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http://www.aamc.org/newsroom/pressrel/2003/031104.htm
I should go and become a garbage man...less competition
I should go and become a garbage man...less competition
looks like the new aamc numbers are out and it's not lookin pretty
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That's really interesting. More women than men applied. And the number of URM's getting accepted declined. Hmmm...any thoughts on why?
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from the above link
For once I'm in a minority!!!!!!! j/k 🙂
seriously though, I had a seminar this week in school from the leading malpractice insurance company in Tennessee. For the first time for myself I got to learn about premium costs and their quick rise over the last decade, especially the last few years. I was a bit in shock looking at premiums per state versus the average salary per position. It gave me food for thought.
An example was a OB/GYN pays an average of 52K a year for malpractice insurance in TN. In comparison ER was around 25K and FP was around 8K. One of my fellow classmates tapped me on my shoulder and sarsasticly saying "you sure you wanna go into medicine?" It was a joke but the presentation was food for thought. OY.....I am happy so many people want to be physicians but I wonder if there is a day that the malpractice becomes too much.
I heard from a few others that FL has some insane malpractice premiums.....
For once I'm in a minority!!!!!!! j/k 🙂
seriously though, I had a seminar this week in school from the leading malpractice insurance company in Tennessee. For the first time for myself I got to learn about premium costs and their quick rise over the last decade, especially the last few years. I was a bit in shock looking at premiums per state versus the average salary per position. It gave me food for thought.
An example was a OB/GYN pays an average of 52K a year for malpractice insurance in TN. In comparison ER was around 25K and FP was around 8K. One of my fellow classmates tapped me on my shoulder and sarsasticly saying "you sure you wanna go into medicine?" It was a joke but the presentation was food for thought. OY.....I am happy so many people want to be physicians but I wonder if there is a day that the malpractice becomes too much.
I heard from a few others that FL has some insane malpractice premiums.....
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Did anyone hear about Bush's plan to put a cap on malpractice? Is it the premium he wants to cap, or the amount someone can sue you for?
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It's a cap that someone can sue you for. The system they're trying to push in california is a max award of $750,000. You can get a max of 250K from the physician, 250K from the hospital, and 250K from any third party involved in the procedure (not quite sure what that entails). Thus, if you eliminate the 800 million jury verticts to victims, malpractice premium rates will drop. I'm in favor of award caps for victims, but I do think that 750K is a bit low for incidents like accidentally paralyzing a patient from the neck down, but that's for another discussion.
On the other hand, 750K is a lot for botching a nail extraction or something like that. We live in a litigous society and we'll just have to live with it. I think one problem lies in juries assigning awards. They arent properly equipped to understand the risks associated with medicine, nor the suitable reward for a case of malpractice.
Tort is supposed to be a deterrant to irresponsible behavior. The thing is that medicine isnt like making a car where there might be great incentives to take the easy way, or to purposefully use substandard procedures. I believe that the great majority of doctors are always trying to the best thing every time. Huge settlements (via tort) are supposed to discourage bad practice. The questions are 1) is there really that much bad practice to discourage, and 2) do these huge settlements really do much to better the practice of medicine? I say no to both.
Tort is supposed to be a deterrant to irresponsible behavior. The thing is that medicine isnt like making a car where there might be great incentives to take the easy way, or to purposefully use substandard procedures. I believe that the great majority of doctors are always trying to the best thing every time. Huge settlements (via tort) are supposed to discourage bad practice. The questions are 1) is there really that much bad practice to discourage, and 2) do these huge settlements really do much to better the practice of medicine? I say no to both.
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That' seems like a high figure for reapplicants, too. Twenty-five percent.
Cripes, I don't know if I could stand getting rejected from all my 25 schools and then trying to do it again -
Cripes, I don't know if I could stand getting rejected from all my 25 schools and then trying to do it again -
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I believe the the cap is for the mental damages and suffering. These are ideals that are unmeasurable and cause juries to aware millions of dollars of rewards. When jurors are given exit polls after awarding large settlements the line that is most uttered is "a million dollars isn't as much as it used to be." When you start adding up multiple large settlements....then premiums must rise.
Now I believe that you can sue the doctor/hospital/nurses/insurance/custodial/ect for malpractice and you can get the cost of care for a lifetime PLUS whatever is the cap for that state. (if there is one)
So if you are rendered disabled then you are paid for your medical care and then capped damages.
