Thumbs Down
The statistics from the Physicians Foundation survey found that of the 8,700 doctors queried, fewer than half say they are satisfied with their jobs. By contrast, 79 percent of American workers give their jobs a thumbs-up. In other words, that’s a big thumbs-down from doctors.
It’s time for a change.
Oh, you want more? Ok, here you go:
- More than three in four doctors feel burned out.
- Eighty percent are overworked and overextended, meaning they have little time to take on more patients.
- Nearly two-thirds are pessimistic about the future of the medical profession.
- Forty-six percent of those surveyed by the Physicians Foundation plan to change career paths.
- Seventeen percent say that they’re retiring
- 12 percent want to find a job where they don’t have to deal with patients.
- Almost half say they wouldn’t recommend medicine as a career to their children.
Given this information you have to wonder why the idiot pundits still think that Direct Primary Care will exacerbate the physician shortage. Really? Do they not think that the shortage has anything to do with the system they are in now?
Absolutely clueless.
Dr. Farrago is the author of four books, which you can find here.
What is wrong? Nothing at all.
When an advancing military force seeks to acquire a valuable piece of defended terrain, it may move on it in battle, with advantage held by the defender; or otherwise render it undesirable to the occupants by rendering it obsolete or undesirable. The defenders abandon it then willingly.
Fifty years ago, doctors defended the practice of medicine for rational and virtuous reasons. It was a part of a radical improvement in the human condition. As such, it grew in power and wealth, delivering valuable services.
As always, such attention draws moochers and looters, who seek riches without offering anything of value.
Medicine has been besieged; it is crippled. Its ability to offer value is diminished. Doctors, rationally, see no reason to fight for something that has been bypassed.
Now that medicine means the flow of cash to the “healthcare sector,” the middle man is seen as a greedy and unwanted expense. Soon we will see the end of prescription, and Dr. Watson will collate one’s complaints and deliver drugs by drone helicopter.
The customer will be thrilled. The customer will be told this is a massive improvement.
The siege will be broken. Who, as a doctor, will wish to stand on the ramparts?
Not I.
And your military analogy is apt. That is why the Truk Atoll was bypassed, and why Pelilui and Iwo Jima probably should have been.