Demand for Specialties

[Adam638]

Can anyone point me in the direction of a thread or article that talks about which specialties will be in highest demand in 10 years and which won't. Couldn't find too much. Thanks in advance.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Maxprime]

Unless pre-meds start following through on their interview promises and all go into primary care, isn't it a pretty safe assumption that FP will be in the highest demand?

 

[Droopy Snoopy]

Can anyone point me in the direction of a thread or article that talks about which specialties will be in highest demand in 10 years and which won't. Couldn't find too much. Thanks in advance.

There's really no way to know this with any degree of certainty, so although I'm sure there are articles like this out there take what you read with a grain of salt. Common sense would suggest that stuff devoted to taking care of the aging baby boomer generation would be in high demand. But what effect will new technological advances, changes in reimbursement, expansion of mid-level fields, opening of new medical schools, or government regulation have? There's no crystal ball, so go for whatever gets it for you. If you're good, you won't have to worry about demand regardless of what field you're in.

 

[bodonid]

Unless pre-meds start following through on their interview promises and all go into primary care, isn't it a pretty safe assumption that FP will be in the highest demand?

i think the keyword here is "specialties". I mean, I know even IM and FP are technically specialties, but I get the idea that the OP knows about the primary care shortage and is asking about relative demand in others.

 

[Tiger26]

Not totally sure, but I'll say that emergency medicine will always be in demand--people will never stop doing stupid stuff or putting stupid stuff in stupid places

 

[cpants]

Cardiology. The Boomers are getting old. And they are fat.

 

[AmoryBlaine]

For the OP a few thoughts,

1) These threads have a way of devolving into "my favorites specialty will be in high demand so watch out for that."

2) There are really no fields in medicine where grads don't find jobs. You might not get the perfect fit in the perfect place with the perfect salary but you won't be working at Starbucks.

3) Fields that are in higher demand tend to be a) lower paying or b) highly competitive. I've seen studies that say that FPs are the most heavily recruited specialty but they are also among the lowest paid.

4) Highly lucrative fields tend to saturate highly desirable markets. This isn't rocket science to figure out -- I bet it's pretty hard to get a job as a derm in SoCal or NYC. That said they tend to be in extremely high demand in less desireable spots.

5) I'm not saying you're doing this, but obviously don't pick a specialty based on projections of demand.

 

[nonesuchgirl]

Not totally sure, but I'll say that emergency medicine will always be in demand--people will never stop doing stupid stuff or putting stupid stuff in stupid places

Oh c'mon now, they fell on it.

 

[HQAMIGO]

Just remember that in the marketplace, demand is inextricably connected to supply. Even in fields with low absolute demand, a very tight supply can lead to high prices. This is the reason why derm and plastics will always be lucrative and why even given sky high demand for FPs and IMs, their salary will always be low.

 

[cpants]

Just remember that in the marketplace, demand is inextricably connected to supply. Even in fields with low absolute demand, a very tight supply can lead to high prices. This is the reason why derm and plastics will always be lucrative and why even given sky high demand for FPs and IMs, their salary will always be low.

I have a feeling derm will not be nearly as lucrative in 10 years. If nurses can do family practice, gyn, and anesthesia, they can definitely do derm.

 

[lord_jeebus]

Your guess is as good as ours

 

[digitlnoize]

I'll toss in my "predictions"...though they might suck:

FM pay and demand will go up. The value of preventive care is finally beginning to be recognized by the gov't, insurers, and society. Pay will go up to counteract the severe shortage of pcp's.

Cardiology will be in even greater demand. The McDonald's generation is just beginning to get their heart problems. It only gets worse from here, folks. Aging boomers...need I say more.

EM will actually go down, maybe a little...maybe alot. With a revitalization of primary care, people will stop using the ER as a PCP. This will drastically cut down on ER traffic and reduce the need for as many people on staff at any given time. Really depends on whether we wind up with free PCP care or not.

Anesthesia will hold fairly steady, although Nurse Anesthetist salaries will decline...they are way overpayed right now, and it's beginning to be realized.

Derm will face increasing competition from pcp et. al., but will be in greater demand due to the Tanning Generation coming up to bat with Cancer. More skin cancer = more derm work.

IM, OB, and Peds will stay fairly steady.

Rads will oscillate up and down a very little amount. Yes, there is outsourcing, but there is also IN-sourcing. No one wants to read films at night. India may read our films at night, but we can read theirs during the day. It'll all pan out in the end. Salaries will drop a bit, people will stop going into rads for the money, and pay will go right back up again. Also, the use of imaging is growing exponentially...although tort reform may trim that back a little bit.

