out of here, but you know, the plan right now, you know, we've got eight locations and hopefully we'll grow a couple more. I brought an associate on last year and hopefully he'll be a partner soon. I'd like to think that I'm still sitting here doing the same thing. I hope my father is still practicing in five years and I'd like to think that we continue to grow.
Polly Neely: And what do you do outside of the office, other than your four children? What are your outside activities or hobbies that keep you sane?
Dr. Michael Patterson: Yeah, well obviously with my children, we're quite busy. We live on a lake, that's quite small, but some people wouldn't think it's much of a lake. But, we swim a lot in the summer and we do a lot of camping. My kids are very into camping. For most of my life we tent camped, and just recently we got a little trailer to stay in. My kids are in travel soccer, so we're on the road a lot. I did some quail and pheasant hunting recently. I operated on a veterinarian that owns a large hunting preserve in our region, so he kind of invited me and made a lot of fun of me for being a city slicker. And so, I've been going up there actually a lot to do some stuff for fun. But other than that, we watch a lot of high school basketball games around here, my coaches still are coaching in the area, so we miss very few games with our children to watch high school games.
Polly Neely: That's really fun. Give me a funny pheasant hunting story.
Dr. Michael Patterson: Uh, okay, there's a lot. It's an interesting group of people up there, but I've brought some of our own team to go up there with me. But, uh, maybe the most interesting, everybody makes fun of me for it, I shot a quail and most people don't even know this, but you shoot the bird and, you know, sometimes this bird goes to the ground and we'll get up and fly off. And you just injured it, which is not good. And so the goal is to get it, and then we take the birds, we actually, we eat the meat. But this particular time, I'm pretty hesitant on grabbing these birds, I'm afraid I'm going to get bit or something with these wild birds. And so I didn't have any gloves with me, and the main guy was like, "Just pick it up,” you know, no big deal. And I said, “These hands are worth a lot. I don't want to chance one of these things snaps my finger off,” and, uh, so I picked it up. You know, like I was going to be real tough and I was going to put it in the back, you put it in the back of your jacket, it has a little pouch. And I picked that thing up and it started flapping its wings, and I threw it up in the air. I was scared to death. So, uh, they have, they have really given me a hard time about that ever since
Polly Neely: You have a nickname from that episode, I don't know if I’d be putting any quail in my back pocket.
Dr. Michael Patterson: They do call me million dollar hands all the time now, they make fun of me for that.
Polly Neely: Hey, listen, I agree with you. I used to shutter when my doctors would tell me what they're going to go do.
Dr. Michael Patterson: Absolutely.
Polly Neely: I'm like, no, no. That's a great story. I like that. In your opinion, and in what you have faced so far in your five years there, what do you see are the biggest obstacles facing ophthalmology right now?
Dr. Michael Patterson: I mean, I don't know if there's any question of that, I mean, it's, I don't know how it's debatable at this point, it's the private equity market capitalizing on people that are weak at the time that need to sell immediately. This is a dangerous time for all parties involved, including the private equity groups, make no mistake about it. They're in a tough deal. They need to make money, they need to turn capital quick. Guys that are older, it doesn't matter how you look at that, whether they're 40, 50, 60, 70, or 80, they want an exit plan. Legacy building is a powerful thing right now and a lot of people don't care about their legacy. And so a quick way to not care about it is to take a big payout and, and go on.
And I don't look at anyone bad for doing that. I mean, I'm grateful to have a CEO that wouldn't let that happen if anybody wanted it to. But I see this as being absolutely catastrophic long-term, for the patients mostly. I don't know how, I saw a patient today from Mexico, just today, that has no money, no insurance and I put bilateral injections into her eyes to save her vision over the next six months. And I just don't see how, if you're just crunching numbers, how you're going to be able to do that. Eventually, you have to say to yourself, this is more than just making money. And I feel passionately about this in my area. I'm in a rural area, I mean, when I say rural, very. We're in the middle of nowhere, and a lot of people think they're rural and they're in a suburb of Memphis, but we're rural.
