Why Make 150k When 450k Is Out There?

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To Newman's own:

Check it out: http://www.brynmawr.edu/postbac/ is that you on the front page?

A post bac program, geared in attempting to get students admitted into a huge variety of different health science careers? I have never ever heard of such a thing, I am not trying to insult you, just trying to educate myself here.

We will assist you in your search for a medically related job in the "glide year" Because our program is so well respected in the medical community, we regularly receive job leads and postings, including positions created with our students in mind. Recent graduates of our program also provide us with information and contacts about where they are working during their glide year, and even pass their jobs on as they enter medical school. We can also help you to create your own ideal job by networking with medical school faculty whose research or clinical specialization matches your specific interests.

For example, our students have recently served as a program manager of a reproductive hormone study at the Center for Research in Reproduction and Women's Health at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, a health care research intern in the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission at the Center for Infectious Disease Research, Lusaka, Zambia, and a special assistant to the vice president of the Center for Clinical Care Improvement of the Association of American Medical Colleges in Washington, D.C.

A Special Place
Founded in 1885, Bryn Mawr College is widely known as one of the nation's elite liberal arts colleges for women and is respected worldwide for excellence in the arts and humanities, the social sciences and the natural sciences. Bryn Mawr has two coeducational graduate schools — in the Arts and Sciences and in Social Work and Social Research. Our 1,200 undergraduate women and 500 graduate women and men come from every state in the nation and more than 50 countries.


is this your glide year? Anybody ever heard of the credibility of this type of program? It is very interesting.

Since admission to the program is highly selective, we look for applicants who show a strong academic record at both the high school and college level. In general, accepted students have a B (3.0) average or better at the college level and standardized test scores consistent with that level of performance. Your motivation for becoming a physician will also be considered, along with your career history, volunteer activities and any experiences you have had in health care. Letters of recommendation give us further insights into your capabilities.

Medical schools would actually consider you if your GPA from undergrad hovered around a 3.0? That is considered highly selective?? That must mean that several individuals must be below 3.0. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because alot of people have a change in careers later on in life. Interesting nonetheless.
The mean GPA at my medical school undergraduate wise was around 3.6. However, not everybody was hardcore pre-med -- some were business, law, and did well on the MCAT.
The local Chiropractic College accepts people with 3.2 undergrad GPA and above. The nursing program accepts individuals with a 3.0 and above. I am not following this place.
You are telling me that this place, where individuals are at or below -- or slightly above 3.0, which is the mean, are getting accepted into medical school? Somehow I am in a state of generalized disbelief. Correct me if I am uneducated, as you refer to me, your highness.

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:laugh:

Another personal shot.

Are you implying because I'm a specialist, and because I posted about real-life concerns, that I'm not a good doctor?
You might be a good diagnostician, but that doesn't mean you're a good doctor if you lack compassion and interpersonal skills. I'm not saying that's you, but it worries me whenever I see people focusing their career decisions solely on money. I don't think it's a stretch to assume that many physicians who choose their specialty primarily for money, also originally chose medicine as a career primarily for the same reason, and might not be going into this field for reasons that are in the best interests of patients.
 
I dont know what exactly happened to this thread :laugh:, but I just got accepted into medical school and I am already hoping to specialize for what its worth...granted money is not THE only factor, it is the biggest factor for me. If I can find a specialty that I like and also pays well, then I am hoping to do that. This is all based on shadowing FP's and specialists and hearing what they have to say.
 
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I got bored at about page 2, skipped to page 7 and read back through 4.

Could all the med students going into FP please post their Step 1 scores?
 
Coming from a med student who is most likely going to do family practice, I would be lying if I said I don't see the appeal of anesthesia and other higher paying specialties; however, when all is said and done I can't see myself doing anything other than family practice at this point.

One point might be the fact I don't have any debt from med school due to the military, but I think another big fact is that I don't mind working in a rural area where the average FP salary is around $250K. From what I understand from most of the articles on America's MD shortage is that while anesthesiologists are still in high demand, family medicine docs will continue to be in demand for at least 10-15 years.

Plus, how long have MD's had to deal with a broken Medicare/Medicaid system? We are just on the verge of seeing the "direct practice" come into form for family med docs and it looks like it will be around for a long time.