Yes. I have a crystal ball. Just my guesses...

 

[nonesuchgirl]

IDK about projections, but here's how to tell what specialty is good for you.

 

[NRAI2001]

I'll toss in my "predictions"...though they might suck:

FM pay and demand will go up. The value of preventive care is finally beginning to be recognized by the gov't, insurers, and society. Pay will go up to counteract the severe shortage of pcp's.

Cardiology will be in even greater demand. The McDonald's generation is just beginning to get their heart problems. It only gets worse from here, folks. Aging boomers...need I say more.

EM will actually go down, maybe a little...maybe alot. With a revitalization of primary care, people will stop using the ER as a PCP. This will drastically cut down on ER traffic and reduce the need for as many people on staff at any given time. Really depends on whether we wind up with free PCP care or not.

Anesthesia will hold fairly steady, although Nurse Anesthetist salaries will decline...they are way overpayed right now, and it's beginning to be realized.

Derm will face increasing competition from pcp et. al., but will be in greater demand due to the Tanning Generation coming up to bat with Cancer. More skin cancer = more derm work.

IM, OB, and Peds will stay fairly steady.

Rads will oscillate up and down a very little amount. Yes, there is outsourcing, but there is also IN-sourcing. No one wants to read films at night. India may read our films at night, but we can read theirs during the day. It'll all pan out in the end. Salaries will drop a bit, people will stop going into rads for the money, and pay will go right back up again. Also, the use of imaging is growing exponentially...although tort reform may trim that back a little bit.

Yes. I have a crystal ball. Just my guesses...

Being Indian I think I know Indians...they wont outsource their films, they hold on to it and wake up or just wait till day to read it.....

 

[caliprincess]

Unless states begin to implement tort reform and insurance companies begin to lower their malpractice premiums, OB/GYN will increase in demand in the coming years. As it stands, there are OB/GYN's that are dropping out of obstetrical care and focusing on GYN only due to malpractice costs, and their numbers keep growing. It is becoming prevalent rural areas and slowly creeping into cities/urbanized communities. JMHO

 

[khadija]

i see no one has mentioned surgery. or will that always be in demand?

 

[-Goose-]

I have a feeling derm will not be nearly as lucrative in 10 years. If nurses can do family practice, gyn, and anesthesia, they can definitely do derm.

Yeah. I ran a 1/2 marathon saturday and passed a stand alone business called "Skin RN - Aesthetics"

 

[digitlnoize]

Being Indian I think I know Indians...they wont outsource their films, they hold on to it and wake up or just wait till day to read it.....

I didn't just mean India specifically...It was just an example.

There's a whole half a world in darkness while we're awake. There's no reason we couldn't get paid to read country X's films during our day (their night). If some countries don't do it for whatever cultural reasons, that's fine, but there's still enough to make up for the little bit we might lose.

Surgery? Probably hold pretty steady. If they can get their schedules a little better, you might see salaries drop...more people would want to do surgery if it had a better lifestyle...

PM&R will probably be fairly big in the future as well. GI too, for the same reasons as cards. Mmmmm...McDonalds.

 

[notdeadyet]

I agree with the other posters that future demand for specialties is tea leaf reading at best. Read some old material from the 80's about where they thought healthcare was going. It's good for a laugh.

That said...

FM pay and demand will go up. The value of preventive care is finally beginning to be recognized by the gov't, insurers, and society. Pay will go up to counteract the severe shortage of pcp's.

They've been trumpeting primary care about to come in to its own for eons and it's yet to happen. It's always just around the bend. In the early 1990's, there was a huge push (much bigger than now) and that didn't really seem to take.

I'm not knocking primary care. I have a lot of time for it and would still consider it. But like many specialties, pay is going down, not up. And the push hasn't really been for training more PCPs to deal with the very real shortages, it's been to push midlevel providers instead.

EM will actually go down, maybe a little...maybe alot. With a revitalization of primary care, people will stop using the ER as a PCP. This will drastically cut down on ER traffic and reduce the need for as many people on staff at any given time. Really depends on whether we wind up with free PCP care or not.

You have more faith that universal coverage is going to actually arrive than I am. Regardless, most EM physicians aren't EM trained. I don't think folks are anticipating any glut of EM physicians as they're still working to phase in the idea that EDs should be staffed by EM BC docs.

Rads will oscillate up and down a very little amount. Yes, there is outsourcing, but there is also IN-sourcing. No one wants to read films at night.

