Cutting edge technology has changed the way most doctors do their jobs, but NY1's Cheryl Wills found an upper east side cardiologist who is not impressed with all of the high tech gadgets and still practices medicine the old-fashioned way. She filed this report.
Meet Doctor Jeffrey Graf.
"I'm bucking the system, there no question about it,"Graf says.
For some 30 years, he's been a cardiologist on the Upper East Side. In an odd way, though, he's stuck in time.
For one, he still does everything himself. You won't find any nurse practitioners here or physician assistants. Dr. Graf is still flying solo—no group practice for him.
"I'm unusual. I'm a dinosaur, but I'm not that old," he says.
He's 59, to be exact, and he has a bone to pick with this newfangled way of practicing medicine. Here's a guy who still idolizes Marcus Welby M.D.—remember that show?
"He listened to people and always tried to do the right thing," Graf says.
Jeffrey Graf M.D. tries to do the right thing too. He's up at 4 a.m. and doesn't get home until after 10 p.m. He makes house calls if need be—and doesn't like to send his patients to the lab. His staff will do just about everything from blood tests to echo cardiograms.
At a time when so many doctors' offices are going digital, Dr. Graf keeps his estimated 2,500 patients' records on hard copy.
"The pressures of doing electronic medical records really ruin the patient-doctor relationship. They sit and type the entire visit and then they do a one-two exam and say goodbye," Graf says.
Dr. Graf spends a lot of time with his patients like Raymond Croskey—a retired physician himself.
"He'll spend at least a half hour, sometimes more," Croskey says.
In his tiny office, which barely fits two people, he spends hours and hours pouring over paperwork. His assistants still fax, as opposed to scanning and emailing.
"I was complaining that I do need caller ID on my phone but what are we going to do," says executive assistant Liberty Apostolides.
Dr. Graf is also ahead of the curve, though. For a flat fee, he screens his patients for heart disease well before the symptoms appear. It's a move that's saved lives. Insurance won't cover it, but Dr. Graf, well, he's got it covered.