I personally won't be plagued by most of the problems noted in this thread b/c I will serve my 20 years in the military, retire and then work 3-4 days per week in my 50's while taking my well deserved 12 weeks off a year; BUT I haven't met a family medicine doctor that isn't happy with his practice. Also, note I haven't met an anesthesiologist that is unhappy, but I have met more unhappy surgeons than happy ones.
 
hahahahahahahahahahaha

1) I'm out of undergrad; I work for the NIH.
2) I'll be going to an American medical school -- you wouldn't know what that's like.
3) I am the ****.
4) Did you not pull two posts out of my past?
5) hahahaha you've spent this entire thread bad-mouthing anesthesiology and you were seriously considering it! Classic...
6) I don't know if I'm fantasizing about you -- send me a pic and I'll make the call.

you are MOST DEFINITELY THE **** I am so unbelievably and incredibly sorry, I did not mean to undermine your greatness oh wise one.

As a matter of fact, you are

Highly Competitive Mr. Bryn Mar

medical incredible AGENT 3.0


I am so sorry, I did not realize that you are a Bryn Mar student, where the mean , and not cutoff GPA is 3.0.

I personally think that Anesthesiology is an AWESOME field, but I do not like it when others bad mouth other specialties, out of monetary reasons primarily.

There are pluses and minuses to every profession.
 
I got bored at about page 2, skipped to page 7 and read back through 4.

Could all the med students going into FP please post their Step 1 scores?

And your point would be?

Really. This is cyberspace and no one has to tell the truth, as is evidenced by the MCAT, Step and COMLEX forums.

Not sure I see the point in this exercise anyway.
 
well maybe if so few med students want to go into family medicine, how about separating medical education into two categories. specialty medical school and primary care medschool. obviously, it would be a bit easier to get into the primary care medschool, and cheaper as well. so future family doctors would not be in debt.

:confused:
 
That would be short sighted fix the problem. People are concerned about primary care reimbursements, but it is a temporary symptom of a broken system. Medicine will survive the current phase we are in. Medicare is on the verge of collapse. Insurance premiums are rising and with it will be a flood of self pay, high deductible catastrophic insurance. Primary care will survive and be on top, especially with health savings accounts.

Furthermore, we have the start of DNP's. People will still want the gold standard, MD/DO and will pay for such. I believe primary care is far from dead, if anything, on the verge of entering the golden era.
 
Oh, what the hell...

Page 7!

+pad+

:corny:


Btw, I think I found the perfect forum for JPP. It's called the Business of Medicine and it's over in Allopathic. And even better, it just so happens to be where all the medical students are!!

Imagine how popular his thread would be there and how many young minds he would reach!

It's really a lost cause here. I mean, it's really too late for at least HALF of the people reading this thread. Especially you, Kent! There's no hope at all for you turning around at this point. :(:p
 
Could all the med students going into FP please post their Step 1 scores?

Mine's 600. Or 200%, whichever you prefer. I'm at the 200th percentile as well. I'm waaaay beyond two standard deviations. I'm at the upper spectrum of the bell curve!


P.S. p<0.0000000000000000000000000000001
 
I think I found the perfect forum for JPP. It's called the Business of Medicine and it's over in Allopathic. And even better, it just so happens to be where all the medical students are!!

Exactly my contention with the original post. Question was directed at the wrong sub-group, and then the OP gets defensive and miffed when the reaction to his post is highly critical.

It's like he walked into a convent to ridicule the monks for giving up sex. If he disagrees with the life...talk to the ones thinking about it, not the ones already doing it (or...NOT doing it *ahem*).
 
I got bored at about page 2, skipped to page 7 and read back through 4.

Could all the med students going into FP please post their Step 1 scores?

179...first try! booyah!
 
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i expect serious responses here... c;mon people, answer my Q, please SERIOUSLY.

here it is:
"well maybe if so few med students want to go into family medicine, how about separating medical education into two categories. specialty medical school and primary care medschool. obviously, it would be a bit easier to get into the primary care medschool, and cheaper as well. so future family doctors would not be in debt."
 
i expect serious responses here... c;mon people, answer my Q, please SERIOUSLY.

here it is:
"well maybe if so few med students want to go into family medicine, how about separating medical education into two categories. specialty medical school and primary care medschool. obviously, it would be a bit easier to get into the primary care medschool, and cheaper as well. so future family doctors would not be in debt."

Um theres no difference in primary care and specialty training in med school. So you have three big issues (plus a few more I'm probably not think of)

1) How are you going to justify making students at specialty schools pay more for the same education? What happens if they change their mind half way through?

