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*
