FEATURE
DR . VALERIE BRIONES-PRYOR
Compassionate Physician Award
Internist Dr . Voltaire Briones remembers the day years ago when his then 13-year-old daughter , Valerie , walked into their Louisville home and , finding him reading a medical journal , announced , “ I want to be a doctor like you .” With a mother who is a family physician as well , young Valerie had plenty of opportunity to get a feel for the practice of medicine , including volunteering at Sts . Mary & Elizabeth Hospital as a student at Sacred Heart Academy , and working in her father ’ s south Louisville medical office .
An undergraduate pre-medical degree from Xavier University in Cincinnati , four years at the University of Louisville School of Medicine , and an internal medicine residency at Indiana University gave her the technical knowledge she ’ d lacked as a teenager , of course . But hanging around her physician dad taught Dr . Briones-Pryor something else about patient care . “ They didn ’ t think of him as their doctor . They thought of him as their friend ,” she says , taking as much time as each patient needed to talk , sometimes running hours behind in the office .
Jennifer Nolan , President of KentuckyOne ’ s Sts . Mary & Elizabeth and Our Lady of Peace Hospitals , works with Dr . Briones-Pryor in her capacity as Division Medical Director , overseeing in-patient care at those and other KentuckyOne facilities across the state . Nolan says the first word that comes to mind about her is “ compassionate .”
“ She ’ s such a team player ,” Nolan says . “ She really advocates for patients . She treats them like members of her own family ,” not only directing care during a patient ’ s hospital stay , but also looking after details , like transportation to follow-up appointments and funds to cover medications over the long haul .
Dr . Briones-Pryor continues to see patients in the hospital about one day a week , but her main focus is on the role of hospitalists like herself – physicians who work exclusively in the hospital , quarterbacking in-patient care and serving as liaisons with patients ’ private doctors – like her own father , whose patients ’ hospital care she now oversees .
As an administrator , she notes that she provides the flip side of that process – advocating for patients from the point of view of someone who literally holds the hands of individuals unable to advocate for themselves . “ I went into administration because as a single physician , I wasn ’ t doing enough to make patient care better on a global scale ,” she says . “ We ’ re here for the patients . I want to be that voice .”
That includes considering circumstances that will affect a patient ’ s post-discharge life . As one example , she describes a recent meeting on how to treat endocarditis – an infection in the lining of the heart that ’ s common in drug addicted patients . Such patients require six weeks of antibiotics , clearly exceeding a hospital stay . How does the medical system ensure that such vulnerable individuals get necessary treatment once they return to the environment that caused the acute problem in the first place ? “ If we don ’ t ( also ) treat the addiction ,” Dr . Briones-Pryor says , “ they ’ ll come back with another infection .”
Nolan notes that she manages to balance that deep concern for individual patients with consideration for the hospital itself and her medical colleagues . “ Her nature is to build relationships and rapport with other professionals , her colleagues and our nursing staff ,” she says , listening to everyone ’ s concerns and developing consensus for decisions in the interests of both patients and staff .
22 LOUISVILLE MEDICINE