If I ruled the world...

[Doc Oc]

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If I ruled the world:



5. Eliminate the vernacular term and specialty of "family medicine". It is not a specialty. General medicine is not a specialty. It is general medical knowledge that any physician should be able to apply. Unfortunately, our current educational and medical climate does not see this point. If every physician does not have the ability to manage usual medical situations that one would encounter in a clinic, however mundane, I fail to see the point of medical school in the first place.

They don't though. When you see a neurosurgeon consult an ENT for a "lingular lesion" on a Chest X-ray on a patient that you are medically managing, you'll understand.

 

[Smurfette]

If I ruled the world:

1. We'd go back to the rotating year. After medical school graduation, an intern does a general rotating year. Once this year is complete, a resident can practice as a general practitioner.


2. Should said resident feel, at any particular point in his future, that he is more interested in another specialty, that resident is free to apply to the match to pursue said goal, knowing full well they will be making a resident's salary.


3. The match is open to ANYONE who has completed the general rotating year, for as many attempts at the match as desired.


4. The salary for a general practitioner will be $250,000. After 5 years in practice, it will increase to $350,000. Furthermore, any specialist will make $400,000. I believe these are respectable figures. If there's 900 billion for the bailout, there's enough to pay physicians these values.


5. Eliminate the vernacular term and specialty of "family medicine". It is not a specialty. General medicine is not a specialty. It is general medical knowledge that any physician should be able to apply. Unfortunately, our current educational and medical climate does not see this point. If every physician does not have the ability to manage usual medical situations that one would encounter in a clinic, however mundane, I fail to see the point of medical school in the first place.

There are a lot of people who would be ill-prepared to be a "GP" after one year of post grad training. That would be really frightening for the state of medical care in this country.

DocOc's point is spot-on...there are many physicians who should not attempt to manage "mundane" medical conditions (let's see...rads, psych, path, ortho come to mind as people with least amount of experience managing basic things such as DM or HTN)