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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. ossicones · · focus · HN ↗
      The American Medical Association would sooner let the whole thing burn than allow that to happen
      1. joenot443 · · focus · HN ↗
        This is the bottleneck, right?

        I hear people say "we need more doctors" all the time. It would seem to me, the people deciding how many new doctors we train per year, are doctors. Their pay is proportionate to their scarcity, if we had 5x as many doctors, existing doctors would make far less.

        Imagine if existing software engineers got to decide how many juniors entered our profession each year. I think things would look very, very different.

        1. estearum · · focus · HN ↗
          No, the AMA has been lobbying for more residency slots for decades.

          Congress decides how many slots get funded and they have been way too slow to fund them.

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