Primary care "shortage"

[Mad Jack]

Do people seriously aspire to be primary care docs or is it just a field they get sucked into? I know 4 primary care docs, all of them recommend doing something else in medicine or choosing a new career. One of those primary care docs was some genius neurosurgeon in his home country!

Used to be a thing people ended up stuck in. Nowadays, there's a lot more selection for primary care, so there's a lot of people that actually want to be in it.

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[22031 Alum]

The consensus within the medical community is that there is no shortage and that the problem is one of distribution/allocation. It's a much harder problem to fix. It means you could double the output of doctors and you'd just worsen gluts in some places without fixing the problem. You really can't force people on a high powered career trajectory to go live on the farm, exchanging healthcare for fresh eggs. So all you can do is recruit people from these communities who might go back, and otherwise try to entice people to relocate to these places. As mentioned though, the money might be better spent building malls, ballparks and airports than offering them up as salaries.

I've personally seen people take pay cuts of almost $100K in order to be in a more desirable, already-saturated location. And this is for general OB/GYN, which is more primary care than high-powered specialty. I'm not sure how you can fix that and still allow people to have independence in where they choose to build their lives.

 

[virchow?]

Do people seriously aspire to be primary care docs or is it just a field they get sucked into? I know 4 primary care docs, all of them recommend doing something else in medicine or choosing a new career. One of those primary care docs was some genius neurosurgeon in his home country!

ew

 

[DaWeasel]

For the most part these "studies" that suggest a doctor shortage have been politically motivated and poorly designed. There are interest groups that want the US to increase med school and residency slots for their own benefit and there are groups that want licensing boards to concede doctors can't do it all and throw open the doors to other fields. Politically motivated "science" is the worst kind of science.

The consensus within the medical community is that there is no shortage and that the problem is one of distribution/allocation. It's a much harder problem to fix. It means you could double the output of doctors and you'd just worsen gluts in some places without fixing the problem. You really can't force people on a high powered career trajectory to go live on the farm, exchanging healthcare for fresh eggs. So all you can do is recruit people from these communities who might go back, and otherwise try to entice people to relocate to these places. As mentioned though, the money might be better spent building malls, ballparks and airports than offering them up as salaries.

I've personally seen people take pay cuts of almost $100K in order to be in a more desirable, already-saturated location. And this is for general OB/GYN, which is more primary care than high-powered specialty. I'm not sure how you can fix that and still allow people to have independence in where they choose to build their lives.

The disparities in pay in rural vs urban physician pay would seem to affirm the idea there is a saturation of docs in urban areas. I don't believe that it is either possible or ethical to manipulate the situation so that more physicians would choose rural over urban environments. Given that position, I'm inclined to believe that it is best to accept that rural areas will simply have less access to care. It is a trade-off that those in a rural area are likely aware of yet many, like my family, still remain.

This is why I questioned in my original post the concept of a physician shortage. There may always be a conceivable way to improve the medical system but there are only finite resources to do so. I'd think it much better to invest money in other areas of medicine with a higher marginal returns rather than to try to persuade doctors to live in places that they don't want to live in.

 

[Sgucci]

it's more often than not to save face and look like they're aiming to address a serious problem (lack of PCP providers). When most oft he time they're more often than not enabling the shortage by jacking up tuition prices to insanely high values and overloading medical students, which pushes med students into ROAD specialities and other high paying specialities. If they gave more foreign trained doctors a chance and required proper certification, the primary care shortage would be resolved nearly instantaneously.

 

[supremetaco]

For the most part these "studies" that suggest a doctor shortage have been politically motivated and poorly designed. There are interest groups that want the US to increase med school and residency slots for their own benefit and there are groups that want licensing boards to concede doctors can't do it all and throw open the doors to other fields. Politically motivated "science" is the worst kind of science.

The consensus within the medical community is that there is no shortage and that the problem is one of distribution/allocation. It's a much harder problem to fix. It means you could double the output of doctors and you'd just worsen gluts in some places without fixing the problem. You really can't force people on a high powered career trajectory to go live on the farm, exchanging healthcare for fresh eggs. So all you can do is recruit people from these communities who might go back, and otherwise try to entice people to relocate to these places. As mentioned though, the money might be better spent building malls, ballparks and airports than offering them up as salaries.

Can I get some links for my own research? I haven't found many analyses showing that so I'd like to get some references for my education's sake. Others can probably use them to get more informed as well

 

[AblondeMystery]

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