2) How will you designate which school is which? A lot of smaller states only have one med school and if you have it be only PC or specialty you are losing a lot of providers for your community. Plus it's not fair to applicants if you take away their one state school.

3) There is no incentive to do what you are proposing. There are not enough residency spots for everyone to specialize. Despite all the talk FM, IM, and Peds still fill up with residents because there is no where else for them to go.

The problem is really not that big. We're talking about shifting maybe 300-500 students each year to primary care. The way some of you talk is as if we need people in the thousands every year.
 
To Newman's own:

Check it out: http://www.brynmawr.edu/postbac/ is that you on the front page?

A post bac program, geared in attempting to get students admitted into a huge variety of different health science careers? I have never ever heard of such a thing, I am not trying to insult you, just trying to educate myself here.

is this your glide year? Anybody ever heard of the credibility of this type of program? It is very interesting.

Medical schools would actually consider you if your GPA from undergrad hovered around a 3.0? That is considered highly selective?? That must mean that several individuals must be below 3.0. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because alot of people have a change in careers later on in life. Interesting nonetheless.
The mean GPA at my medical school undergraduate wise was around 3.6. However, not everybody was hardcore pre-med -- some were business, law, and did well on the MCAT.
The local Chiropractic College accepts people with 3.2 undergrad GPA and above. The nursing program accepts individuals with a 3.0 and above. I am not following this place.
You are telling me that this place, where individuals are at or below -- or slightly above 3.0, which is the mean, are getting accepted into medical school? Somehow I am in a state of generalized disbelief. Correct me if I am uneducated, as you refer to me, your highness.

you are MOST DEFINITELY THE **** I am so unbelievably and incredibly sorry, I did not mean to undermine your greatness oh wise one.

As a matter of fact, you are

Highly Competitive Mr. Bryn Mar

medical incredible AGENT 3.0

I am so sorry, I did not realize that you are a Bryn Mar student, where the mean , and not cutoff GPA is 3.0.

I personally think that Anesthesiology is an AWESOME field, but I do not like it when others bad mouth other specialties, out of monetary reasons primarily.

There are pluses and minuses to every profession.


Well, I see you're having trouble letting this go -- I really do regret engaging in any sort of dialogue with you. I don't know what 'account on hold' means, but if you're still able to read posts, I will glady try to educate you, as you requested in your first post.

No, it's not me on the front page. I tend to sport some scruff and unkempt hair, so I think it's wise of them to put someone more clean-cut and scholarly on the homepage. Everyone knows glasses make you look smarter, and I don't have them.

3.0 is indeed the cutoff GPA for Bryn Mawr, not the average. To be honest, I know of no one who has a GPA that low, but I think the admissions committee likes to keep an open mind regarding applicants -- it's proven to be a successful tactic in the past, as I understand.

As far as chiropractic and nursing goes, people from Bryn Mawr don't really go into those particular fields. It's almost all medical school kids, with a few dental and veterinary sprinkled in each year. I do know of a postbac for chiropractic; I think it's in Ohio, but you wouldn't go to Bryn Mawr if you wanted to be a chiropractor.

If you want to see a list of acceptances for Bryn Mawr students to various med schools, check out this chart:

http://www.brynmawr.edu/postbac/facts2.shtml

We're no slouches, I can assure you -- though we tend to be pretty laid back. Here's a chart of the schools from whence we came:

http://www.brynmawr.edu/postbac/facts3.shtml

If you have any other questions about the program, feel free to ask. But I hope you'll leave the sarcasm and thinly veiled insults out. I would also ask you to please stop posting falsities about my program and my academic record; it's really rather inappropriate. We've had our fight and I'm trying to let it go for the sake of SDN's credibility.
 
If the past two pages haven't killed the thread yet, maybe math will:



a $250K house, I can say from experience, with no money down (as offered to residents at my institution) costs $1900 per month, in a high-tax area, including escrow.

A $25K car, I can say from experience, costs $437/mo, also no money down.

Tuition (or if they're younger, daycare) at $700 per month per kid. Assuming two kids, $1400.

Power: 200/mo

Gas: $50 per fill per week for two cars: $400

Two iPhones per month: $180

Week at a resort for a family of four: $4000, or 333/mo

Total cost of big-ticket items per month: $5287.