In-sourcing??? For who? The reason that stuff is outsourced from the US right now is for reasons of time and cost. Physicians in this country are the highest paid in the world by far. Who would possibly send their work to us? Never happen. Even if there was a huge demand for overnights (which I doubt), they'd be a lot wiser to look at Canada, where docs make a good bit less.

But India sending X-rays to American physicians? They'd be raising costs x3-x10. Never happen.

 

[dbhvt]

For the OP a few thoughts,

2) There are really no fields in medicine where grads don't find jobs. You might not get the perfect fit in the perfect place with the perfect salary but you won't be working at Starbucks.

This isn't entirely true. You're not going to work at Starbucks, but you may be stuck doing critical care instead of infectious disease, for example. Some medical subspecialties churn out more fellows than the market can accept.

 

[Monica Lewinsky]

Yeah. I ran a 1/2 marathon saturday and passed a stand alone business called "Skin RN - Aesthetics"

Skin RN will be put in jail when she gets caught doing actual procedures. Derms don't make money off of peddling anti-aging creams.

 

[Doctor]

In-sourcing??? For who? The reason that stuff is outsourced from the US right now is for reasons of time and cost. Physicians in this country are the highest paid in the world by far. Who would possibly send their work to us? Never happen. Even if there was a huge demand for overnights (which I doubt), they'd be a lot wiser to look at Canada, where docs make a good bit less.

But India sending X-rays to American physicians? They'd be raising costs x3-x10. Never happen.

What he said!

Outsourcing is a one-way street for this country... there will be no "insourcing", unless radiologists here want to make $8 an hour like the radiologists in India do.

 

[drfunktacular]

This isn't entirely true. You're not going to work at Starbucks, but you may be stuck doing critical care instead of infectious disease, for example. Some medical subspecialties churn out more fellows than the market can accept.

Can you elaborate on this? Which ones other than Cards/GI?

 

[AmoryBlaine]

This isn't entirely true. You're not going to work at Starbucks, but you may be stuck doing critical care instead of infectious disease, for example. Some medical subspecialties churn out more fellows than the market can accept.

Eh, I don't think so. First of all no one who does an ID fellowship is qualified to do CCM unless they also did a CCM fellowship. Secondly I don't think any IM subspecialty is especially saturated.

Look at Cards man, everyone and their mom goes into Cards and everyone talks about how full the market is. Yet I have never met someone practicing general IM b/c they couldn't find a job.

 

[ColinHay]

Just remember that in the marketplace, demand is inextricably connected to supply. Even in fields with low absolute demand, a very tight supply can lead to high prices. This is the reason why derm and plastics will always be lucrative and why even given sky high demand for FPs and IMs, their salary will always be low.

FP salaries are not low because of supply and demand - it has to do with government regulation and insurance reimbursement.
If the basic rules of economics where allowed to apply in our field all docs would be earning based on how bad a patient wants to get better and they would all be loaded.

 

[ColinHay]

IDK about projections, but here's how to tell what specialty is good for you.

wow - you hit me right on the money.

 

[thesauce]

In-sourcing??? For who? The reason that stuff is outsourced from the US right now is for reasons of time and cost. Physicians in this country are the highest paid in the world by far. Who would possibly send their work to us? Never happen. Even if there was a huge demand for overnights (which I doubt), they'd be a lot wiser to look at Canada, where docs make a good bit less.

But India sending X-rays to American physicians? They'd be raising costs x3-x10. Never happen.

Aren't US Radiologists the ones outsourcing the films and making money off of it? They pay someone else $8/hr, review the work and sign off on it, then sell it to the hospital (or patient.) The work has to go through a Radiologists with US licensure so how else could it work?

 

[ryandote]

.

 

[thesauce]

I don't know if "reviewing the work" is going to save any time. Liability will still belong to the US radiologist, correct?

It takes .2 seconds to read the xray and 30 minutes to write the report. If the report is already written, then you just have to take .2 seconds to review it and submit.

 

[vtucci]

Pulling out my crystal ball....

