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I'll be more clear - doctors have almost no extra or unnecessary training during their residencies. It's all very specialty-driven, or at the very least is spec
by pc86 4y ago
I'll be more clear - doctors have almost no extra or unnecessary training during their residencies. It's all very specialty-driven, or at the very least is specialty-specific public service (e.g. low-income clinics). If anything, the doctors I've spoken to said they should all probably be a year or two longer across the board if only to allow for better work-life balance, but none of them would want to have to go through that obviously.
The closest thing to "extra training" they get is fellowship-related rotations, but even this is all things they'll see in practice so they need to know how to handle it initially, if for no other reason than so they know when to offload it to a specialist.
> They are often done by age 24, and ready to help.
I'm sure this is fine for whatever the equivalent is to an urgent care doctor in the UK (bottom of the barrel family med in the US, probably not board certified - e.g. failed the exam or not qualified to take it - or doing transitional residency because they didn't match anywhere), but I'm not really interested in my orthopedic surgeon or neurologist just getting through their training as quickly as possible.
There are lots of ways the US could increase the pool of doctors, and most doctors are probably paid way too much (paradoxically, probably most egregiously at the low end of skill), but "cut out a bunch of training" is a dumb way to do it.
- Cederfjard 4y agoTaking this discussion at face value, it sounds like US physicians go through substantially more training than their UK counterparts. If true, does that manifest itself in substantially better outcomes for their patients?
- kolbe 4y agoYou realize that 4 years of residency isn't the magical number of the perfect amount? Two could very well be sufficient, and the other two "extra or unnecessary training." Also, you keep ignoring the college requirement, which makes you seem very disingenuous, and if you are a doctor, makes me worry for your patients.
- pc86 4y agoI'm not a doctor, but why would you want a doctor who didn't go to college? I was pre-med in college and quickly changed after I realized I didn't actually like biochem all that much. Imagine what that would have looked like had I been attending a medical school instead of a "normal" college. It sounds like what you actually want is an NP or something like that. Which is fine, there are plenty of those around.
- kolbe 4y agoWhat? Why should I care whether or not they went to college? I want them to be able to do their job, and I don't care about prestige whoring over competency. Maybe if they hadn't required classes that are irrelevant to 95% of doctors (orgo, biochem and pchem), you would have been able to pursue the career you wanted. This is yet more support for the idea my friend who "I should never ever listen to" said about requiring far too much credentialing. NPs would be fine... if they were allowed to give medical advise. Unfortunately, we still have to pay for someone with 6 years of excess schooling to come in to weigh in officially and to pay a huge premium for it.