An FP who makes 150k gross and nets two-thirds of that makes $8250 a month. They've still got $3k/month left over. And that's before their spouse goes to work. Not too shabby.

Well thought out response - priceless

One point might be the fact I don't have any debt from med school due to the military, but I think another big fact is that I don't mind working in a rural area where the average FP salary is around $250K. From what I understand from most of the articles on America's MD shortage is that while anesthesiologists are still in high demand, family medicine docs will continue to be in demand for at least 10-15 years.

.

I too graduated debt free, then lost almost $200K in real estate in the last 2 years. I love warm states - live in the Southwest, upcoming residency in the central south - but the financial incentives to primary care (FP, IM, Pede) in Wisconsin makes me consider that cold state - there are state and private sign on bonus' of $20-50,000 and many of them are per year (each year you continue another bonus) - and pays pretty high. Not a few $200K base salary FP jobs with decent bonus structures. I may have to endure the cold a few years to get back to debt free.
 
Furthermore, we have the start of DNP's. People will still want the gold standard, MD/DO and will pay for such. I believe primary care is far from dead, if anything, on the verge of entering the golden era.

Well the Golden Era of primary care was in the 80's, but that was mostly due to a lot of greed from doctors across the board. One of my preceptors was pulling in $500-600k a year in the 80's as a family medicine doc and it wasn't because he was greedy, it was just how medicine was run in the 80's. If I remember right he only worked 3-4 days per week too.

The HMO's and insurance companies put a stop to all that and now don't give doctors the options they once had. Personally if you are smart enough to make it through medical school and residency then you should be smart enough to manage your over $100k salary.
 
Well the Golden Era of primary care was in the 80's, but that was mostly due to a lot of greed from doctors across the board. One of my preceptors was pulling in $500-600k a year in the 80's as a family medicine doc and it wasn't because he was greedy, it was just how medicine was run in the 80's.

I'm not disputing your anecdote, but that income level has never been typical in primary care. Family physician incomes have been relatively flat since the early 1980's. A fairly detailed analysis of physician incomes during that decade may be found here: http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/11/1/181.pdf

The average primary care income in 1988 was $102,500, which equates to approximately $184,773 in today's dollars, according to the inflation calculator. The median income for primary care physicians in 2004 was $161,816 ( http://www.aafp.org/fpm/20070300/news.html ).
 
Wow crazy how this thread blew up in the past week or so since I checked it last.

I am still interested in FM despite the dropping reimbursement rates for FP's. The only aspect that I am worried about to some degree is how that might effect my ability to pay back my student loans. However it seems that those who have gone through it before me have said it is doable. The only difference is that they came out with considerably less in debt than I will. I am curious, with ~$250k in debt after graduation, what will the loan repayments be like when I leave residency?
 
I am curious, with ~$250k in debt after graduation, what will the loan repayments be like when I leave residency?

Try this financial aid calculator: http://www.finaid.org/calculators/loanpayments.phtml

That's a big loan. If that were me, I'd be looking into jobs that offered loan forgiveness of some sort, even if it's just for a few years.

Edit: I found this statement on that loan calculator site, and thought it might be worth repeating here: "A good rule of thumb is that your total education debt should be less than your expected starting salary. If you borrow more than twice your expected starting salary you will find it extremely difficult to repay the debt." I imagine that's true.
 
Try this financial aid calculator: http://www.finaid.org/calculators/loanpayments.phtml

That's a big loan. If that were me, I'd be looking into jobs that offered loan forgiveness of some sort, even if it's just for a few years.

It is a lot, but that also includes my BS and MA degrees. I am leaning towards rural FP, so I should be able to find federal/state grants to help with some of the repayments.
 
That would be short sighted fix the problem. People are concerned about primary care reimbursements, but it is a temporary symptom of a broken system. Medicine will survive the current phase we are in. Medicare is on the verge of collapse. Insurance premiums are rising and with it will be a flood of self pay, high deductible catastrophic insurance. Primary care will survive and be on top, especially with health savings accounts.

Furthermore, we have the start of DNP's. People will still want the gold standard, MD/DO and will pay for such. I believe primary care is far from dead, if anything, on the verge of entering the golden era.