I think a cap is nessessary. I am intrested in seeing how states with caps (like califorina and now texas) medical premiums are compared to those states without. (see Florida and Mississippi)
Now I believe that you can sue the doctor/hospital/nurses/insurance/custodial/ect for malpractice and you can get the cost of care for a lifetime PLUS whatever is the cap for that state. (if there is one)
So if you are rendered disabled then you are paid for your medical care and then capped damages.
I think a cap is nessessary. I am intrested in seeing how states with caps (like califorina and now texas) medical premiums are compared to those states without. (see Florida and Mississippi)
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I work with a nurse who also works on the board that deals with lawsuit/claims for the hospital. In a discussion with her she said that those outrageous jury awards were only a part of the problem. According to her a more expensive problem with the system is that even the most frivolous lawsuit costs on the average $75,000 to defend... So, need caps AND some filter to limit the ridiculous lawsuits in the first place. That is what some states have ?Indiana? and what our new governor here in KY is proposing.
I
indigoblue
do we have numbers on genders of folks applying for n.p. , p.a., or d.o. degrees?
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The numbers for DOs are included in that figure, I believe. (though I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong....)
DOs go to medical school. MDs go to medical school.
PAs go to PA school.
RNs go to nursing school.
🙂
DOs go to medical school. MDs go to medical school.
PAs go to PA school.
RNs go to nursing school.
🙂
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the new numbers arent looking good or bad...about what was expected. And still a good ways off from the peaks of the mid 90's
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Yeah, the AACOM people would have the DO numbers.
So we girls are the majority now? Darn...my only shot at AA just went down the tubes! 😛
So we girls are the majority now? Darn...my only shot at AA just went down the tubes! 😛
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A&M over the Sooners 2000 to 7
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I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that people should have the right to sue doctors for malpractice. Are the insurance companies going broke? Are their stockholders losing money? What are the salaries of the executives at the insurance companies? Those are a few examples of the questions that whould be asked.
The insurance companies arent going to go broke because all they have to do is raise the premiums. Doctors are required to have malpractice, so they dont really have a choice if the compaines raise the premiums. So, to answer your question, those questions really dont need to be asked.
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Having been around physicians my entire life i can tell you that the process of a malpractice lawsuit can ruin someones life. I have seen great doctors and in the process of the court finding them not responsible going crazy.
It's not just the money. It's how can such a lawsuit (esp the ones with no reason) affect another persons life (and those around him).
It's not just the money. It's how can such a lawsuit (esp the ones with no reason) affect another persons life (and those around him).
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If you are truly interested in issues regarding physicians, patients, insurance companies, trial lawyers and pharmaceutical companies I urge you to go to the Everyone forum. There are a number of interesting current and past threads addressing this issue where people like myself have written extensively about tort reform.
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comments like this would fit in well in the Everyone forum. 🙂 the darkside draws you in... resistance is futile.
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"These latest figures contain both good and bad news for the medical profession. The decrease in minorities entering medical school underscores the need for redoubled efforts to attract a critical mass of students from diverse backgrounds in order to enhance the education of all future physicians," said AAMC President, Jordan J. Cohen M.D.
What the heck is a critical mass of students? Sounds like they are trying to build a thermonuclear device powered by minority medical students-- Matrix style. 😕
What the heck is a critical mass of students? Sounds like they are trying to build a thermonuclear device powered by minority medical students-- Matrix style. 😕
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This is from a recent NY Times article. It's something to think about
for all those declaiming patient malpractice suits as the root of all evil in medicine today.
