By Dinah Miller, MD
[Summer 2007; Vol. 33, No. 3; Pg 1]
MPS
President Steven Crawford is a self-proclaimed “workaholic.”
With more salt-than-pepper colored hair, a soft voice, and an easy smile,
Dr. Crawford struggled to tell me about himself.
He starts his day, everyday, at 5:30 AM, and is in the office seeing
patients by 7. He
looked at me quizzically when I asked how he spends his free time.
“My life,” he said, “is divided between work and family.”
Steve
is the Associate Director at the Center for Eating Disorders at Sheppard Pratt
in GBMC’s Physicians
Pavilion North. The
building is new and everything about the Center for Eating Disorders is sleek
and state-of-the-art. Steve
is also Assistant Head of the Department of Psychiatry at St. Joseph’s
Hospital and his day-to-day responsibilities run the gamut of inpatient
administration, outpatient clinical care, and supervision of colleagues in all
disciplines. He is
also co-primary investigator with Dr. Harry Brandt on two NIH eating disorders
studies. He enjoys
organizing CME events and has served as MPS CME Committee Chair, as well as on
the MPS Council and the Executive Committee.
Outside
of work, Steve enjoys spending time with his three gorgeous (I saw the photos)
and talented children, Kathleen, 17, Morgan, 6, and Kevin, 4.
He does all the family’s cooking and grocery shopping.
His favorite dish to prepare is beef tenderloin stuffed with lobster, and
Thursday is top-your-own pizza night.
A
Baltimore County native, Steve attended Calvert Hall High School in Towson and
later went to medical school at the University of Maryland, where he also
trained in psychiatry. “I
was born in Towson, I work in Towson, I’m planning to die in Towson,” he
said with a smile. He
doesn’t watch television, and a passion for sports has skipped his generation;
he readily told me that his father was a minor league pitcher, but only in a
barely audible whisper did he say, “For the New York Yankees,” though he
later noted that most of his father’s pitching career was with the Brooklyn
Dodgers. Steve’s
wife, Jill, works with him as the senior administrator for managed care at the
Center for Eating Disorders.
With
regard to his new role as MPS President, he noted, “The challenge ahead is
with reimbursement rates in the state.
Maryland’s rates are in the twenty fifth lowest percentile.
Among physicians in general, the figure for those who don’t participate
in managed care is growing, and for psychiatrists, it’s close to 35%.
The problem becomes one of access; patients can’t get to psychiatrists
in their plans.”
He
wants the MPS to focus on making more psychiatrists aware of this issue, and to
get psychiatrists to be more proactive.
“Another
focus is to increase membership.
We’ve done a phenomenal job with membership retention.
Now we need to increase recruitment by making the benefits of belonging
to MPS more clear. MPS
needs to develop a strategic plan to face the challenges ahead. We have
historically served our members through five key functions: advocacy,
communication, education, collaboration and professionalism. We will need to
draw upon that tradition to champion change in a health care system that is
progressively limiting access to quality care.”
With
a workaholic as MPS president—one who organizes everything from his family’s
dinner menus to captivating CME events—we’re sure to have a productive year.