This naive line of thinking is why NPs and PAs are able to take over our jobs. While I'm sure it's certainly good for your patients that you feel this way, this kind of altruistic attitude is childish and harmful to physicians as a whole. My reward for going through 10 years of hell as a medical student and resident is being able to, for the next 40 years, walk through the OR doors, operate, walk out, and bank half a million. It's being able to never again have to wheel a patient from the preop area, never again have to wipe a patient down after I put the knife down, never again have to wait on my a$$ for anesthesia to wake the patient up, and certainly never again have to listen to or take **** from any nurses or other non-attending staff members. Again, good for you and your coworkers/patients that you're willing to get down and do all this cr@p, and maybe even do it for low pay because it's a "vocation." But people like you are why physicians get taken advantage of by everyone in the hospital/healthcare system and why our job is trending in the wrong direction more and more every year/why fewer people are satisfied with it and want to do it
you totally missed the point of that post
it was brought up that people can't handle the "indignities" of medical training as well later in life compared to early in life
mentirita was pointing out that indignities exist everywhere for everyone, and when you follow your vocation, you just deal with them whenever and wherever they arise
they were giving examples of physicians that work hard and get their hands dirty
I don't agree that a lot of the "indignities" of medical training are necessary to train physicians, but nor do I agree that they should be stop you from committing to medicine at any age, if you are truly committed, in fact, I think a lot of my older classmates who had had careers and such before, or those that chose to start over BECAUSE it was their vocation, handled "indignities" that other classmates might have seen as such, much better
I think with our current health system, the pressure on docs to provide care, for which there is greater demand than supply, that yes, it doesn't take a frakking MD and 11+ years of advanced schooling/training to call for records to be faxed, and my concern with doing anything like that is more that it takes away time I could be teaching patients or holding their hands or holding a family meeting
I'm more resentful that I don't have time to get my patients ice chips or pillows when I'm in the room, or wipe their ass while I'm there, than some idea I'm above any aspect of patient care
I like wheeling patients but it's more important I do tasks as a physician that can't be delegated anywhere else and as such fall on me
people that feel like me or mentirita or the others are not the reasons it's going in the shytter, actually
the people that only care about money might do more to protect reimbursements, but it's exactly the people that aren't doing this for money that will see to it that the vocation isn't sold out, to preserve its mission to care for patients above the bottom dollar, the value people put on what we do and pay us is directly related to the trust placed in us and how well we do that job
it's not mutually exclusive no matter what your stance is for why you're doing this, money or vocation, to protect what we do or the living we deserve to make for doing it