Already a member?
Welcome to Brazen Careerist!
Emily Ma is using Brazen Careerist to share ideas. Join now to become a member and start networking with Emily Ma and other professionals just like you. Learn more.
Brazen careerist
Where ambitious young professionals connect and grow
Email
Print
The need for health care reform and new health care policies keeps making the news almost every day.
Better access to health care includes better access to the knowledge and services of physicians. That would imply the number of new health care graduates should grow as the population grows, but medical school degree data published by the National Center for Education Statistics shows no growth at all.
For the academic year 1985-86, 15,938 Medical School Degrees were reported. The number has not been that high since, although MD degrees reached 15,730 for the year ending June 2007.
In that same period, the resident population reported by the Bureau of Census increased 66.2 million. It was 237.9 million in 1985 but reached 304.1 million in 2008. Despite continuous growth in America's population, more physicians are not being trained.
The High Costs of Becoming a Doctor
Becoming a physician is a long and expensive process that takes four years of college prior to 4 years of medical school. Medical school tuition reported by the American Association of Medical Colleges in 2008 averaged $23,593 for the 75 public university medical schools and $41,235 for the 50 private university medical schools.
In some states, a medical school graduate can get a license to practice medicine after completing a one-year internship, but most states require two years in a medical residency program. During residency programs, hospitals typically define pay as a stipend, apparently to save money paying low wages, so the residency period continues to be a period of financial drain on medical students.
Those admitted to America's service academies at Annapolis, Maryland and West Point, New York pay no tuition. America trains its military officers at public expense. For medical professionals, though, America puts the burden to pay for at least 10 years of training on the individual.
Much of this medical expense comes during a time in life when people usually begin to support themselves and pay their own living expenses. For many in medical training, living expenses are a burden that generates even more debt to pay off later.
As Costs Increase, Ranks Shrink
Some of the strain in the current system shows up in physician employment asreported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Family and General Practitioner jobs are in decline. There were 135,000 reported as recently as 2001, but 106,000 reported for 2008.
It also has the lowest entry pay of reported physician specialties, $73,000. An entry wage of $73,000 will not be sufficient to support a family and pay the debt from 10 years of medical education.
It is time to recognize that a major component in health care reform needs to be more physicians. They need to grow at least as fast as the population. In the current system, it isn't happening and I doubt it ever will.
It's time to train our physicians like we train our generals: at public expense.
Fred Siegmund covers America's jobs as part of work doing labor market analysis and projections for a client base of recruiters, trainers and counselors. Visit him at www.americanjobmarket.blogspot.com
For more timely, relevant, and engaging articles,
subscribe to Brazen Careerist.
- How To Find a Writing Partner Who Can Help You Achieve Your Goals and Make More Money
- Why You Might Be Better Off Without a Job After College
- The Anti-Stalker’s Guide for Converting Online Contact into Real World Collaboration
- Continuing Education: Extending Learning Beyond Your Campus Years
- A New Kind of Business Mover and Shaker
Comments
06.30.09
The reason there is a lack of physicians is not because there are not enough people wanting to become a doctor - between 50% and 60% of people who apply to medical school don't get in ANYWHERE.
The real reason there is a lack of physicians is because the American Medical Association (AMA) arbitrarily caps the number of people admitted to medical schools. The AMA tells medical schools how many applicants they are allowed to admit, and it lobbies fiercely against the opening of new medical schools.
Why does the AMA do this? The AMA is a group that represents of all the licensed doctors in the United States. The AMA wants to keep doctors' salaries high, so they artificially decrease the supply of doctors by capping medical school admissions. So if you want to blame anyone for the shortage of physicians, blame the AMA.
06.30.09
There is a lot of truth to what Jason says. It is the same with the lawyers who have the bar to cap the number of actual lawyers in the US. Another reason that general practitioners have been in decline is because of Medicare. Many doctors do not get full refunds from the government, and it affects GPs more because many of the people who use Medicare will use a GP more often than a specialist. Finally, as Medicare and other insurance programs have eaten into the doctor's profits many have opted to go into private practice. This is what happened with my GP, meaning he no longer accepts any insurance and requires a ridiculous fee for the pleasure of seeing him.
Public training of doctors would be an enormous burden on the American taxpayer, and we are already paying a large share of our income in taxes already.
06.30.09
@Brett Medicare pays specialists below market rates so that doesn't make sense of why government reimbursement would only effect primary care. In general across all types of payers, specialist make twice as much as primary care physicians. As far as your doctor, sounds like he got sick of all types of insurance.
@Jason, I want to see the source of $73,000 as a starting salary. Maybe that takes into account starting a practice and the infrastructure. The physician salary data that I looked 3 years ago had a starting salary of at least $125,000. However, a general surgeon makes $250,000 so it's no wonder that 70% of physicians are specialists. Overall, I think the idea of paying for a primary care physicians education to encourage more to enter the field is not a bad idea. We can also pay PCP's more (and specialist less) and continue to expand the scope of practice of nurse practitioners and physicians assistants to address the issue. Finally, it seems like osteopathic programs are on the rise so there are other ways to address it. This is a problem but bemoaning about the poverty of physicians is an odd way to address it considering they have some of the highest lifetime earnings of any profession.
11.26.10
Cambridge Dentist I've surfed the net more than three hours today, and your blog was the coolest of all. Thanks a lot, it is really useful to me.
Got Something To Say?
Got Something To Say?
Not a Member? Brazen Careerist is a career management tool for next-generation professionals. Set up a free account today to comment on this post and start sharing your ideas. Learn more.
Login to view your networks!
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