I feel passionate about our team and our leaders and the goals of our practice to really change people’s lives in the rural communities, and we can't do that if we sell out. This is tough for so many levels. If you look at residents that are coming out, residents don't want to join those practices because they don't know what their buy-in is. But the senior partners, understandably, their value in their mind of their practice is very high. Most people think they are a lot better than they are, no matter what side of the argument you're on. And so it's tough, it's a tough, tough deal going forward. I think there's no question. I mean, I think Medicare reimbursement cuts, things like that, are important, but again, money's gotta be a secondary issue for you. Your goal has to be to take care of people in the right pathway and then money follows. And I think the biggest thing, without question right now that's really, really, divisive is, are you selling your practice to be a bigger company or are you going to try to stay on your own? The insurance companies might make it to where it's tough if you're not a huge group, they could, they could say that you're costing too much money and that's dangerous. That's a very dangerous way to practice medicine, so...
Polly Neely: Facing all that. I mean, I love what you just said, I love the passion and then the money. Because if you're passionate about something, you can make it happen and it will happen for you. And I love that you said that, we've had quite a few doctors who have expressed that and expressed your same thoughts and concerns on PE and insurance and the things that are really threatening us right now as a group. And you are in a rural community, but as I remember, you set up on the big top of a hill in a rural community, is that correct?
Dr. Michael Patterson: Yeah, not too bad. Yeah.
Polly Neely: Like the spotlight of the community when you drive through. No, I share that so much. Can you tell us about one of the most interesting, possibly funny, possibly just memorable patient experiences that you've had in your time?
Dr. Michael Patterson: There's all sorts of things that happened that certainly change people's lives for the better. And I'd say, you know, for me, the most memorable thing was on Thanksgiving day. I take calls every Thanksgiving and every Christmas period, and I do that just to give the other doctors off; and mostly because I think the leadership it shows is when we take the harder days. And on Thanksgiving, about three years ago, a young gal the day before had had a pretty bad injury. She's a basketball player at a local school called Clarkrange, that's won more state titles than any other girl's team in our state ever. It's a very small, single A high school. And I got a call from them on the day before Thanksgiving that she had had a problem. I came in that night and saw her, and she had a really bad corneal ulcer.
I saw her on Thanksgiving day, her parents brought me two big pies, homemade pies. They thought it was the most amazing thing ever. I saw her again the next day, I saw her again on Saturday, Sunday, she had such a bad ulcer. But we got her vision back over about three weeks, and probably the most memorable thing about her was that this girl went on to use me as a mentor. They invited me to their basketball game, which they honored me at a local high school game, which is kind of embarrassing. I tried to decline, they had seats ready for me, I was like no, we'll sit up top don't worry about us. But, the most memorable thing about this girl named Gracie, and I hope Gracie sees this video, but she’s at Cumberland University now playing basketball, and the rumor is she's going to try to become an optometrist, which is incredible. She had no idea, she didn't know anything about eye care. She's worked for our practice for two summers. We've let her have a job in between her college. And because of her eye injury and because of her time getting to be taken care of, she's decided, man, I want to be able to help people like this. And so it's really exciting to see her.
Polly Neely: That is amazing, as you said, you know maybe it's not a maternal legacy, but the legacy goes on. And if you can keep influencing people like that, especially the young people like that. And I'm sure you have a mentor in your day too. Who would that be?
Dr. Michael Patterson: I grew up with an ophthalmologist in the family, but it wasn't something we talked about much, you know. My dad never really told us that he was an eye doctor. We knew he was, but it was not something that it was really communicated much. My mentor was my basketball coach, Mike Buck and my assistant coach, Neil Capps, who both still coach in this area. For me, those were people that I look to for guidance on hard work and dedication, and then ophthalmology wise, I'm not sure that anybody ever told me I should do this. You know, I always knew my dad had a practice, but quite frankly, I didn't realize that it was a really big practice. I didn't know that it was a good practice because it wasn't something we talked about.
It wasn't until I got into residency and went down to Tampa, Florida, where I met Rob Weinstock and realized that my dad's practice was (a.) a good practice, but more importantly, that Rob was going to mentor me, and he helped me, Eric Donnenfeld came in. I really just had some people that told me this is what you need to do, you need to head back and work with your father and help him. And that's how it happened. I mean, obviously going to Guatemala with my father as a kid, as a young kid, which changed my perception on life. I got to see my father do that, but it was never something he tried to encourage me, he wanted me to make sure I wanted to do it, not because my dad did it.
Polly Neely: I like that. You had some great mentors, Dr. Weinstock. I know him well, I know Dr. Donnenfeld well, and then your dad, I mean, you're in good hands. Very good hands. Well I just want to ask you something about COVID. In what you've experienced in this last year, what out of that, do you see your practice as a lesson learned that you would take forward into 2021? Even if COVID does pass us, which we hope it does, what is one of some, a process or a procedure or something that, that you had to adapt to that you feel now is pretty good actually. And you might continue that.