I have been and continue to be somewhat concerned about the untold potential effect of "mid-levels" posing as physicians. However, I think your quote is probably prognostication (at least I would like to hope it is so). I definitely agree that eventually the majority of patients will certainly seek the care of a PHYSICIAN, not a "PROVIDER", i.e. a far less trained "mid-level" physician imposter.
In regard to the main theme, as I opined previously, compensation is unquestionably an important issue to anyone entering any profession. It is more so in medicine due to the frequency of obscene student loan repayment pressures. However, primary care doesn't pay "beans" either and financial considerations can also mis-lead a newly minted practitioner into a clinical discipline that either makes one miserable or obessed with seeking one's fortune from supposedly managing the serious problems of others. Medicine is still, even in this sensationalist-obsessed, greedy era, a unique career that should be based on one's desire to contribute in a way most suited for the prospective practitioner as well as offer a rewarding career, as opposed to what will result in the most material gain.
In regard to loan forgiveness arrangements, there are many plans available through Indian Health facilities, some inner urban clinics (underserved neighborhood clinics, for example, those that are Article 28 clinics in NYC and thus treat any presenting patinet regardless of ability to pay) and other areas deemed underserved. Kent's link covers many of these. However, one often must be willing to typically live in an area considered less than desirable (this can be a profound understatement), handle many uninsured patients commonly with poorly managed co-morbidities and sign at least a three-year contract binding one to the location of service and/or affiliates. That said, if one can deal with the difficult issues that such an arrangement contains, it can be a rewarding, reasonably well-compensated and derm-thickening experience.
 
I can't believe this thread. "If I am a FM doc, I might just have to drive around a Honda Accord instead of a Lexus to work! I can't join the country club! I'll have to wear a gold Rolex instead of a platinum one! I might have to own a 500K house instead of a million dollar one!"

Oh boo freakin' who. I'll be graduating with just over 100K in debt and my starting salary, even with a DVM and a research based masters degree in biology, will still only be ~60K. And I didn't go out of state or to some fancy private school for undergrad, grad school, or vet school. My out of state classmates will be 200K in debt. A colleague of mine knows a married couple that goes to St. George's in the Caribbean. Between the two, they will be a half million dollars in debt and will still not likely make over 200K a year between the two of them for a long time, if ever.

The specialty that I'm likely going into is veterinary nutrition. To be a boarded certified veterinary nutritionist, you get your DVM, do 1-2 year internship or comparable time in private practice, and 2-3 year residency, plus a masters or PhD if you so desire. Maybe I'll do a PhD just for fun. :rolleyes: The salaries of boarded veterinary nutritionists, which incidentally is the highest paid specialty? A mere 200K. I'm sure I'll just barely be able to make it day to day. :rolleyes: Probably the only reason they are paid that much is most of them (and there's only like 60 in the country) work for industry.

Veterinary medicine is the only medical/professional field where you have that much education paired with that little return, which is pathetic considering veterinary medical doctors protect the food supply and public health from zoonotic disease. For the record, even though my aunt is an assistant professor of anesthesiology at the University of Michigan, the anesthesia gene obviously skipped over me. Ick. ;)
 
That's a big loan. If that were me, I'd be looking into jobs that offered loan forgiveness of some sort, even if it's just for a few years.

Edit: I found this statement on that loan calculator site, and thought it might be worth repeating here: "A good rule of thumb is that your total education debt should be less than your expected starting salary. If you borrow more than twice your expected starting salary you will find it extremely difficult to repay the debt." I imagine that's true.

Sadly the 250K mark is quite easy to reach in a private school. Tuition alone is probably 40K now. That does not include living expenses or expenses for equipment and supplies you may need/have to buy for school. You can pass 200K easy. If you have any debt from undergrad or have any family issues it's not hard to go over 250K. I think in ten years when tuition will probably pass 50K you'll start seeing students with over 300K in loans and a good chunk of that will unfortunately be private loans.
 
Sadly the 250K mark is quite easy to reach in a private school. Tuition alone is probably 40K now. That does not include living expenses or expenses for equipment and supplies you may need/have to buy for school. You can pass 200K easy.

And don't forget interest. Currently rates are at 6.8%. Even making interest payments as a resident will be difficult to pull off, therefore that $200k might look more like $250k by the end of a 3 year residency with accrued interest.
 
Now I get it *slaps head* 450K is MORE money than 150K!
 
