8 ms·

The medical cartel will never allow that. They have a complete stranglehold on both licensing and education.

by zionic 7y ago

anovikov 7y ago
Why doesn't government intervene? Say, by handing out green cards on arrival to every doc from a certain list of "rich" countries, filling the void very quickly? Or even by making medical education a state monopoly and leave it up to the state to decide who to license?
- wobbly_bush 7y ago
  The recent Indian government has been doing something loosely on these lines - drastically increasing the number of student capacity in public medical colleges [1] [1] https://www.livemint.com/news/india/15-700-more-mbbs-seats-soon-in-75-new-colleges-5-things-to-know-1567049776772.html https://www.livemint.com/news/india/15-700-more-mbbs-seats-s...
- conanbatt 7y ago
  You mean stop intervening. The state is acting by not allowing the immigration of doctors and not recognizing education abroad
  - anovikov 7y ago
    Why don't people protest? I mean, the U.S. is a democratic country and has a strong system designed to lobby for or against anything. Most people except docs themselves should be concerned with this, why is there no lobbying movement to change things? It should be a no-brainer to fund.
- tutuca 7y ago
  Oh no! you said goverment intervention!! Burn the heretic! (I'm joking but I guess that's why you got so many downvotes)
  - pc86 7y ago
    They got downvoted because their comment shows an impressive lack of knowledge on how the system actually works.
nradov 7y ago
By "medical cartel" are you referring to the US Congress? Because the actual bottleneck in physician production is in the shortage of residency training slots, and the vast majority of those are funded by the Federal government. The American Medical Association has been lobbying for more residency slots. Every year students graduate from medical schools but are unable to practice medicine because they can't get matched to a residency program. https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-fund-graduate-medical-education-address-physician-shortages https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-fun...
- pc86 7y ago
  Similarly you have both prospective residents not matching into any program, but also programs having unmatched slots. These students then have a week to call around and try to get one of these slots, very often changing specialties in the process (usually to family medicine). Imagine spending $200k to go to college, get good enough grades for med school, get into med school, want to practice anesthesia or rheumatology or internal medicine only to not match and then have to choose between either waiting a year and trying again or going to the middle of nowhere Montana to a family medicine program. Residency is a job and should be interviewed for and selected like any other job.
  - smeyer 7y ago
    Would changing the interview and selection process to look like other jobs alleviate the case you're laying out? In a similar way, there are students who spend $200k to go to college, then go to law school, wanting to practice in a certain area of law, and find out at the end that the only job they can get is poorly paying or in an area they don't want to live.
    - ab_testing 7y ago
      The difference is that even if you fail to get a job as a lawyer, you can start your own practice. With medicine if you cannot get residency first year, your chances of getting in drop significantly after that and you can never go out and practise medicine on your own.

The medical cartel will never allow that. They have a complete stranglehold on both licensing and education.

by zionic 7y ago

The medical cartel will never allow that. They have a complete stranglehold on both licensing and education.

Why doesn't government intervene? Say, by handing out green cards on arrival to every doc from a certain list of "rich" countries, filling the void very quickly? Or even by making medical education a state monopoly and leave it up to the state to decide who to license?

wobbly_bush 7y ago
The recent Indian government has been doing something loosely on these lines - drastically increasing the number of student capacity in public medical colleges [1] [1] https://www.livemint.com/news/india/15-700-more-mbbs-seats-soon-in-75-new-colleges-5-things-to-know-1567049776772.html https://www.livemint.com/news/india/15-700-more-mbbs-seats-s...
conanbatt 7y ago
You mean stop intervening. The state is acting by not allowing the immigration of doctors and not recognizing education abroad
- anovikov 7y ago
  Why don't people protest? I mean, the U.S. is a democratic country and has a strong system designed to lobby for or against anything. Most people except docs themselves should be concerned with this, why is there no lobbying movement to change things? It should be a no-brainer to fund.
tutuca 7y ago
Oh no! you said goverment intervention!! Burn the heretic! (I'm joking but I guess that's why you got so many downvotes)
- pc86 7y ago
  They got downvoted because their comment shows an impressive lack of knowledge on how the system actually works.

nradov 7y ago

By "medical cartel" are you referring to the US Congress? Because the actual bottleneck in physician production is in the shortage of residency training slots, and the vast majority of those are funded by the Federal government. The American Medical Association has been lobbying for more residency slots. Every year students graduate from medical schools but are unable to practice medicine because they can't get matched to a residency program. https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-fund-graduate-medical-education-address-physician-shortages https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-fun...

pc86 7y ago
Similarly you have both prospective residents not matching into any program, but also programs having unmatched slots. These students then have a week to call around and try to get one of these slots, very often changing specialties in the process (usually to family medicine). Imagine spending $200k to go to college, get good enough grades for med school, get into med school, want to practice anesthesia or rheumatology or internal medicine only to not match and then have to choose between either waiting a year and trying again or going to the middle of nowhere Montana to a family medicine program. Residency is a job and should be interviewed for and selected like any other job.
- smeyer 7y ago
  Would changing the interview and selection process to look like other jobs alleviate the case you're laying out? In a similar way, there are students who spend $200k to go to college, then go to law school, wanting to practice in a certain area of law, and find out at the end that the only job they can get is poorly paying or in an area they don't want to live.
  - ab_testing 7y ago
    The difference is that even if you fail to get a job as a lawyer, you can start your own practice. With medicine if you cannot get residency first year, your chances of getting in drop significantly after that and you can never go out and practise medicine on your own.