How being a doctor became the most miserable profession

[spotty_dog]

Facebooked by a FM/sports physician...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...rofession.html

I thought about putting this in debates but I don't think there's much to debate here.

Do you agree? Does the doc you know discourage others from joining the profession? Is the deck stacked against the primary care doc? Would healthcare improve if patients better understood the stresses their doctors are under?

[Vanquisher]

I think there needs to be some education of the public, yes, but I don't know how much it would help.

I don't think primary's necessarily have it a lot worse off than specialists. We face all the same issues the article pointed out. Primaries need more $$, but that isn't a panacea.

It's a bleak world in medicine out there, and it's getting worse.

[MAPPLEBUM]

This was on my desktop after DH checked his email this morning. Already making the rounds I see.Certainly biased to one position but solid points. Will finish reading in the next hour or so.

[rainbabies]

Yep he discourages. And yep it blows. Would love to do something else if we didn't owe over 350k.

[Urowife]

My DH actively encourages others to become doctors. His road has been different than most though since he's military. He doesn't have tons of loans, and while he deals with administrative BS in the Navy, it's not the same BS as in the civilian world. We'll see if he changes his tune once he starts the civilian job this summer. Something tells me he won't though, and I think it's partially a personality thing. He's usually pretty positive.

[Chrisada]

DH does not regret his decision and chose a practice that really values it's docs and doesn't work them to death. (they've all stayed in the practice for years) I guess time will tell. But we are happy and optimistic.


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[Pollyanna]

DH does not regret his decision and chose a practice that really values it's docs and doesn't work them to death. (they've all stayed in the practice for years) I guess time will tell. But we are happy and optimistic.


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Yes this. Dh is very happy with his decision and we both feel very blessed to be able to help others, him through medicine and me by making it easy via the home front for him to do his job. We both encourage others to go into medicine.

FYI: this isn't new. Even in the golden age of medicine lots of docs didn't encourage others to go into medicine.

Eta: the patients are there to be treated and cred for, they don't need to know about the stress their doctor is under. That is such a "poor me" attitude.

[Mrs. MD, Esq.]

Well, I saw this on Ides Facebook fist and mucked it up with my comment already...I'll copy here:

"While I can appreciate the fact that someone is recognizing and saying what nobody else is recognizing/saying, it frustrates me that it excludes plenty of doctors...there is still this divide that some doctors "have it easy" and, from a time/lifestyle perspective that has historically been true but it is definitely changing. Different specialties are getting far less reimbursed while being expected to sometimes double and triple their workload. That's not even mentioning the dabbling doctors in different fields that extend their practice into fields in which they don't have sufficient training because it's expected and they have to make up losses somewhere. It's not just primary care that is getting the short end (though, admittedly, it's a rough place to practice without a lot of thanks).

Sorry, that was a much longer rant than intended. "

I will add that I don't think that DH regrets what he does because he genuinely seems to like it (and I think he will be even happier when he can get back to procedures). Hopefully that won't change!

[spaz]

I don't have facebook. Can someone copy and send me the article?

[poky]

I don't have facebook. Can someone copy and send me the article?

The first post in this thread has a link directly to the article in question...

[rainbabies]

I wanted to add to my previous post...
Dh actually loves *what* he does. And he's still open to that dream job with the great people to work with. In fact, he actually likes where he's currently working. He's gone two weeks a month but he really likes the hospital and staff he's with.
He's completely fed up with the healthcare laws, regulations the reimbursement, all the bs that prevents him from doing his job. The whole patient satisfaction crap. Yes you should be able to rate your doc. But when you're a seeker and my dh doesn't give you the drugs you want......????
And he really hates being, in his words, an over glorified data entry clerk.

[ides]

Dh doesn't regret medicine per say, but doctors are in a shitty situation and I'm sick to death of the villainization and finger pointing at doctors.

[houseelf]

I'm going to "go there". In the eighties everyone lambasted the used car salesmen. Then attorneys were the evil wrongdoers for a decade or so. It really DOES feel like doctors are taking center stage now. IMHO, if there is a profession that does deserve a little public censure it's hedge fund managers/global banking execs. Not that anyone deserves this, but....

Anyways, I don't know why there is all this doctor hate.

[SuzySunshine]

My husband loves 95% of his job and he would encourage people that REALLY know what they're going into to go for it if they loved it. With that said he has said he will most likely discourage his kids from doing it, there are lots of other medical professions with better hours and lives then being the MD.

I agree that lately it seems like docs have been vilianized in lots of things - I think a large part of it has to do with the fact that you can put a face on them. Healthcare in this country is broken, no one really knows how to fix it and you can't really put a face on the insurance companies, drug companies, etc. Plus they spend a TON of money lobbying so they're not the ones getting finger pointed. We can tell people that the CEO of United Healtcare made a TON of money last year until we're blue in the face but people aren't waiting in his office, seeing him drive nice cars, etc so they point at the people they do see, the docs.

I don't know what the solution is but I've learned to just ignore it the best I can.