Four Myths about primary care

[DocLove06]

What do you guys think about this blog?

http://frommedskool.com/2008/04/20/four-myths-of-the-primary-care-crisis/

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[Danbo1957]

"Myth #4: Primary Care Physicians Can And Will Abandoned Medicare"

Our IM private practice did.

 

[Law2Doc]

What do you guys think about this blog?

http://frommedskool.com/2008/04/20/four-myths-of-the-primary-care-crisis/

I'm not sure this blogger debunked any of these four "myths" to my satisfaction. So I don't think too much of it.

 

[Neuronix]

I still think from the data I've seen that pay is the #1 correlator to residency competitiveness. The best fit line is imprecise on that chart it says. What's the r^2 on that? It looks like at least a solid moderate correlation to me. Though I can't get the link the study he cites for "perceived lifestyle." Can anyone link me that article through pubmed or something not lame like medscape?

 

[smq123]

Can anyone link me that article through pubmed or something not lame like medscape?

The article that he is referring to is "Influence of controllable lifestyle on recent trends in specialty choice by US medical students" from a 2003 JAMA article.

CONTEXT: Recent specialty choices of graduating US medical students suggest that lifestyle may be an increasingly important factor in their career decision making.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether and to what degree controllable lifestyle and other specialty-related characteristics are associated with recent (1996-2002) changes in the specialty preferences of US senior medical students.

DESIGN AND SETTING: Specialty preference was based on analysis of results from the National Resident Matching Program, the San Francisco Matching Program, and the American Urological Association Matching Program from 1996 to 2002. Specialty lifestyle (controllable vs uncontrollable) was classified using earlier research. Log-linear models were developed that examined specialty preference and the specialty's controllability, income, work hours, and years of graduate medical education required.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Proportion of variability in specialty preference from 1996 to 2002 explained by controllable lifestyle.

RESULTS: The specialty preferences of US senior medical students, as determined by the distribution of applicants across selected specialties, changed significantly from 1996 to 2002 (P<.001). In the log-linear model, controllable lifestyle explained 55% of the variability in specialty preference from 1996 to 2002 after controlling for income, work hours, and years of graduate medical education required (P<.001).

CONCLUSION: Perception of controllable lifestyle accounts for most of the variability in recent changing patterns in the specialty choices of graduating US medical students.

Actual article is linked if you want to look at it.

 

[MacGyver]

He's partly right and partly wrong.

He's wrong when he says primary care docs make 70% of what the specialists get. Thats plain BS, and any salary survey will prove it. Specialists average at least 100% more (double) what primary care docs make. In many cases its triple or quadruple.

He's right about docs dropping Medicare though. As a whole, docs cant drop it because it controls too much of the money. The share of total healthcare spending controlled by Medicare will only go up. The days of docs dropping Medicare en masse are over.