Another worst thing is that developed world sucks necessary doctors out of undeveloped world. No human right concerns whatsoever. UN as always useless
The darker side of being a doctor (2017)
291–300 of 521 posts
Re: The darker side of being a doctor (2017)
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s extremely beneficial to the people who are already doctors (dramatically increases salary, prestige, power), and that is a powerful group in most societies.
But the article is about burnout. Surely that can't be great for existing doctors, either?
They choose more money over avoiding burnout.
Re: The darker side of being a doctor (2017)
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
but.. why?
It’s extremely beneficial to the people who are already doctors (dramatically increases salary, prestige, power), and that is a powerful group in most societies.
I think it comes down to, if you read the history of the American Medical Association, that some doctors simply didn’t like a free market pushing down prices for their services.
Re: The darker side of being a doctor (2017)
#294> I have lost control of my days. I had worked in a hospital where I was oncall 24/7, 12 days out of 14. I had fortnightly weekends off. When I was preparing for surgical exams, I’d be working and studying from 6.30am to 10pm everyday, seeing my family only on the weekends for lunch. I had worked in a hospital network that covered 4 campuses and drove 500kms a week when covering these sites. I had worked in a hospita…
How would ending Medicare change the conditions in your quote?
Re: The darker side of being a doctor (2017)
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
Potentially controversial opinion, but perhaps it is exactly the immigrants who are enabling the dysfunction to continue? I imagine tougher decisions would have been made to balance doctor quality of life with patient outcomes without immigrants taking whatever abuse the current system throws at them.
Are you suggesting that the solution is that immigrants just make better decisions?
If you're on a work visa and need a employer to sponsor you to stay in the country, it's pretty hard to quit if you're being taken advantage of. Being ineligible for unemployment payments or other support doesn't exactly help. Immigrants are often making the best decisions they can given the constraints of the situation, but it's not good for them or for local workers if immigrant workers are an exploitable underclass.
Re: The darker side of being a doctor (2017)
#296Something I've never quite understood is why, in the UK, we cap the number of medical students per year. I've known very bright people who aspired to be doctors but had their applications turned down only to go on to do phds and become scientists instead. I'd rather have twice as many doctors who work sensible hours rather than the status quo burn out. Looks like there are calls to change this. https://commonslibrary…
Because you can't just set a higher number of students per year, for more students you have to create more facilities first. It's not like IT, where you can learn everything pretty well basically just with a study program, books and online lectures. As a medical student you have to do a lot of practical stuff with things that you don't get at home.
In the UK, many highly rated Universities would love to be allowed to take more medical students, and expand their facilities.
Re: The darker side of being a doctor (2017)
#297"Medicine used to be a meaningful pursuit. Now it has become a tiresome industry. The joy, purpose and meaning of medicine has been codified, sterilised, protocolised, industrialised and regimented. Doctors are caught in a web of business, no longer a noble vocation. The altruism of young doctors have been replaced by the shackles of efficiency, productivity and key performance indicators." That's textbook Marxist al…
> It was not supposed to happen to middle class workers though.
Don't think Marx wrote or said that. Any source?
Re: The darker side of being a doctor (2017)
#298I am a working physician (50+) that is currently in training to become an IT professional, preferably working with development of new patient records systems. Being a physician is just not very intellectually challenging, more emotionally challenging, programming is in my mind a real challenge. Any others with experience of changing fields?
I'm an anesthesiologist. Two years ago I switched to doing 100% software engineering. I had already worked in software, but not full time. There were many reasons. More time with my family was a big one. Work not being intellectually challenging was a another.
Having worked in software before must have made it easier to change profession?
I have not so I think I need formal training, I am a programming hobbyist writing in python and did some SQL for databases for research.
I guess I need to have really tough problems to solve, when I succeed, there is almost nothing like it, the feeling of accomplishment.
Re: The darker side of being a doctor (2017)
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
False. The AMA has no regulatory or accreditation authority over medical schools. Schools can admit as many students as they want. The bottleneck right now in producing more US physicians is lack of Medicare funding for residency slots (graduate medical education). Every year some students graduate from accredited medical schools with an MD but are unable to practice because they don't get matched to a residency prog…
Why do residency programs require subsidies, are resident doctors each a large net financial loss to a hospital? I can't think of many other career paths where someone out of school is so underprepared for the job that the business could not employ them without someone else footing the bill, doesn't seem like a reasonable system that will sustain itself in the long term. I suppose pilots are a bit like this but they…
Hospital accounting is always messy. There's no simple way to determine whether a particular program is profitable or not; it comes down to how the accountants allocate overhead costs. But the fact that publicly owned and non-profit teaching hospitals aren't voluntarily expanding their residency training programs is strong evidence that they operate at a loss.
Very few other career paths have such an extensive body of knowledge, licensing requirements, and low tolerance for errors. Law is maybe a bit similar in that new associates in most firms are worse than useless, and training them sucks up a lot of time from senior associates and partners. But law firms aren't subject to price fixing, so they have more freedom to raise their rates in order to cover those costs.
Re: The darker side of being a doctor (2017)
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s extremely beneficial to the people who are already doctors (dramatically increases salary, prestige, power), and that is a powerful group in most societies.
So beneficial that they commit suicide?
The people who organise scarcity find it beneficial to themselves, but obviously it doesn't mean all doctors, or even most them, like this situation.