Specialties that will grow
-geriatrics (medicine)
-psych geriatrics
-cardiology (interventional cardiology)
-interventional radiology
-nephrology (increasing waistlines--> increasing DMII--> increasing CRF)
-pulmonary & critical care (MICU, NICU)- baby boomers with COPD
-neurology (increase in stroke)
-vascular surgery (increase need for CEA)
-neurosurgery
-ortho (inc. hip replacements)
-ophthalmology (inc DMII--> inc diabetic retinopathy)
-urology (inc BPH and obstructive condition)
-colorectal surgery
-emergency medicine

Specialties that will continue to shrink
-cardiothoracic surgery

Specialties that will change
-emergency medicine--> loopholes allowing non-EM boarded physicians practicing in EDs will close, more mid-level providers
-primary care- continue to increase midlevel providers

 

[Taurus]

Looking into my crystal ball, I see interventional cards going down. Since those studies like the COURAGE trial showing medical management superior to just stenting, the volume of stenting has gone down like 13% over the last couple of years as people and insurance companies have shied away from it.

I see the reimbursements for stenting going way down. CMS will cut it like they did for cataract surgery in the late 80's. Once that happens, it won't be very lucrative to do. So, stenting will go back to interventional rads since they do that and a ton of other stuff.

 

[sprinkibrio]

#1 in demand right now is child psych according to my human behavior professor.

 

[PharmDstudent]

#1 in demand right now is child psych according to my human behavior professor.

Every mom's gotta get her kid a Daytrana patch. They all have ADHD... simple as that.

 

[dbhvt]

Eh, I don't think so. First of all no one who does an ID fellowship is qualified to do CCM unless they also did a CCM fellowship. Secondly I don't think any IM subspecialty is especially saturated.

Look at Cards man, everyone and their mom goes into Cards and everyone talks about how full the market is. Yet I have never met someone practicing general IM b/c they couldn't find a job.

I worked in an ID clinic for a few years before medical school. Of the fellows graduating over the previous 4 years, only one of them actually managed to land a job practicing as an ID doc. Two of them were doing critical care--don't ask me why critical care in particular. I talked about this for quite a while with the fellow who managed to actually land an ID spot, and he gave me the 'med students always think they won't have any trouble finding a job, but it's just not true' lecture.

Cards is totally different from ID because of the prevalence of cardiac disease. I wouldn't be surprised if you could open up a cardiac shop wherever you please. For ID, you're not going to just get patients with post-surgical infections just knocking on your door--you need a job at a reasonably large hospital.

Incidentally, you don't need a CCM fellowship to do critical care.

Edit: come to think of it, I may be remembering it wrong. They may have been going on to a CCM fellowship. In any case, they couldn't find an ID job.

 

[Mariah246]

I have a feeling derm will not be nearly as lucrative in 10 years. If nurses can do family practice, gyn, and anesthesia, they can definitely do derm.

I highly doubt it.

For the extremely basic stuff, maybe. Poison ivy, eczema, acne. And simple cases, no complications within those cases.

Let's not forget derms are people that spend 3 years looking at subtle red blotches. I see a rash in clinic and I just mark down "rash, 1 cm, on R upper extremity" No idea how to proceed next.

I'm fairly certain nurses would have a similarly limited area of expertise when it comes to anything that's complicated.

And re: the aesthetics, again, nurses can make inroads. But people who are serious about the procedure (i.e. people who were going to pay you initially), are going to find a plastic surgeon/derm for the procedure. Not a nurse.

 

[Taurus]

I highly doubt it.

For the extremely basic stuff, maybe. Poison ivy, eczema, acne. And simple cases, no complications within those cases.

Let's not forget derms are people that spend 3 years looking at subtle red blotches. I see a rash in clinic and I just mark down "rash, 1 cm, on R upper extremity" No idea how to proceed next.

I'm fairly certain nurses would have a similarly limited area of expertise when it comes to anything that's complicated.

And re: the aesthetics, again, nurses can make inroads. But people who are serious about the procedure (i.e. people who were going to pay you initially), are going to find a plastic surgeon/derm for the procedure. Not a nurse.

What happens when a DNP introduces herself as "Doctor" and says she completed a nursing residency in derm?

Derm is the juiciest, low-hanging fruit for the nurses to pick off first.

 

[DadofDr2B]

Pulling out my crystal ball....

Specialties that will grow
-geriatrics (medicine)
-psych geriatrics
-cardiology (interventional cardiology)
-interventional radiology
-nephrology (increasing waistlines--> increasing DMII--> increasing CRF)
-pulmonary & critical care (MICU, NICU)- baby boomers with COPD
-neurology (increase in stroke)
-vascular surgery (increase need for CEA)
-neurosurgery
-ortho (inc. hip replacements)
-ophthalmology (inc DMII--> inc diabetic retinopathy)
-urology (inc BPH and obstructive condition)
-colorectal surgery
-emergency medicine

Specialties that will continue to shrink
-cardiothoracic surgery

Specialties that will change
-emergency medicine--> loopholes allowing non-EM boarded physicians practicing in EDs will close, more mid-level providers
-primary care- continue to increase midlevel providers

I would add endocrinology as a growth area with the number of people being diagnosed as diabetic and so many people with auto immune problems and hormone problems. Endo's should have plenty of business into the future.

