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Medical Students, Specialty Practice, And More Money

With medical students graduating, on average, with almost $160,000 of debt, it’s a major reason why they’re choosing more lucrative specialty practice, which can offer salaries multiple times more than those of primary care fields.

In this clip from The Vanishing Oath, medical economist Amitabh Chandra, Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, discusses that influence, which contributes to a drastic decline of primary care residency slots being filled by American medical graduates.

Of course, it’s not only money. Primary care practice has a litany of obstacles that can contribute to rapid physician burnout, compounded by the fact that good primary care role models are largely absent from academic settings.

But there’s no denying that the salary disparity is an influential factor, and for many students, often a deciding one.

A video excerpt from The Vanishing Oath, a film directed by Ryan Flesher, M.D.:

*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*

No Medical School Debt = More Primary Care Doctors?

There’s little question that medical school debt is rising rapidly, affecting the career choice of medical students.

It’s one of the main reasons why the disparity between the number of specialists and primary care doctors is widening. There have been a variety of proposed solutions — most recent of which are medical schools completely subsidizing their tuition. I think that’s a good step forward, but so far has only been limited to a few schools nationwide. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*

The Canary And The Primary Care Physician

The vexing problem with “truth” when it comes to healthcare is to understand its limits. Let’s start with two  popular notions. The first: canaries are harbingers for detecting chemical leaks. The second: primary care specialists claim higher salaries for their work will prevent their extinction. Both claims sound plausible, but then come the conditions, the nuances, the variables and empirical testing and observation — the so called threads of truth.

Notion 1, The Canaries: In 1972 my brother passed through the military’s basic training and was Vietnam bound until a perfect score on a standardized test, his Phi Beta Kappa and a chemistry degree from college rerouted his destiny to a remote patch of the Utah desert. Instead of being a foot soldier, he gave back to his country in a chemical warfare lab. Read more »

“Social Mission”: A Primary Care Score For Medical Schools

Medical schools are traditionally ranked on criteria like research funding and technological innovation. These rankings are highly significant. A place on the U.S. News‘ annual “Best Medical School” list  is a coveted spot indeed.

So that’s why there was some media attention paid to a recent study from the Annals of Internal Medicine, which ranked medical schools according to their “social mission” — a phrase that defines a school’s commitment to primary care, underserved populations and workforce diversity. Using this new criterion, some of the traditionally high ranking schools fell significantly. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*

Why Primary Care Doctors Leave

There’s little question that the workplace environment for doctors is deteriorating. Especially in primary care, where physicians are arguably needed the most.

That’s why is so disheartening to read this Newsweek essay from pediatrician Karen Li, explaining why she left the field. Much of her piece can be attributed to the bad old days of managed care, where doctors were frustrated by the bureaucratic impediments placed before them. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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