Are you sure you can find that many more doctors? That they'll be any good?
Speaking from Romania: here medicine is prestigious. So many parents push their kids towards medicine. There's a glut of newly minted doctors every year, but rumour has it that the quality drops every year. Sure, they pass the exams and residency and what not, but... They're just not into medicine as much.
Do you want to get treated by such a person?
This year I had to go to a neurologist. I went to one locally, they dismissed me in 5 minutes, told me to take some vitamins basically. Went to another one in a much bigger city, they talked to me for an hour, ordered a ton of tests.
Would it help if we get a lot more of the first kind of doctors?
"Are you sure you can find that many more doctors? That they'll be any good?
Speaking from Romania: ..."
The prior post was specifically talking about the US. (I assure you, arrogant dismissive doctors are also a thing in the US)
In the US, there are a number of things that artificially increase the barriers to becoming a doctor.
1) You typically need a four year college degree to apply to medical school
2) Medical schools are accredited by the AMA, which is controlled by doctors. The AMA makes it very difficult to start a new MD-granting medical school.
3) Medical school in the US is very competitive to get in. They are likely turning away a lot of people who could complete the degree.
4) Since 1997, the federal government has a fixed number of Medicare (Medicare is a federal health insurance program for people over 65) supported residency positions. That number was basically flat for 25 years. We lost about 20% per capita of doctors being trained with support from this program. The caveat to this is that the total number of residents per capita has increased over time, particularly the past 15 years or so. My understanding is that they are less likely to be fully funded, so they spend more money getting trained, and then have higher students loans (on average graduating with debt above 200k going back to the late 2000s) that they need to pay off, so they charge more.
And you can add to this that it can be very difficult to be a doctor in another country and come to the US to practice here.
estearum · · focus · HN ↗
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.
rolisz · · focus · HN ↗
Speaking from Romania: here medicine is prestigious. So many parents push their kids towards medicine. There's a glut of newly minted doctors every year, but rumour has it that the quality drops every year. Sure, they pass the exams and residency and what not, but... They're just not into medicine as much.
Do you want to get treated by such a person?
This year I had to go to a neurologist. I went to one locally, they dismissed me in 5 minutes, told me to take some vitamins basically. Went to another one in a much bigger city, they talked to me for an hour, ordered a ton of tests.
Would it help if we get a lot more of the first kind of doctors?
1980phipsi · · focus · HN ↗
The prior post was specifically talking about the US. (I assure you, arrogant dismissive doctors are also a thing in the US)
In the US, there are a number of things that artificially increase the barriers to becoming a doctor.
1) You typically need a four year college degree to apply to medical school
2) Medical schools are accredited by the AMA, which is controlled by doctors. The AMA makes it very difficult to start a new MD-granting medical school.
3) Medical school in the US is very competitive to get in. They are likely turning away a lot of people who could complete the degree.
4) Since 1997, the federal government has a fixed number of Medicare (Medicare is a federal health insurance program for people over 65) supported residency positions. That number was basically flat for 25 years. We lost about 20% per capita of doctors being trained with support from this program. The caveat to this is that the total number of residents per capita has increased over time, particularly the past 15 years or so. My understanding is that they are less likely to be fully funded, so they spend more money getting trained, and then have higher students loans (on average graduating with debt above 200k going back to the late 2000s) that they need to pay off, so they charge more.
And you can add to this that it can be very difficult to be a doctor in another country and come to the US to practice here.
nradov · · focus · HN ↗
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