September 23, 2003
ESSAY Beyond the Blame: A No-Fault Approach to Malpractice
By DAN SHAPIRO
The room is filled with physicians from all over the country. It was silent until a few moments ago, when the first sad gasp was heard from the far corner. Now tearful faces fill the room. I've asked each doctor here to write a letter to a patient about something unresolved. The doctors will never mail these letters; instead, they have been instructed to write as openly and truthfully as they can.Now, Ellen, an obstetrician is reading her letter aloud. It is about something that happened 15 years ago, when she was practicing independently for the first time. She performed amniocentesis, inserting a needle into her pregnant patient's amniotic fluid to check for genetic disease, and induced a miscarriage.Ellen was not sued, and she has never spoken about it, until now.As the afternoon continues, most of the letters are about mistakes, errors these physicians made that continue to haunt them, years later. As a clinical psychologist, I have done this exercise with more than 300 doctors, assured of anonymity, in physician wellness seminars. And as a former cancer patient who spent five years struggling with chemotherapy, radiation and operations, I am aware that patients often split doctors into two groups, the good and the bad.The truth, of course, is more complex. Most physicians, even those whose skills are excellent, make terrible mistakes at some point in their careers.Most doctors are genuinely committed to their work and carry their mistakes with them, secretly, for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, a vast majority do not tell their patients when they have made mistakes that harmed them.It is not surprising that so many doctors who are successful and usually ethical will cover up their mistakes. And it is not surprising that many doctors, as well as patients, find the current system of accountability unworkable, especially in medical malpractice cases.Fear of malpractice is rampant. Research studying physicians' responses to being named in malpractice suits has revealed that the experience is traumatizing for most and that 20 percent of doctors who are defendants describe the experience as the most traumatizing of their lives.Part of the trauma is financial; doctors are personally responsible for damages beyond the amount that malpractice insurance will pay.The trauma is also psychological, as most physicians derive much of their self-definition from their knowledge that they are good doctors. In suits, it is to the plaintiff's advantage to characterize the doctor as uncaring, negligent and unskilled. Physicians who have been trained to expect perfection from themselves usually find this battering.This may explain why so many mistakes go unreported. In 1999, Dr. David Studdert, a Harvard researcher, published a paper in which doctors and nurses reviewed 14,700 medical charts from Utah and Colorado for evidence of negligent care.Then Dr. Studdert and his colleagues tracked how often bad medical care resulted in malpractice suits. "Of the patients who suffered negligent injury in our study sample, 97 percent did not sue," they wrote.The authors also concluded that roughly 5,000 uncompensated injuries resulted from medical negligence in Utah and Colorado in 1992. Dr. Studdert's results were similar to those reported in the 1970's and 80's in California and New York.In 2000, the Institute of Medicine published a report suggesting that a majority of doctors' mistakes were products of flawed systems that did not provide the checks and balances necessary to prevent errors by physicians. Many are preventable. In the last decade, malpractice insurance costs have skyrocketed, leaving many doctors unable or unwilling to pay for coverage in their chosen specialties.This year in an effort to address the problem, Representative James C. Greenwood, Republican of Pennsylvania, and Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, introduced legislation to cap financial awards to patients in malpractice cases.The legislation was voted down this summer. The flaw with this plan was that even if it worked and liability insurance prices dropped, secrecy in medicine would still not be addressed.A better plan would call for motivating physicians to report their own mistakes by offering them no-fault judgments in exchange for their disclosures. This will work as a "carrot" only if there is also a "stick" waiting for those doctors who chose to cover up their errors. In such a system, instead of physicians' paying for malpractice insurance, the doctors and patients would pay into local injured-patient compensation funds. In this way, the burden of reimbursing injured patients would be shared, and everyone would enjoy the benefits of better care resulting from changes in the way medicine is practiced.Physicians making serious mistakes would voluntarily report them to local commissions.The commissions, which would consist of physicians and patients, would strive to compensate the injured patients according to guidelines established to ensure that reimbursements were uniform.In exchange for disclosing mistakes, physicians would be granted no-fault judgments and avoid liability. If the commission agrees with the physician that harm has occurred, the patient will be compensated according to guidelines designed to ensure uniform compensation.The compensation would be more modest than the occasional enormous judgments in the courts today, but many more patients would be compensated, because the reporting onus would be on the doctor (who is in a better position to perceive the mistake), rather than the patient.Separate boards would take over the role of the state boards of medicine and investigate doctors and nurses who did not come forward. The boards would investigate medical errors and substandard practices reported by patients by studying incident reports and patient complaints to discover mistakes and by auditing charts at random.Doctors who were justifiably unaware of mistakes would have an opportunity to present their perspectives. Those who appeared to have ignored or covered up their errors would have no protection and could lose the right to practice medicine.In this system, many doctors who showed patterns of substandard practice would eventually be caught, while doctors who were honestly doing their best would have a way to apologize and promote healing by telling the truth about their involvement in the mistake.As long as the harm was a result of medical care (and not a criminal act) and the doctor showed no pattern of neglect or abuse, then freedom from payment would be granted for complete disclosure.Clearly, the introduction of no-fault malpractice would require a drastic shift among doctors trained under the prevailing philosophy. Learning to trust a system that does not penalize honest mistakes will take time.Putting such a system in place will also be challenging, assuming that all physicians will have to serve some time on local medical compensation boards and that some cases will have to be referred to other jurisdictions so that well-trained peers can be identified.Patients may wince at the idea of not holding doctors personally responsible for their mistakes. Most patients are unaware of how little protection they now have. A brief survey of patient advocacy Web sites reveals that most patients oppose any limits on financial awards, erroneously assuming that the current system is working to protect them.As someone who has lived on both sides of the sick bed, I know that patients and doctors want the same thing: a system that builds trust, helps each group learn from mistakes and compensates those who are injured.The current system meets none of these challenges, but a system combining no-fault judgments with aggressive hunting for those covering up mistakes, will.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
for all those declaiming patient malpractice suits as the root of all evil in medicine today.
