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There is no doctor shortage -- its all a scam. Politicians use that lie to open 500 new med schools so they can "stimulate the economy"
The only shortages are in some rural areas. The vast majority of cities have a big oversupply of doctors. Thats why cardiologists stent 40% blockages when ordinarily they wouldnt be touching them -- all the 95% blockages have already been treated and they are competing for patients to try and make $$$$

For the last couple of years, I've always been hearing "there's a doctor shortage in this country".
🙄 Then why the hell is EVERY SINGLE RESIDENCY PROGRAM I CONTACT TELLING ME THAT THEIR PROGRAM IS FULL?
What "shortage"? Again, 🙄.
I've called states such as Nebraska, Idaho, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, etc,,,, they're full.There's a physician maldistribution, by specialty and by practice location
I've called states such as Nebraska, Idaho, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, etc,,,, they're full.
There's a physician maldistribution, by specialty and by practice location
For the last couple of years, I've always been hearing "there's a doctor shortage in this country".
🙄 Then why the hell is EVERY SINGLE RESIDENCY PROGRAM I CONTACT TELLING ME THAT THEIR PROGRAM IS FULL?
What "shortage"? Again, 🙄.
For the last couple of years, I've always been hearing "there's a doctor shortage in this country".
🙄 Then why the hell is EVERY SINGLE RESIDENCY PROGRAM I CONTACT TELLING ME THAT THEIR PROGRAM IS FULL?
What "shortage"? Again, 🙄.
Physician shortage /= resident shortage.
There's a physician maldistribution, by specialty and by practice location
For the last couple of years, I've always been hearing "there's a doctor shortage in this country".
🙄 Then why the hell is EVERY SINGLE RESIDENCY PROGRAM I CONTACT TELLING ME THAT THEIR PROGRAM IS FULL?
What "shortage"? Again, 🙄.
Because the match was last month.
I've called states such as Nebraska, Idaho, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, etc,,,, they're full.
nailed itI suspect that this question is rhetorical.
could it be that these programs just say they are full as an easy way out of a conversation with a scrambling ms4?
😳
ok, fine... the "I cant get a spot so the shortage talk must be a conspiracy" was just a little too "tinfoil hat" for me...
If you don't do residency, you go work at Wendy's. I don't see any "shortage" of Wendy's cashiers. Interesting how that works. Why is it relatively simple to fulfill one need but not the other? Why can Wendy's hire affordable cashiers but no one except the wealthy can afford basic health care? 😕
Don't give me the "but you gotta be smrat to do medicine" bullsh*t. Needing penicillin for strep throat is actually not much different from needing any other random ass thing, there's just a monopoly on providing it. Needing lovastatin for cholesterol is no different from any other random ass thing, except only one company is allowed to sell it. Restriction of supply to elevate prices, same goes with residency spots.
If you don't do residency, you go work at Wendy's. I don't see any "shortage" of Wendy's cashiers. Interesting how that works. Why is it relatively simple to fulfill one need but not the other? Why can Wendy's hire affordable cashiers but no one except the wealthy can afford basic health care? 😕
Don't give me the "but you gotta be smrat to do medicine" bullsh*t. Needing penicillin for strep throat is actually not much different from needing any other random ass thing, there's just a monopoly on providing it. Needing lovastatin for cholesterol is no different from any other random ass thing, except only one company is allowed to sell it. Restriction of supply to elevate prices, same goes with residency spots.
I think the so-called physician shortage is a projection based on the fact that the baby boomer generation is getting older meaning that the number of sick people is set to grow exponentially over the coming decade or so.
If you don't do residency, you go work at Wendy's. I don't see any "shortage" of Wendy's cashiers. Interesting how that works. Why is it relatively simple to fulfill one need but not the other? Why can Wendy's hire affordable cashiers but no one except the wealthy can afford basic health care? 😕
Don't give me the "but you gotta be smrat to do medicine" bullsh*t. Needing penicillin for strep throat is actually not much different from needing any other random ass thing, there's just a monopoly on providing it. Needing lovastatin for cholesterol is no different from any other random ass thing, except only one company is allowed to sell it. Restriction of supply to elevate prices, same goes with residency spots.
The shortage is maintained by the protectionism we can medical licensing and residency, which allows us to keep the supply of trained doctors artificially small even when there are legions of students clammoring to train and tons of doctors who would be happy to take their money to train them. Which sucks whether your someone like the OP who wants to train but can't, or a patient paying 10x what your care would cost in a deregulated industry.
sorry, this is wrong.
healthcare is not and will never be a free market. In a "free" market, the cost of the product is inversely proportional to the supply of the provider, i.e. as the number of doctors increases, they compete against each other and drive costs downward. Healthcare is a "supply-induced demand" model where the cost is directly proportional to how many providers there are.
Consider this -- Boston and NYC have the highest concentration of doctors per capita in the world. If healthcare were a free market, all these doctors would be competing against each other, driving down healthcare costs. Yet, the reverse is what is actually happening -- NYC and Boston actually have some of the HIGHEST healthcare costs in the country, despite the fact that there is a doctor on every corner.
When you flood a market with doctors, the docs start looking for "business" in corners that they otherwise would not have looked for. A good example is cardiology. When there was a shortage of cardiologists, they were so busy that they had to stick to placing stents and doing angioplasties on only the worst blockages. As the number of cardioogists increased, the potential patient pool skyrocketed, and now they do caths on people who are barely having any symptoms and whose blockages are modest at best.
