WSJ.com: The Doctor's Office

There are challenges in being a primary care physician -- hospital closures, staff shortages -- but Benjamin Brewer finds reasons to give thanks for being a country doctor.

Looking at the way the government is doling out money these days, Dr. Benjamin Brewer has a proposal to help improve people's health and our system of care.

There's been an increase in patients losing jobs, losing medical coverage and just needing someone to care. But somewhere along the line too many doctors stopped being healers and became prescriber...

Prevention is better than treatment for drug-resistant skin infections caused by a nasty bug we call MRSA that is no longer confined to surgical wounds.

Most patients aren't aware of the insurance battles doctors fight daily on their behalf. Sometimes they make it through all the hoops to get patients what they need. Sometimes they don't.

Defensive medicine is part of the cost of doing business, but also a large part of the unnecessary expense of health care.

The chronic disease epidemic is upon us. The biggest challenge in primary-care medicine is dealing with the complications of obesity, diabetes and hypertension.

The average American's health-care experience is fraught with high cost, poor service and uncertain quality. But the prudent practice of medicine online would improve health care on all three counts.

Increasing prices for just about everything are forcing some hard choices about health. Care that doesn't strike patients as critical is getting delayed. As the economy squeezes Dr. Brewer's patien...

In some parts of the country doctors are using e-visits and electronic communication with patients to good effect. But at Dr. Brewer's small practice, the expensive Web site that no one uses is sch...