September 23, 2003
ESSAY Beyond the Blame: A No-Fault Approach to Malpractice
By DAN SHAPIRO
The room is filled with physicians from all over the country. It was silent until a few moments ago, when the first sad gasp was heard from the far corner. Now tearful faces fill the room. I've asked each doctor here to write a letter to a patient about something unresolved. The doctors will never mail these letters; instead, they have been instructed to write as openly and truthfully as they can.Now, Ellen, an obstetrician is reading her letter aloud. It is about something that happened 15 years ago, when she was practicing independently for the first time. She performed amniocentesis, inserting a needle into her pregnant patient's amniotic fluid to check for genetic disease, and induced a miscarriage.Ellen was not sued, and she has never spoken about it, until now.As the afternoon continues, most of the letters are about mistakes, errors these physicians made that continue to haunt them, years later. As a clinical psychologist, I have done this exercise with more than 300 doctors, assured of anonymity, in physician wellness seminars. And as a former cancer patient who spent five years struggling with chemotherapy, radiation and operations, I am aware that patients often split doctors into two groups, the good and the bad.The truth, of course, is more complex. Most physicians, even those whose skills are excellent, make terrible mistakes at some point in their careers.Most doctors are genuinely committed to their work and carry their mistakes with them, secretly, for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, a vast majority do not tell their patients when they have made mistakes that harmed them.It is not surprising that so many doctors who are successful and usually ethical will cover up their mistakes. And it is not surprising that many doctors, as well as patients, find the current system of accountability unworkable, especially in medical malpractice cases.Fear of malpractice is rampant. Research studying physicians' responses to being named in malpractice suits has revealed that the experience is traumatizing for most and that 20 percent of doctors who are defendants describe the experience as the most traumatizing of their lives.Part of the trauma is financial; doctors are personally responsible for damages beyond the amount that malpractice insurance will pay.The trauma is also psychological, as most physicians derive much of their self-definition from their knowledge that they are good doctors. In suits, it is to the plaintiff's advantage to characterize the doctor as uncaring, negligent and unskilled. Physicians who have been trained to expect perfection from themselves usually find this battering.This may explain why so many mistakes go unreported. In 1999, Dr. David Studdert, a Harvard researcher, published a paper in which doctors and nurses reviewed 14,700 medical charts from Utah and Colorado for evidence of negligent care.Then Dr. Studdert and his colleagues tracked how often bad medical care resulted in malpractice suits. "Of the patients who suffered negligent injury in our study sample, 97 percent did not sue," they wrote.The authors also concluded that roughly 5,000 uncompensated injuries resulted from medical negligence in Utah and Colorado in 1992. Dr. Studdert's results were similar to those reported in the 1970's and 80's in California and New York.In 2000, the Institute of Medicine published a report suggesting that a majority of doctors' mistakes were products of flawed systems that did not provide the checks and balances necessary to prevent errors by physicians. Many are preventable. In the last decade, malpractice insurance costs have skyrocketed, leaving many doctors unable or unwilling to pay for coverage in their chosen specialties.This year in an effort to address the problem, Representative James C. Greenwood, Republican of Pennsylvania, and Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, introduced legislation to cap financial awards to patients in malpractice cases.The legislation was voted down this summer. The flaw with this plan was that even if it worked and liability insurance prices dropped, secrecy in medicine would still not be addressed.A better plan would call for motivating physicians to report their own mistakes by offering them no-fault judgments in exchange for their disclosures. This will work as a "carrot" only if there is also a "stick" waiting for those doctors who chose to cover up their errors. In such a system, instead of physicians' paying for malpractice insurance, the doctors and patients would pay into local injured-patient compensation funds. In this way, the burden of reimbursing injured patients would be shared, and everyone would enjoy the benefits of better care resulting from changes in the way medicine is practiced.Physicians making serious mistakes would voluntarily report them to local commissions.The commissions, which would consist of physicians and patients, would strive to compensate the injured patients according to guidelines established to ensure that reimbursements were uniform.In exchange for disclosing mistakes, physicians would be granted no-fault judgments and avoid liability. If the commission agrees with the physician that harm has occurred, the patient will be compensated according to guidelines designed to ensure uniform compensation.The compensation would be more modest than the occasional enormous judgments in the courts today, but many more patients would be compensated, because the reporting