How to overcome DOCTOR SHORTAGE
This post was written by a student. It has not been fact checked or edited.
I think that there is a doctor shortage in our country because of 3 factors:
Those who are trying to become a doctor want to go to other countries and they don't want to be in our country. The main reason for this is they want to get more salary and lead a luxurious life. I think the best way to overcome this problem is to increase the salary of doctors so that they won't go to other countries.
The next factor is work tension. Doctors have to work 24/7 without rest. They also have a family and they also want some rest. So this problem can be solved by making the doctors work on a shift basis. This will give them time to relax and spend time with their family.
Another factor is everyone has a fear of studying the portions required to become a doctor. They feel that becoming a doctor is much harder than being a doctor. The solution for this problem is to provide proper guidance for the students so that they won't be afraid of the syllabus they need to study. Also, providing funds for students who are really interested in becoming a doctor could encourage more students to become a doctor.
These are some solutions which I think would help to overcome the doctor shortage in our country.
Comments (1)
My friend story, It took 12 years after high school for me to qualify as a General Surgeon, and that is not the longest training option. So as the saying goes, “ the stethoscope is the most expensive jewelry, because it costs you your youth”. In addition to being able to take on the academic and physical demands of the training, one must be willing to. When I applied for my residency, the ratio of applicants to positions was 1:4. It’s now about 1:2, not because there are more positions, but because fewer people want to take on the challenges of general surgery. It’s stimulating and rewarding and significant, and operating is a combination of intellectual puzzle, craft, and privilege. It’s also difficult and exhausting, and all consuming, and increasingly frustrating as regulations designed by non-clinicians place more and more barriers in the way of patient care.
Also, as someone who has worked in rural area, I didn’t come to an urban one to make more money- I came to get my life back. Rural practice means fewer people in your call group and more nights on call. My father in law was a general practitioner in a small town, and on his nights off, people would just knock on his door if they wanted to see him. Jobs and extracurricular activities for spouses, and educational options for your kids, who tend to be bright and academically focused are also limited . Rural MDs generally earn more than docs in urban areas, and yet we want to be where we have a community of peers.
So, if you want more doctors, incentivize young people to become doctors. Pay primary care more- while primary care physicians cost more in salary than midlevel providers, studies have shown their care costs less per patient, because medical training does not rely heavily on algorithms, and allows them to skip to the diagnosis without following low probability pathways. Stop falling back on “ make the doctor do more paperwork “ as the solution to every new fad or regulation. We’re generally terrible typists, good clinicians, and caring for people is where our value lies, and our time should be spent. Stop giving insurance companies and auditors the power to deny care and treat every typo as a crime, rather than the work of a terrible typist who just wants to look after their patients. The good parts of the job are great. The bad parts scare off or drive out a lot of qualified people. When we pay college coaches millions a year to teach grown men to play a game, and we pay the person responsible for , on average, 2300 lives (average US primary care patient panel, or practice size) a fraction of that, why would a bright , ambitious person , thinking rationally, choose medicine?