Interview Question: Problems in Healthcare/Issues in Medicine

[TheTrojanMan]

Alright this is going to sound very stupid, but I'm needing some additional input on these two questions.

What are the 5 biggest problems with the current health care system in the United States?

What are the 5 biggest issues in medicine today?

Easy...i know, but I really screwed these two up during one of my interviews last year. I would GREATLY appreciate some opinions out there.

oh yeah, and does anyone know what DNR stands for?

thanks

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[ctlohans]

I'm not sure about the interview questions, but DNR stands for "Do Not Resuscitate".

 

[bmcgilligan]

DNR= do not rescusitate

Some healthcare problems (IMHO):
1) Low insurance reimbursements for physicians causing them to have to spend less time w/ patients.
2) Lack of health insurance in many Americans (especially children), causing them to use the ER for primary care and then not being able to pay for it, shooting up healthcare costs for everyone to outset that cost.
3) In Florida, the new 3 strikes law
4) High rate of stupid law suits (not all are stupid, but some are...causing healthcare costs to rise)
5) Drug companies advertising in magazines and on TV...asking patients to ask their doctors about such and such med, causing drs to spend time (that I have already mentioned is less than it used to be) explaining why such and such drug is not advisable in the particular patient's case. It would be much better if drug companies would only advertise to physicians (even take out ads in medical periodicals meant for physicians) so that the doctor can practice the best medicine and spend more time explaining what WILL work and not why advertised med won't.

These may not be the most important problems, but they are some I could think of off the top of my head.

Issues in medicine today:
1) all of those problems listed above
2) rising obesity among Americans (which causes a plethora of problems)
3) Organ donation on patients removed from ventilator support...here in Florida this may become an issue in the next few months...and how the public will see this
4) Of course, who can not list the whole stem cell controversy

I can't think of any more off the top of my head.

 

[tigress]

Don't worry, they aren't easy questions at all. You probably didn't screw them up as badly as you think. Try to read newspapers and current magazines, including news and editorials, and you'll start to get a feel for what kinds of healthcare problems you could talk about. There isn't any right answer, so it could be whatever strikes you personally as important. bmcgilligan has some great responses.

Somebody posted a link to an article by Atul Gawande yesterday. I'd say reading that and things like that will help you most. There are a bunch of good books on the topic, too, if you have the time to read them. I recentlyl read Internal Bleeding, which was quite good.

 

[TheTrojanMan]

Thanks a bundle guys...I REALLY appreciate it

 

[Blue Scrub]

Just some off the top of my head...

Rising cost of prescription drugs/prescription drugs from Canada
Obesity in America
Malpractice
Rising insurance rates
Lack of doctors in rural areas

 

[PTPoeny]

I included overuse of antibiotics/increasing drug resistant bacteria, decline in vaccination rates and loss of public health infrastructure in additions to things people have already mentioned.