I clearly recall as a young physician how much I enjoyed going to the physicians’ lounges and the doctors’ dining rooms for lunch. It was there that I met all the other young doctors, rubbed shoulders with the older mature doctors, discussed cases, and heard about the gossip in the hospital and the community. Oh, how I miss those halcyon days.

Those were the days when doctors went from office to hospital, made rounds, went to the operating room, emergency room, even the medical records department to sign out charts, and then back to the hospital. The 30 to 45 minutes in the doctors’ dining room was a respite from the tedium of the typical practice day. From my first days on staff of the hospital I felt like I was a part of a connected community; there was very little competition, and complaining about the practice of medicine was at a minimum.

The new doctors on the staff used the dining room as our introduction to the culture—both medical and community—of the hospital. New doctors could ask consultants questions about management of a patient and they could tell us their thoughts about the case. We got to know each other, respect our differences, ask questions, and hear a number of points of view about managing a case. I remember asking one of the senior urologists at the hospital about having a man with a colovesical fistula from Crohn’s disease. And his advice was, “Don’t touch that man with a scalpel. You can’t cure that disease with a knife.” That was such good advice as removing one fistula results in another one in a very short period of time.

Those dining room lunches were safe places to raise questions, set plans, and learn what was important about the hospital organization, the nature of hospital management, and the long history of a hospital with a 175-year history.

It’s very different today. Lunches are solitary, eaten at our desks or with a pharmaceutical representative touting their latest and greatest medications and why they are better than much cheaper, generic drugs. We use our few minutes during the lunch hour to catch up on emails, signing electronic medical records, or calling a few patients who have questions. It is this harried behavior and lack of socialization with our colleagues that is contributing to the burnout epidemic.

Bottom line: So many of my colleagues talk about the good ole days of medical practice. I think health care has significantly improved and I wouldn’t want to go back to the days before antibiotics, chemotherapy, laparoscopic/robotic surgery, or stem cell transplants. However, I do miss those wonderful lunches just “shoot’n the breeze” with my buddies. I wish that part of medicine could return. Your thoughts would be appreciated (doctorwhiz@gmail.com).