 

[AmoryBlaine]

I worked in an ID clinic for a few years before medical school. Of the fellows graduating over the previous 4 years, only one of them actually managed to land a job practicing as an ID doc. Two of them were doing critical care--don't ask me why critical care in particular. I talked about this for quite a while with the fellow who managed to actually land an ID spot, and he gave me the 'med students always think they won't have any trouble finding a job, but it's just not true' lecture.

Cards is totally different from ID because of the prevalence of cardiac disease. I wouldn't be surprised if you could open up a cardiac shop wherever you please. For ID, you're not going to just get patients with post-surgical infections just knocking on your door--you need a job at a reasonably large hospital.

Incidentally, you don't need a CCM fellowship to do critical care.

Edit: come to think of it, I may be remembering it wrong. They may have been going on to a CCM fellowship. In any case, they couldn't find an ID job.

Interesting, you may well be right. My institution doesn't have an ID fellowship so I don't have any friends in the field.

How bad would it suck to do a 2 year fellowship and then have to work in your original field?

 

[AmoryBlaine]

Pulling out my crystal ball....

Specialties that will grow
-geriatrics (medicine)
-psych geriatrics
-cardiology (interventional cardiology)
-interventional radiology
-nephrology (increasing waistlines--> increasing DMII--> increasing CRF)
-pulmonary & critical care (MICU, NICU)- baby boomers with COPD
-neurology (increase in stroke)
-vascular surgery (increase need for CEA)
-neurosurgery
-ortho (inc. hip replacements)
-ophthalmology (inc DMII--> inc diabetic retinopathy)
-urology (inc BPH and obstructive condition)
-colorectal surgery
-emergency medicine

Specialties that will continue to shrink
-cardiothoracic surgery

Specialties that will change
-emergency medicine--> loopholes allowing non-EM boarded physicians practicing in EDs will close, more mid-level providers
-primary care- continue to increase midlevel providers

I don't think that this whole game of "we're going to see more of X disease therefore fields that treat it will grow" is really a good marker for specialty demand. Basically we know that the population is growing in size and illness so you can make this game work for anything. Why leave any field off of a list like this? You could have said

-pediatrics - everyone is going to keep having kids
-pediatric surgery - see above
-ID - more chronicly infected people
-radiology - more scans

It works for anything and so it's pretty meaningless. Meanwhile no one would ever say that their favorite field was not going to be a growth specialty.

You mentioned EM (my field and your prospective one) as a specialty that will be in high demand. It probably will but there are a few things working against it. If we ever pull our heads out of our arses and get a decent nationalized healthcare system people very well may stop using the ED for "primary care." Double coverage could be backed off in smaller EDs etc etc etc. Midlevels are moving into EM and if they keep pushing the having alot of physicians on duty in an ED could be seen as a luxury for which some hospitals would not want to keep paying.

Of course, we want to ignore these realities and tell ourselves that we will be in high demand. I would refer to my first post on this thread, namely that these questions tend to be answered by wish-thinking as much as anything else.

 

[cpants]

I highly doubt it.

For the extremely basic stuff, maybe. Poison ivy, eczema, acne. And simple cases, no complications within those cases.

Let's not forget derms are people that spend 3 years looking at subtle red blotches. I see a rash in clinic and I just mark down "rash, 1 cm, on R upper extremity" No idea how to proceed next.

I'm fairly certain nurses would have a similarly limited area of expertise when it comes to anything that's complicated.

And re: the aesthetics, again, nurses can make inroads. But people who are serious about the procedure (i.e. people who were going to pay you initially), are going to find a plastic surgeon/derm for the procedure. Not a nurse.

And anesthesiologists spend years learning the subtleties of anesthesia. I'm not saying that nurses will make better dermatologists than MD's, but they will surely try for the specialty.

Of course people will want a plastic surgeon/derm for biopsies, but nurses could probably perform the majority of minor derm procedures. Even I think a nurse is qualified to freeze a wart on my finger. Anyway, even if nurses only take a big chunk of the cancer screening, acne, and eczema treatment business, it will be a huge loss to derms. They aren't performing procedures on the majority of pts that walk through the door. The routine stuff is their bread and butter.