onus would be on the doctor (who is in a better position to perceive the mistake), rather than the patient.Separate boards would take over the role of the state boards of medicine and investigate doctors and nurses who did not come forward. The boards would investigate medical errors and substandard practices reported by patients by studying incident reports and patient complaints to discover mistakes and by auditing charts at random.Doctors who were justifiably unaware of mistakes would have an opportunity to present their perspectives. Those who appeared to have ignored or covered up their errors would have no protection and could lose the right to practice medicine.In this system, many doctors who showed patterns of substandard practice would eventually be caught, while doctors who were honestly doing their best would have a way to apologize and promote healing by telling the truth about their involvement in the mistake.As long as the harm was a result of medical care (and not a criminal act) and the doctor showed no pattern of neglect or abuse, then freedom from payment would be granted for complete disclosure.Clearly, the introduction of no-fault malpractice would require a drastic shift among doctors trained under the prevailing philosophy. Learning to trust a system that does not penalize honest mistakes will take time.Putting such a system in place will also be challenging, assuming that all physicians will have to serve some time on local medical compensation boards and that some cases will have to be referred to other jurisdictions so that well-trained peers can be identified.Patients may wince at the idea of not holding doctors personally responsible for their mistakes. Most patients are unaware of how little protection they now have. A brief survey of patient advocacy Web sites reveals that most patients oppose any limits on financial awards, erroneously assuming that the current system is working to protect them.As someone who has lived on both sides of the sick bed, I know that patients and doctors want the same thing: a system that builds trust, helps each group learn from mistakes and compensates those who are injured.The current system meets none of these challenges, but a system combining no-fault judgments with aggressive hunting for those covering up mistakes, will.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
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How'd this thread go from AAMC's report to malpractice? well anyways...getting back to the original thread....there are only like 1400 more applicants than last year.....and it says that last year was the lowest point in the 6 year trend in decline.....so meaning...we're at 2001's level...which still isn't as bad as 47,000...
i can only speculate on why the trend was decreasing...the reason being is due to the strong economy and someone with a 4-year business or an engineer degree could come out expecting to make 70k/year and within 5 years making 100k+.....but that's not the case anymore...they're making like 40k now....and probably will be making only 50 in 5+ years.....so people are looking for an alternative mean for a higher income....thus becoming a Dr......which I think is bull$hit....this just proves that the majority of people that go into medicine are in it for the money and not for the passion......
As I recall from someone saying earlier...this is a good thing for medicine....it's not....it's a bad thing....because those people that account for an increase in the number of applicants are gold-diggers...
i can only speculate on why the trend was decreasing...the reason being is due to the strong economy and someone with a 4-year business or an engineer degree could come out expecting to make 70k/year and within 5 years making 100k+.....but that's not the case anymore...they're making like 40k now....and probably will be making only 50 in 5+ years.....so people are looking for an alternative mean for a higher income....thus becoming a Dr......which I think is bull$hit....this just proves that the majority of people that go into medicine are in it for the money and not for the passion......
As I recall from someone saying earlier...this is a good thing for medicine....it's not....it's a bad thing....because those people that account for an increase in the number of applicants are gold-diggers...
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One thing to note is that any cap being proposed that I know of is a limitation on **punative** damages. Meaning that, say you're a fancy neurosugeon making 500k/yr. If you go in for a nail extraction, and get some horrible infection that requires amputation because someone reused an instrument... you will only recieve punative, ie damages related to pain and suffering, of max 750k or so. However, you are also entitled to loss wages. If you're fourty years old, that means that you could have expected over 20 years of future income at around present levels. Then your suit would still cost the insurer 10.75 million. (granted a lot less than 800mil, but a lot more than 750k.)
My point is this: med malpractice caps, as they related to punative damages, will only limit pain and suffering money. Which is extremely subjective anyways (there is no way a juror can make a well informed decision between .8, 8, 80, and 800 million on something like that.) So the next time someone is telling you how these caps are evil and going to hurt those who have already been wronged, make sure they understand the full issue.
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