81–90 of 170 posts
I wonder if the high salary is worth the mountain of debt on top of all this. Could part of reason why the education is so expensive due to the monopoly in all the tests med students have to take? http://endstep2cs.com/petition/
Compared to previous generations (and the change is quite steep -- I am talking about students today vs. students 5-10 years ago), a growing proportion of medical students have entitlement issues. Those issues are roughly two-fold : (1) feeling entitled to a "balanced" lifestyle; (2) feeling entitled to help people. The first one is obvious: student want to leave early, they don't understand that patients always come…
>"Mother Teresa Complex" Wouldn't this mean simply telling the patient that their suffering is "God's plan" and refusing to treat them, nor give them any pain medication?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you really work 90 hours? That's 13 hours a day 7 days a week. How does that even work logistically when you need to eat, sleep, commute, do laundry, shop for food, and hopefully also see family or friends on occasion.
I still remember the first day of my surgery rotation, when the head surgeon came in to give us a lecture: "Sorry if I'm a bit off, I just finished a 30 hour shift and haven't slept yet." lol. It varies greatly by specialty and program but I can assure there are physicians who literally test the limits of how much you can work in a week.
My wife finished medical school a bit over 4 years ago. While she thought medical school was brutal, it was comparatively easy compared to the challenges she faced in residency (she did her prelim at UCLA-Harbor and is now at Boston Children's hospital doing pediatric neurology). 80+ hour work weeks are the norm, and sometimes she works 14 days straight and has a pager that beeps throughout the night that she must re…
Something really needs to be done about current crony capitalistic US medical industry.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I still remember the first day of my surgery rotation, when the head surgeon came in to give us a lecture: "Sorry if I'm a bit off, I just finished a 30 hour shift and haven't slept yet." lol. It varies greatly by specialty and program but I can assure there are physicians who literally test the limits of how much you can work in a week.
That sounds incredibly dangerous. I don't doubt that it happens, but I'd much prefer the person cutting me open to not be fatigued and exhausted.
However, this is a vestige of the old culture and is slowly but surely being replaced both by new rules and, generally speaking, a better culture.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When has that happened to you, or anybody you've known? Are you kidding me? I practiced medicine until 8 months ago when I burned out and had to take a break. One of the cases I recall having on an offshore medical center, involved 4 victims who had suffered burns(in one case over 80% of his body surface area), on a night when I had 2 other patients on admission. It easily took my team of four 5 hours to stabilize…
In these incidents, how many times did you have to reach on your advanced medical training instead of the basic ones to treat burn wounds and fix food poisoning? How was any aspect of your job improved by your years of medical school, your years of residency? Would you rather have more less trained doctors, or fewer elite doctors in those circumstances?
People fail out of the profession at various levels. A classmate of mine fled in the second year during her first dissection of a cadavar, never to return, some make it to residncy then quit. Certainly we should be vigilant and catch students before they become suicidal. But really, the practice of medicine requires a certain temperament. Some people are built for it and others are not.
> Would you rather have more less trained doctors, or fewer elite doctors in those circumstances?*
Unfortunately there is no middle ground. A doctor is either capable or he/she is not. We simply cant train them halfway. There are countries that have carried out the experiment you propose and attempt to train doctors to 'adequate' levels. The results are not good.
My wife finished medical school a bit over 4 years ago. While she thought medical school was brutal, it was comparatively easy compared to the challenges she faced in residency (she did her prelim at UCLA-Harbor and is now at Boston Children's hospital doing pediatric neurology). 80+ hour work weeks are the norm, and sometimes she works 14 days straight and has a pager that beeps throughout the night that she must re…
My wife finished medical school a bit over 4 years ago. While she thought medical school was brutal, it was comparatively easy compared to the challenges she faced in residency (she did her prelim at UCLA-Harbor and is now at Boston Children's hospital doing pediatric neurology). 80+ hour work weeks are the norm, and sometimes she works 14 days straight and has a pager that beeps throughout the night that she must re…
The majority of today's US med school students admitted in 2016 were born in 1992. They grew up watching the silly kids and stupid parents sit-com world of Disney Channel and Nickelodeon while getting soccer trophies for showing up. They wasted a lot of time playing non-educational games rather than reading or working hard to accomplish real things. While they had to work incredibly hard to get into medical school, a…