Dr. Michael Patterson: Yeah, I mean, I'd say the number one thing that I learned was from my CEO. I talked about this in an article I wrote in Ophthalmology Management and that's acting crazy and acting quickly without thinking about what you're doing is not a good idea. When the storms come, you've got to remain calm. A CEO that had been in multiple Wars, as a Major in the Marines, he never once wavered in his commitment to the practice nor was he even remotely concerned. In fact, I'm not even sure that it didn't energize him a little bit to prove that it's not concerning. And I really learned a lot about the fight you have to have, to avoid negativity in your life. And mentally for me, with my team that I work closest with, I really had to work on learning to, you know there's going to be a lot of things negative, but we're going to stay positive and we're going to find a way to dig out of this.
Our company, certainly as all people did, slowed down. There was no question of that. We slowed our ranks, we didn't really operate, we didn't see patients except for urgent stuff. And that was a tough time and certainly it was a little odd to not have all your staff working. You know, we adapted and quite frankly the resilience of our team at Eye Centers showed through, I mean, really no one panicked. We assured our staff from day one that no one would go without a paycheck and that no one would be let go, and we got in the saddle of the bull and rode it through. It's been a rewarding time for me to see our team pull together, to see people lean on me, to lean on dad, to lean on Ray, our CEO, and to know that matter what we were going to be here with them and we were going to support them. And so, I don't know that we adapted anything differently. I mean, I certainly don't think that cleaning the rooms to the extent we're cleaning them and to wear masks is going to last for forever. Those types of things we are still doing, but, Lord willing, we won't have to do that for forever. Hopefully our waiting rooms don't have to look like something's wrong with them, you know, that the chairs are so wide. But, we have adapted as best we can to the environment. But at the end of the day, the moral of the story is, people have to be seen, they need their eye doctor, and you can't just neglect certain things in your healthcare or you'll be in trouble. We decided we were going to press forward and help as many people as we could.
Polly Neely: I love that. Hey, give us the name of your article on where it was published.
Dr. Michael Patterson: I was the guest editor of Ophthalmology Management in January, and I wrote about COVID crisis, basically.
Polly Neely: Great. I'm going to look that up and read it, but I just wanted everybody to know that, so they could read it. I'm going to end with one last question. We've asked everybody this question, so I just want to end this with you. How have you seen technology since you started your career, which is not that far along, but you had your residency and you've seen technology's moved quite fast, how have you seen it change throughout your career, and where do you see the biggest part of technology, in your industry, heading in the next 10 to 15 years?
Dr. Michael Patterson: Well, you know, obviously femtosecond came in during my time and MIGS came in during my time. And, at this point we’re in the thought process of should we do heads-up surgery, three-dimensional surgery? Is it better for you? Is it not? I don't know the answer, it depends on if you've got a vested interest in these companies or not. It's really hard to get much better at cataract surgery than we are today, and we do about 4,000 cases, I guess, at our company. It's amazing how few problems in the entire year we have. I think our technology, as far as teleretinal and telemedicine could change, it depends on if people adopt it, as far as taking photos of the fundus and whatnot. We haven't really changed a lot in our clinic stuff, except for learning more about glaucoma, learning more about macular degeneration.
I would really love to see a technology that could slow dry macular degeneration, that would be amazing, we don't have that. I would really love to understand why some peoples’ eye pressure that’s 12, why they still go blind from glaucoma, no matter what we do, but I don't know if we're there. I think what people wish more than anything in my clinic is for somebody to be able to regenerate their geographic atrophy for macular degeneration. I mean, I see hundreds of people a week that if they could just have one technology piece, it would be to regenerate, because the rest of the vision's normal except that one center area, they can't drive, they can't read. I think there's a chance for major transformation if we can figure this out, just don't know that we're there yet.
Polly Neely: I agree with you. I know there's a lot of clinical trials going on in that area right now, I'm involved in a couple of them. My mother's 96 and has dry macular degeneration, and other than that she'd be great. She still reads, she still has her vision, but it's really difficult. Well, Dr. Patterson, thank you so much for joining us this evening. I appreciate you so much. We look forward to this airing and we certainly will get it to you and then Gracie can see it as well.
Dr. Michael Patterson: Oh, thanks. Well, you guys have a great day. I appreciate you asking me to be on.
Focus Through the Generations is supported by Bruder Healthcare Company.
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