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The darker side of being a doctor

282 points · 342 comments · Danhale93

  1. estearum · · focus · HN ↗
    (speaking from US): The reality is we need more doctors. A lot more.

    There's no solution other than training a lot, lot, lot, lot more doctors.

    Their salaries need to be lower, training needs to be cheaper and faster, and we need a lot more of them.

    1. meken · · focus · HN ↗
      > There's no solution other than training a lot, lot, lot, lot more doctors.

      Seems like having doctors emigrate from other countries would work as well.

      1. layer8 · · focus · HN ↗
        It might not work for the other countries.
      2. sebmellen · · focus · HN ↗
        Then you end up with students from places like Nepal and Pakistan, where cheating is so rampant that you can't really evaluate the quality of your medical student or applicant. Even standardized exams like the USMLE/STEP series have been gamed. You also end up with significant cultural mismatch. I don't believe this is a good solution.
      3. slices · · focus · HN ↗
        anecdote alert: had a family member treated by a foreign doctor last year, and received advice from that doc that was both 1) highly dangerous, 2) bare minimum 20 years out of date.

        Inconceivable that a domestically-trained doc would have made the same mistake.

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