 

[thebeatblitz]

Elective derm and PRS procedures need the qualifications of "MD" for high payout. If your kid has acne, anyone writes an Rx just as well. If you're going to get your face lasered off or nose reconstructed, you're going to look at the specialist's CV. Laypeople aren't that stupid, and 20/20 has done a great job of filling them into all the medical scams and what not floating around.

I really doubt someone paying >$4K for one of those cosmetic procedures is going to choose the person with DNP over MD, Derm or PRS. The funny thing is, I bet for all those lasers, peels, sandings and what not, the assistant does them anyways.

 

[Mariah246]

What happens when a DNP introduces herself as "Doctor" and says she completed a nursing residency in derm?

Derm is the juiciest, low-hanging fruit for the nurses to pick off first.

If the nursing residency happened to be 3 years long and focused solely on skin care, then yeah, I'd say she would probably serve as an able substitute for a derm MD.

I don't see too many of those floating around though

 

[elderjack21]

EM will actually go down, maybe a little...maybe alot. With a revitalization of primary care, people will stop using the ER as a PCP. This will drastically cut down on ER traffic and reduce the need for as many people on staff at any given time. Really depends on whether we wind up with free PCP care or not.

This is totally untrue.

I thought the same thing until I started working in Canada in the ER. And do you know what the ER docs told me when I made the statement "in the US everyone goes to the ER because they don't have insurance/primary care physician etc..." and the response was "everyone comes to the ER here because it is free"

Not to mention that the primary care docs just send off patients that they don't want to do timely work ups or minor procedures on (which are a lot of them). And there is a primary care shortage here as well, so something like 5 million Canadians don't have primary care docs, so they come to the ER as well.

 

[45408]

Oh c'mon now, they fell on it.

conveniently slathered in vasoline

 

[Taurus]

If the nursing residency happened to be 3 years long and focused solely on skin care, then yeah, I'd say she would probably serve as an able substitute for a derm MD.

I don't see too many of those floating around though

How many nurses 10 years ago were walking around calling themselves "Doctor"?

Times change.

Derm makes great money and great hours. Even if they have to do a 4 year residency, show me one nurse who wouldn't do it for the possible payday. Most would probably give their left arm to be able to call themselves a "nurse dermatologist".

 

[Taurus]

You mentioned EM (my field and your prospective one) as a specialty that will be in high demand. It probably will but there are a few things working against it. If we ever pull our heads out of our arses and get a decent nationalized healthcare system people very well may stop using the ED for "primary care." Double coverage could be backed off in smaller EDs etc etc etc. Midlevels are moving into EM and if they keep pushing the having alot of physicians on duty in an ED could be seen as a luxury for which some hospitals would not want to keep paying.

I agree with this. I would further add this. Are ER's in general a money-maker or a sinkhole for most hospitals? It's the latter. If hospitals had the choice, they would close down their ER's because so many patients refuse to pay their bills and yet the law forces the hospitals to treat them even if they can't pay. Furthermore, the govt forces any good size hospital to have an ER.

There's one thing I've learned from working. Never be on the side of the business that is losing money. It means you're more likely to take a hit.

 

[ColinHay]

If the nursing residency happened to be 3 years long and focused solely on skin care, then yeah, I'd say she would probably serve as an able substitute for a derm MD.

I don't see too many of those floating around though

Just make an appointment with a dermatologist. you won't know the difference from the bill but chances are you will not meet the doc.

 

[ColinHay]

Even if they have to do a 4 year residency, show me one nurse who wouldn't do it for the possible payday. Most would probably give their left arm to be able to call themselves a "nurse dermatologist".

And they are likely to do the job just as well without that arm.

Are ER's in general a money-maker or a sinkhole for most hospitals? It's the latter.

Not true - no one is forcing any hospital to keep their ER open - the fact is most long term admissions (>30 days) come from the ER and bring in a lot of money for the hospital as well as just bringing people through the front door - otherwise there would be no such beast unless it was funded by the GOV.

 

[Taurus]

http://www.asahq.org/Newsletters/2008/02-08/stateBeat02-08.html

Actually, the nurses probably will take 2 weekend classes and then call themselves "nurse dermatologists".

That's what they did with pain medicine, which is a fellowship for anesthesiology, PM&R, or neurology.

Think about it. They took just 2 weekend courses and then they thought they could mess with people's nervous systems. A guy became paralyzed because of them. Louisiana had to formally ban them.

 

[BoredMD]

I'm going into Derm. There should be plenty of demand for it.