Who ever said it was a free market? I'm saying the exact opposite- it is an extremely un-free market. When there are licensing laws, and device and drug patents, competition is severely restricted, no matter how many cardiologists with which you "flood the market." This is something few people seem to understand. Healthcare is not a competitive industry. The most "competitive" specialties are in reality the least competitive, because they rely the most on a government grant and enforcement of monopolistic privilege to restrict supply and protect them from potential competitors. Example: dermatologists. If I spent a year learning derm and set up an acne clinic, I would obviously be shut down and hauled to jail, regardless of my level of true expertise or the quality of the service I provide. God forbid someone should do what dermatologists do at a lower cost. 🙄
and when you generate an army of mutant babies by ignorantly throwing accutane at every patient who comes in the door you will either 1) cackle maniacally and proclaim that your evil plan is coming to fruition or 2) realize why these practices are restricted to people with the proper training - even if there are certain aspects that could be done by a trained monkey...
1) you are fear mongering 2) who are you to, as a third party, step in and restrict the free interaction between a consumer and provider?
The situation also can't be looked at as a snapshot of time, without taking into account how it came to be like this and how continuing it affects the situation in the future. IE: "what would happen if Joe-the-Plumber suddenly was allowed, this afternoon, to do surgery? omg it would be awful!!1 LOL!"
This conveniently ignores the accumulated effects of the type of intervention you want to continue, as well as its anticipated future effects. Competition isn't just what is actively happening now, it's also potential. For example, if we had strictly enforced cantaloupe selling licenses (meaning anyone selling cantaloupes without a license gets shot by the FCA [the "Fruit and Cantaloupe Administration"]), no one is going to bother learning anything about selling cantaloupes unless they are planning on getting the license. They are assessing the world around them and anticipating the grant of monopolistic privilege. It has pervasive and under-appreciated effects on how the market works. The long term effect is that as the knowledge and skills of an industry become more specialized and advanced, it can justify its monopoly with circular logic pointing to how scary it would be without it (as you just did). But the fact remains that a) we go to this situation by very unethical means and b) it is logically invalid- it's a solution that perpetuates the problem it supposedly solves.
I agree with this. But isn't residency funding mostly provided by the federal government as part of the medicare budget? If that's the case, the profession couldn't increase the number of residency slots even if it wanted to. And in the era of "fiscal austerity" and 15 trillion dollar government debt, I don't see anyway that funding will be increased (actually it will most likely be decreased). Also medicare is predicted to run out money in 12 years
Not that I disagree, because you make a good point, but it seems your argument would apply equally well in the case for allowing midlevels to continue to expand their scopes to cover primary care. And then who would want to go though medical school to become a primary care physician?
There's a physician maldistribution, by specialty and by practice location
1) you are fear mongering 2) who are you to, as a third party, step in and restrict the free interaction between a consumer and provider?
The situation also can't be looked at as a snapshot of time, without taking into account how it came to be like this and how continuing it affects the situation in the future. IE: "what would happen if Joe-the-Plumber suddenly was allowed, this afternoon, to do surgery? omg it would be awful!!1 LOL!"
This conveniently ignores the accumulated effects of the type of intervention you want to continue, as well as its anticipated future effects. Competition isn't just what is actively happening now, it's also potential. For example, if we had strictly enforced cantaloupe selling licenses (meaning anyone selling cantaloupes without a license gets shot by the FCA [the "Fruit and Cantaloupe Administration"]), no one is going to bother learning anything about selling cantaloupes unless they are planning on getting the license. They are assessing the world around them and anticipating the grant of monopolistic privilege. It has pervasive and under-appreciated effects on how the market works. The long term effect is that as the knowledge and skills of an industry become more specialized and advanced, it can justify its monopoly with circular logic pointing to how scary it would be without it (as you just did). But the fact remains that a) we go to this situation by very unethical means and b) it is logically invalid- it's a solution that perpetuates the problem it supposedly solves.

and when you generate an army of mutant babies by ignorantly throwing accutane at every patient who comes in the door you will either 1) cackle maniacally and proclaim that your evil plan is coming to fruition or 2) realize why these practices are restricted to people with the proper training - even if there are certain aspects that could be done by a trained monkey...
Um, it doesn't take much to prescribe OCPs and require a pregnancy test prior to starting Accutane. (Need to monitor LFTs too.)
The only tricky part about derm is learning the difference between an ointment and a cream.
to vent?Why create a thread for a rhetorical question?
my point was that you want reasonable assurance in the abilities and competence of your provider. With the "free market" system described above it is not unforeseeable that practitioners will pop up who are dangerously incompetent and the only measure of this will be death.
Eh, there are plenty of things people can take over the counter that could kill them. A lot of prescription drugs shouldn't require prescriptions. If people misuse them, so be it.
Tylenol kills more people than Accutane.
I don't believe you really think it is appropriate to open the medical profession and let the consumer decide who provides care. This is a complete parallel to opening arms sales. Many things can be used or misused. The question is where do we draw the line in terms of how severe consequences of misuse are.
You know, in the United States, nearly all medications were completely legal for any person to buy before the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.
Prescription privilege is a minor part of a physician's value, and I have no problem with mid-levels having prescription privilege as long as they are legally culpable.
Seconded. I'd love to know what malpractice insurance for a midlevel with independent prescription privilege would run. If I were an insurance company exec I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole.