What? Oh, Never Mind by Pat Conrad MD
Hey AMA, what sort of year has it been for the med students? In the “Medical School Life” section, Kevin B. O’Reilly, news editor of the American Medical Association, gives us “Our 10 most popular stories of 2018.”
They talked about specialty as it relates to burnout; factors impacting Match rankings; and how the U.S. Supreme Court might rule against physicians and give Big Insurance greater power to limit referrals out of network.
(Let’s see…scanning…skimming…nope…)
There is more about how to reduce burnout, and what it’s like to be a dermatologist (insert appropriate snark here, internists).
How to be professional during clerkships… (we could do without the lip rings).
(…still looking…)
…and how romance and residency need not be mutually exclusive (as though they couldn’t figure out what call rooms are really for).
I got all the way to the end of the list and saw nothing about reducing Medicare regulations, or stabilizing reimbursements, but those student loan payments are years off. I saw no articles about how the only true purpose of the “Quality” industry is to avoid paying doctors and hospitals, but hey, that’s down the road. Apparently revolting against the MOC and getting rid of the insulting American Board of Medical Specialties extortion racket wasn’t too popular a topic, nor should it be for students hoping to be constantly scrutinized forever. I would have guessed the AMA’s resolutions against racism and homelessness would have been a big student hit, but maybe the head office cancelling their convention in San Francisco over safety concerns spoiled the mood to write about it. The AMA didn’t run any story promising to oppose an ICD-11, or eschewing further profits off of codebooks, which would have been boring anyway. And in fairness, any story on how every member of the JCHAO should be loaded on a boat bound for one of those islands where the natives eat missionaries would just confuse those worried about the boards Part 1. And by the time the kids get to Part 3, a top story may well be how physicians will truly have fallen in love with their patient-centered EHR’s.
So on second thought, never mind – they can cover all that stuff after residency.
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Or Aristotle:
See R&M
To enjoy life by practicing the virtues inherent in the art of medicine? How’s that for an answer?
Or do we learn a different message:
Stanford i.e. life is a small blip in the stream of nonsentient nonawareness.
Which does today’s medicine teach? and which should it teach?