Interesting...
This past Sunday's New York Times, Letters to the Editor Section:

To the Editor:

Thank you for bringing attention to the growing problem of access to primary care in Massachusetts. The problem has been worsened by our universal health care initiative, which was missing a strategy to increase the number of providers to serve the increase in patient load.
Your article, however, focused on increasing the number of doctors to solve the primary care shortage. Nurse practitioners have been filling this role for more than three decades by providing the best in health care.
We are the future of primary care. :confused: Make an appointment. We’re open.

Robb Stenson
West Falmouth, Mass., April 7, 2008

To the Editor:
When I received my recent acceptance package for Boston University’s School of Medicine for the fall 2008 class, included was information about costs for the current academic year at B.U.S.M.

Tuition: $42,734
Fees: $2,914
Room and board: $11,933
Books and supplies: $2,845

The tuition is expected to increase by at least 4.5 percent next year. Only about 30 percent of students at the school will receive any scholarship or grant aid from any source.
Many students can expect to graduate from medical school with debt of about a quarter-million dollars, not to mention any undergraduate debt that may remain.
With a debt load that size, a family practice doctor would probably take home less money than a registered nurse. Until the reimbursement system is fixed and the debt load addressed, there will be a shortage in primary care. The numbers don’t lie.

Lee Shapley
Philadelphia, April 7, 2008
 
And don't forget interest. Currently rates are at 6.8%. Even making interest payments as a resident will be difficult to pull off, therefore that $200k might look more like $250k by the end of a 3 year residency with accrued interest.

Don't forget that many people will be married by the start of residency. An extra salary can really make alot of difference.

Having spent the last 6 years supporting a 3 person family on 24k/year, we're going to spending the next 4 living on my wife's 60k salary...

When I start residency, my residency pitance will go solely to loans while we continue to live on that same 60k...

My loans will me largely paid off by the end of residency...
 
I like JPP, he's a very sharp clinician and he's always giving back to the up and coming medical students and I frequent the anesthesiology forums. They are very interesting to this humble MS II. It has occured to me, however, that I seem to dislike a lot of the beaurocracy of hospital based specialties, and all the red tape and "staff meetings" and PC BS they bring. I think one factor in choosing a primary care specialty like FM would be that you could work in a solo practice, and you could pretty much pick and choose when, where, how, and what you treated. Yes, the money is an issue, especially with tuition and loan interest rates being high. Some people compile a list of things they want out of life and money is up there, some people compile a similar list and money is further down. Financially it makes for a better investment to go into a higher paying specialty, but what happens when you're tired of the surgeons bitching and the CRNAs telling you they can do your job and the administrators and bean counters telling you what meds you can and can't use at the hospital for cost reasons? Can you walk and set up a shingle somewhere? I guess you could if you like pain, but there's an irony in the name of that specialty which isn't lost on anyone. If anesthesiology could be tailored more, I would say I was 100% set on it, but right now I think FM and other primary care fields look pretty sweet too.
 
Veterinary medicine is the only medical/professional field where you have that much education paired with that little return, which is pathetic considering veterinary medical doctors protect the food supply and public health from zoonotic disease.

So you're saying that Vets are bigger martyrs than Primary Care docs?
 
So you're saying that Vets are bigger martyrs than Primary Care docs?

hate to say it, but compensation won't change significantly any time soon. Congress White House M.D.s on our side are all specialists. What do specialists do? They hire Nurse Practitioners to counsel their patients, because they are much cheaper than M.D.s.
Nobody will back Primary Care for a long long time.
As a matter of fact, Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants are hiring M.D.s to supervise their work. These people actually have the power to FIRE supervising M.D.s who don't agree with their whimsical medical knowledge. It is a huge circus, coming to a town you live in.
With the advent of "Nurse Doctors" there will no longer be a need for M.D.s to oversee their work.
Nurses as smart as doctors?
Of COURSE not. Its all about Money. Money is the only issue. How to cut costs. Nobody cares about patient care. It is all about cutting costs. It is disgusting.
Nobody should go into Primary Care. It is a dying field actually.
 
hate to say it, but compensation won't change significantly any time soon. Congress White House M.D.s on our side are all specialists. What do specialists do? They hire Nurse Practitioners to counsel their patients, because they are much cheaper than M.D.s.
Nobody will back Primary Care for a long long time.
As a matter of fact, Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants are hiring M.D.s to supervise their work. These people actually have the power to FIRE supervising M.D.s who don't agree with their whimsical medical knowledge. It is a huge circus, coming to a town you live in.
With the advent of "Nurse Doctors" there will no longer be a need for M.D.s to oversee their work.
Nurses as smart as doctors?
Of COURSE not. Its all about Money. Money is the only issue. How to cut costs. Nobody cares about patient care. It is all about cutting costs. It is disgusting.
Nobody should go into Primary Care. It is a dying field actually.

