Doctor shortage

Found this very interesting article in the news regarding a possible shortage of doctors in the future:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/200 ... tage_x.htm

Comments or Opinions?

Personally, I think the field of medicine and health care has just become too oversized or "too big for it's britches" as the old saying goes.

You go to the doctor these days with a little ache and you wind up oweing thousands of dollars and taking umpteen number of medications, etc.

Makes you long for the old, sensible, reliable, country doc who knew how to cure his patients and didn't take as much time, or money, in doing it either.

Don't get me wrong, I know that the area of medicine has accomplished so much in recent years, and I'm grateful for that, but it still seems sometimes like the field of medicine is an area that has just gotten a bit out of hand in some ways.

Eh, I'm not so sure it's actually a shortage as much as it is the doctors deciding to live in certain places. People just perceive a shortage because there isn't a big hospital in some areas. That kind of thing has always been true.

Still, even in my small town, which does have a rather large hospital, the medical field seems to be the only one always expanding. If someone has the passion for medicine, it would certainly be a great career choice.

There are so many doctors that come to the USA from other countries that I don't think we'll see a shortage anytime soon.

Now, I've talked to some of my nurse friends and they have told me how there are nurse shortages in certain fields of medicine. It's unfortunate, but some fields draw more interest than others; some people would rather tend to a premature baby than an old man in a nursing home.

it's actually because of money.

Alot of Doctors leave medical school close to 500k in debt. They have to take a high paying job to pay it off.

This forces them to specialize in something that pays higher than what they want.

Same with some nurses. Nurses have alot of loans and go where you get paid the most. It's human greed. Why wait on a old man for less than a baby?

When most people leave college, their loans will weigh them down. Thus they want higher money to pay loans off.

It's a vicious thing.

The high cost of a medical degree is one reason health care is so expensive in this country. Doctors are forced to really specialize because they get more money, and this forces costs of medical care to go up. The doctor shortage is actually about general care doctors, like family physicians, who don't make as much as, say, a heart surgeon.

I heard on the news this morning that more places may let medical practitioners take over and do the doctoring if there are a shortage of docs in some places. I suppose they do know a lot and could help some people. I don't know if some patients would be entirely comfortable with that though.

It's all about money--but I also heard that the program to become a doctor is absolutely brutal. In order to encourage people to become doctors, we have to pay them a lot of money; at the same time they shouldn't be paid five grand for a backache. Meh....Healthcare.