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The darker side of being a doctor (2017)

drericlevi.substack.com

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Re: The darker side of being a doctor (2017)

#91

Post by DonnyV »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #66
DonnyV wrote: post #31

This is what happens when everything is financialized. There is no reason that we should be running doctors into the ground. Health professionals are a necessity in a functioning society. I know in the US Government seems to have no problem throwing money at corporations and providing endless tax breaks. But god forbid we proved a functioning health system. For the US this needs to happen. 1) Medicare For All - a uni…

Public healthcare doesn't work. They just get progressively worse and start adding expenses for the patients. The quality is terrible, despite the propaganda. The best companies were offering private healthcare with their offer. I've seen it happen in two countries, now I live in one which just made most of private healthcare (which is excellent quality) available as public. It's working well for now but they're spen…

I didn't say Public healthcare. Only the insurance is public. The healthcare system still stays private.

Re: The darker side of being a doctor (2017)

#92

Post by Turing_Machine »

eclectic29 wrote: post #78

Thanks for sharing. This is so disheartening. The other day I was debating with my friends how a doctors life is so cool that they don’t have to go though grueling coding interviews every single time they want to change jobs, don’t have to prove themselves every single quarter, don’t have to be answerable to anyone or write performance reviews or be subjected to arbitrary rubrics. Boy, I was so wrong. Every processio…

Even PCPs sometimes have to go home with the knowledge that someone died, and (being human) wondering if there was something else they could have done.

Now imagine that happening dozens or hundreds of times over the course of a career.

Unless coders are working on air traffic control or something similarly critical, it's pretty rare for a bug to kill someone.

Re: The darker side of being a doctor (2017)

#93

Post by kwhitefoot »

317070 wrote: post #79
malux85 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the meta-game, where doctors get burnt out or suicide, and that increases pressure on the remaining doctors, in a negative feedback loop. We should impose work limits on doctors, just like pilots.

What I don't understand: Say I'm a doctor, and I declare I will only work my 40 hours (or however much a full time is where you are). I will literally leave when my time is up. Oh, and I don't pick up phones outside of work. Or read emails. What will anyone else do about it? Fire me? Then they have even less doctors... It seems to me doctors do have the power to change things, even without collectivizing. But for som…

They would earn less money.

> the power to change things, even without collectivizing.

Not really it's a sort of prisoner's dilemma. The one who refuses to work stupid hours gets fired and someone else has their job. If they stood together then it might work.

Re: The darker side of being a doctor (2017)

#94

Post by nextaccountic »

nradov wrote: post #67
bsdz wrote: post #30

Something 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…

Artificially limiting the supply of doctors is one way of rationing healthcare and holding down costs. Healthcare in the UK is largely funded through the NHS. Voters are already financially struggling and don't want to pay higher taxes. In some cases, even emergency patients are waiting hours in ambulances because hospitals are so overloaded. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-68171254

Artificially limiting the supply of doctors drives the wages up. It's a common demand of doctors worldwide

Re: The darker side of being a doctor (2017)

#95

Post by jstummbillig »

user_7832 wrote: post #2

Most of the issues mentioned in the article and the included email are concerning, however they also oddly seem to be common in many places across the globe. The surgeon mentioned was in Australia, I have seen these issues first hand in the Netherlands and am aware of very similar of the first 2 out of 3 issues (caused by overwork/understaffing/over-fatigue etc) in Belgium, Germany, the UK, India and god knows how ma…

Compared to aviation, bad outcomes in medicine are a) not news material and also b) taken into account beforehand.

Phobias apart, we simply do not expect to die, when we fly. In contrast, we openly consider % survival rates of medical procedures. These rates have human error already baked in, and would be lower if humans made less errors. And then there is the primal fear of not getting help, if needed, because no help was available, which certainly works on our collective will to action here.

A 50% survival procedure for medicine might work, because it's either that or death. Aviation is always a few plane malfunctions (not even outright crashes) in quick succession away from the entire industry crashing.

Re: The darker side of being a doctor (2017)

#96

Post by lolinder »

nradov wrote: post #67
bsdz wrote: post #30

Something 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…

Artificially limiting the supply of doctors is one way of rationing healthcare and holding down costs. Healthcare in the UK is largely funded through the NHS. Voters are already financially struggling and don't want to pay higher taxes. In some cases, even emergency patients are waiting hours in ambulances because hospitals are so overloaded. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-68171254

This doesn't make a lot of sense as an explanation for the policy—if there were more doctors trained that doesn't require that they find jobs, but it does make it easier for hospitals to replace their doctors if and when they need to, and likely at a lower price. If healthcare costs were the reason I'd expect the government to cap the number of doctors they employ now, not try to guess how many doctors they'll wish they could employ in six years.

Re: The darker side of being a doctor (2017)

#98

Post by IvyMike »

DonnyV wrote: post #31

This is what happens when everything is financialized. There is no reason that we should be running doctors into the ground. Health professionals are a necessity in a functioning society. I know in the US Government seems to have no problem throwing money at corporations and providing endless tax breaks. But god forbid we proved a functioning health system. For the US this needs to happen. 1) Medicare For All - a uni…

It appears that Dr. Eric Levi works in England.

Re: The darker side of being a doctor (2017)

#99

Post by kwhitefoot »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #66
DonnyV wrote: post #31

This is what happens when everything is financialized. There is no reason that we should be running doctors into the ground. Health professionals are a necessity in a functioning society. I know in the US Government seems to have no problem throwing money at corporations and providing endless tax breaks. But god forbid we proved a functioning health system. For the US this needs to happen. 1) Medicare For All - a uni…

Public healthcare doesn't work. They just get progressively worse and start adding expenses for the patients. The quality is terrible, despite the propaganda. The best companies were offering private healthcare with their offer. I've seen it happen in two countries, now I live in one which just made most of private healthcare (which is excellent quality) available as public. It's working well for now but they're spen…

> Public healthcare doesn't work.

It works here.

Re: The darker side of being a doctor (2017)

#100

Post by lazyasciiart »

KittenInABox wrote: post #43
kvonhorn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supply and demand. If you artificially cap the supply of doctors, then the doctors can ramp up their prices.

I don't even think doctors want the cap, tbh. Your average emergency physician would take all the qualified help they can get.

Yes, but how many residents can each emergency physician train at once? Doctors are similar to apprentices for the last part of their training.
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