Doctor shortage? easy solution at hand

[SoCalDem]

Loan forgiveness if the newly-minted doctors serve low-income areas or work at non-profit medical facilities for a number of years equal to their education-years:)

A CCC-style of "recruiting" the best & brightest from high schools & supporting them through college..(of course they have to maintain the grades).. Allowing them to study, instead of holding down 3 bullshit jobs to just pay the tuition.

I read an article a few years back that intimated that the AMA was involved in a scheme to hold DOWN the number of medical school students to avoid a "glut" of doctors "on the market".

If we need more doctors, then we better get busy, helping to CREATE more doctors.. It's not un-do-able:)

this could be (and probably should be) done for a LOT of necessary professions. There ARE plenty of really smart kids who never get their chance to shine, because they cannot afford to finish college..or even start:(

[CTyankee]

1. Hell, just do it European style: if they can make the cut they get a free education

all the way through. Let's just socialize it.

[SoCalDem]

4. my choice, as well

:)

[Mist]

2. I thought such programs had been in place for years? I remember reading about them

years ago.

[SoCalDem]

3. there were local communities who supported "their " special student

but government-wide, I don;t think it ever materialized.

[Warpy]

5. They've already got a loan forgiveness program for rural docs

but it needs some tweaking. Often the docs will stay in the rural areas until the paperwork goes through and then skedaddle back to the big city.

It's been quite a scandal in some areas of the country.

One thing that would help is streamlining the insane way we educate our doctors. They should be able to do it in six years, not eight: two years of all the prerequisite sciences and four years of med school. Throwing in all that garbage to make them well rounded is unnecessary. Most are extremely intelligent and will read that stuff on their own. Reducing two years of debt load would be a great advantage to them.

Merit based college admissions with tuition and living stipends would work a lot better than basing college admission on the old class system, only gentlemen need apply because the working classes can't afford it. You end up with the same stupid gentlemen with a veneer of education and a lot of intelligent and frustrated people on the bottom who never had a chance.

A lot of what we're doing in this country just plain doesn't work, but bad habits are hard to break. Ask any smoker.

[LiberalEsto]

6. The AMA med school quotas are real

I knew people who went to medical school in Mexico, as long ago as the 1970s, because there weren't enough openings at U.S. medical schools. I believe the same thing is true for veterinarians.

[Lasher]

13. True.

Medical schools are controlled by the LCME. The LCME is dominated and funded by the AMA. The AMA deliberately holds down the numbers of medical graduates to keep doctors' incomes high.

Hospitals are filling residency positions, including internships, with non-resident foreign applicants who are then supplied with H-1B visas enabling them to work as physicians in the US.

Now what it wrong with this picture?

[SoCalDem]

14. and poor kids who are smart, end up not going to college

or do go, and are saddled with oppressive debt..and often end up in careers they grow to HATE.

[stray cat]

7. That type of program has been in place for years - but you don't get to choose where you go

you have to agree to go where the need is.

[SoCalDem]

8. Sounds fair to me:)..I'd do it:) n/t

[rucky]

10. like Nome, Alaska

poor Dr. Fleischman. I miss that show.

[SoCalDem]

11. It's still on here..on one of our PBS channels

go figure..

I liked that show too..until Fleischman got cocky & killed it:(

[customerserviceguy]

9. I agree with your last paragraph

and it should apply to nurses, then after a few years out in the field, they should be able to become nurse practitioners with about 80% of the prescription power of a doctor. That's what about 80% of routine doctor visits are for, anyway, simple access to a prescription that can handle the job in many more cases than not.

A lot of doctor-hours are spent on things that any experience nurse practitioner could adequately treat, and would probably do a better job of listening to the patient in the first place, making the right diagnosis.

[Shagbark Hickory]

12. They need to just put students through MED school in turn for working in State-run hospitals.

And by the way we need some more of those.

[mainer]

15. The real problem: training doctors is expensive for the SCHOOLS

Medical schools across the country are TRYING to increase the number of student slots, but it's expensive to expand, much less create, a medical school. You need adequate lab space, anatomical specimens, qualified professors -- both basic science as well as clinical -- and hospital facilities for clerkships. Many medical schools are attached to state universities, and we all know how strapped they are for cash right now. How can you expect them to suddenly come up with the millions of dollars needed to expand their M.D. programs? (Trust me, the AMA isn't trying to limit student slots. They want to have enough doctors to treat THEM as well. Our state medical association has been working hard to attract more M.D.'s to Maine, and has been hoping for years that we could get a new medical school started here. No money.)

Federal funds should start flowing to medical schools, so they can expand the available number of slots.. That's where the shortage is.