Posted on 06/17/2013 12:47:52 AM PDT by Olog-hai
The serious shortage of primary care doctors in America will get much worse unless the country reforms its graduate medical education system, researchers from the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS) reported in Academic Medicine.
Less than 25% of newly qualified doctors go into primary care, and just 4.8% move into rural areas, the authors added. This serious problem will only get worse unless some fundamental changes are introduced. …
The American GME (graduate medical education system) depends on public funding. It receives almost $10 billion from the Medicare program, plus $3 billion from Medicaid. Experts say that in spite of this large cash infusion, the federal government does not ask residency programs to make sure doctors are trained to work in rural or underserved areas of the country.
Medicare and Medicaid represent the major public investment in the US health force. Even so, in some geographical regions there are critical shortages of primary care doctors. There are also shortages in other specialties, including general surgery. …
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalnewstoday.com ...
There are also fewer doctors delivering babies, which is exacerbated by the high malpractice insurance premiums. May be another reason fewer doctors are going into general surgery.
I am considering a career change. My family has often noted my uncanny ability to note change and home right in on an issue that everyone else misses.
I vowed after Engineering School, I would never again return to academia... but I wonder if I would make for a good G.P. country doctor like I had when I was young.
I like to fix problems... and wonder what the market will be for competitive and cost effective ala carte type care will be when the system collapses.
Probably not a very bright idea right now as the nation is bamboozled into another ponzi scheme of health insurance... when it’s the cost of care at the core... but I am considering my escape to a very rural isolated community... and am wondering if in my eventual retirement being a doctor would fulfill my need to be needed.
If you’re up for it, the minimum time required to be a primary care doc currently is 7 years (4 for medical school, 3 for residency). Medical school could easily cost you $250,000 for the four years (a lot more if you pay it off over time via a student loan), and you won’t be able to work during that time, so there will be no income.
Primary care docs are also underpaid, in large measure because the system doesn’t appreciate ‘thinking’. You can easily make more for ‘freezing’ a mole with liquid nitrogen in the office than you can for an office visit that takes a lot more time.
I’m not dissuading you, and I admire your motivation, but the issues are real.
It’ll be okay. Obamacare has racial quotas set up more medical schools.
That’s unexpected/ Who would have guessed that increasing the demand, reducing compensation, and increasing the frustration associated with paperwork would lead to a shortage. Economists should look into that - I’ll bet there’s an undiscovered law as basic as supply and demand there.
Don’t worry. BIG SIS has 20,000 already released FELONS
and 100,000 criminal illegals very willing to pose
as physicians and surgeons for the American people.
I also love going to the doctor only to be seen by someone with too many vowels in their name and cannot speak to me coherently.
The other thing I am not mentioning is that I’d be starting the process in my 40’s... that combined with my distaste of both the government-industrial-academia complex and the similarly unpalatable government-big-medicine/Pharma complex... well I would, no doubt, become an evil doctor.
I should probably, in all truth, make the time to apply for and sit for the P.E. exam since that’s my present career path and I have everything needed for that... B.S.M.E., E-I-T, like over 15 years working under the supervision of a P.E.
Career change is appealing to me, though... I doubt people are willing to pay for someone that thinks though... like you said.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.