You raise some valid concerns, and one should be aware of these issues going in...but I have to disagree that primary care is dying. Even if it is, our medical system is in big trouble.
 
I'm curious what medicine looked like in the 50's/60's before the advent of FM as a specialty. Anyone here old enough (or know someone old enough) to remember what things were like as the generalist population dwindled but before FM came on the scene in '69?
 
Hmmmm.....I think the point of the thread was pretty well elucidated in the....uhhh....original post.

Reality is, emerging with 200-300 K in student loans like alotta med students do today is an intimidating sword to swallow.

I'd say most med students have anxiety about paying back this enormous sum.

And life trudges on after residency. Priorities change. Family/kids/house etc. These expenses are common amongst most people.

So like I said in the OP, considering the above, I wanted to hear from said med students.

You've chosen to insult me incessantly.

Thats your choice.

Doesnt eliminate the fact that this is a huge issue that dramatically affects specialty choice selection.

Concerning your post about telling you what you already know, like I said in the OP, I was interested in hearing from med students.

Since you arent a med student, your inquiry is rhetorical.

Defense mechanism= projection


Help me out guys, I'm rusty. What is the age in life when one begins to reanalyze one's life and worth, some call it the "mid life crisis" and try to find justification or worth?
 
:laugh:


Saint Pauli Girl, draft. Please. :thumbup:

Good choice... ;)

beer2.jpg

I know I'm behind (been in the hospital so I wasn't able to follow this discussion past week or two, but THIS IS SPATEN, not ST. Pauli Girl. You are ashame to all beer drinkers. I own this mug :D
 
Defense mechanism= projection


Help me out guys, I'm rusty. What is the age in life when one begins to reanalyze one's life and worth, some call it the "mid life crisis" and try to find justification or worth?

Erickson's Generativity vs. Stagnation?
 
As a matter of fact, Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants are hiring M.D.s to supervise their work. These people actually have the power to FIRE supervising M.D.s who don't agree with their whimsical medical knowledge. It is a huge circus, coming to a town you live in.

I actually did a rural FP rotation where this was the case. The PA owned the practice and the doc was under contract. It was the wierdest arrangement I've ever seen. None of my other classmates believed me. I guess it is becoming more common?

I was less than impressed with the doc that I rotated with there. Maybe that's why she decided to put herself in that type of arrangement.
 
This is how I see it:

Anesthesia is like the rich ugly girl. She is rich, but fugly. If I go out with her(or marry her), I would not have to worry about money and/or busting my butt at work to make a living. It would be a great lifetyle, and I do not have to use my brain or body for too long or too hard. But I will not enjoy "doing" her.

FM is like the cute girl next door. Very cute, simple, and fun to be with. If I go out with/marry her I will be happy, but I might never be rich. I would have to work harder, and use my brain and body more to make a living. But life will always be good and sweet, and I will always enjoy "doing" her.

ENT or Orthopaedics is like the super-hot, popular model. She is rich AND very beautiful. She is way out of the leauge of most men. It is the girl that most men only dream to be with. She has very high standards,and will only go out with the smartest, youngest, and most fit men. Money and a great life style is what you will get in return. Life with her is like a fairly tale, and "doing" her is as sweet as an American Pie.
 
FM is like the cute girl next door. Very cute, simple, and fun to be with. If I go out with/marry her I will be happy, but I might never be rich. I would have to work harder, and use my brain and body more to make a living. But life will always be good and sweet, and I will always enjoy "doing" her.

You really think FP works harder than anes? Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of anesthesia, but I think you're stretching it a little with the "use my brain and body more" part.
 
You really think FP works harder than anes? Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of anesthesia, but I think you're stretching it a little with the "use my brain and body more" part.

Seeing at least 30 patients a day in the clinic, all while I am covering and delivering my continuity patients in the L&D, and admitting patients in the ER, and rounding on my patients on the floor...

YES.
 
Seeing at least 30 patients a day in the clinic, all while I am covering and delivering my continuity patients in the L&D, and admitting patients in the ER, and rounding on my patients on the floor...

Did you forget that they take call?
 
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