subject: Career Woes Of Physicians And The Quest For A Cure [print this page] If you're a physician and you happen to graduate from medical school in 1955, it was the time when young doctors had a world of opportunities, plenty of jobs in nice places with high salaries. But one of the graduates wasn't as lucky. Though he has a medical school diploma, he was unable to get a career with high stability and pay, but is very competitive instead.
Once the golden career field, its shine has waned with the rise of managed care systems, which have caused doctors to work with less autonomy and corrupt the once sacred doctor patient relationship. These days, the graduates from med school find out where they shall have their postgraduate residencies. For those who end up in hospitals they prefer, matching day can cause some celebration. This is just a reality check for the dismal opportunities that await those who aren't as auspicious.
Surveys suggest there are simply too many doctors and medical schools. In a recent report from the journal of the American Medical association, more than 10 percent of doctors trained in a specialty still are unable to find career opportunities in some parts of the country. A study that was conducted with the help of a company recommended the wholesale shutdown of US medical schools due to an excess of doctors and stated that medical schools must admit 20 to 25 percent less students.
Many doctors will find themselves jobless as the medical center in Boston that teaches hospital lessons will soon eliminate jobs. Back then when he just finished school, things were not this way, recounts a doctor who is now also dean of a celebrated medical school. He remembers clearly that there were tons of opportunities in any of the fields they want to pursue. Since the generalist fields such as internal medicine, pediatrics and family medicine have seen steady growth since the 1990s or earlier, many students in medicine prudently traverse these careers as seen in the past few years.
Specialty areas such as anaesthesiology, psychiatry, and diagnostic radiology are on the downtrend, states the national resident matching program. For example, medical students who choose to go for anesthesiology have really dropped since. One med student who will soon graduate said that he wanted to get into anaesthesiology but then feel short as he realized the scarce work opportunities available. He says that so many people are into it these days. One member of the American medical association states that the reported excess of doctors is not necessarily true especially in the rural areas like in her town where the demand for doctors is great.
She adds that they take the risk that many of the best students are no longer enticed to go for a career in medicine because of the nasty things they hear about this profession which are mostly not even true. Despite the uncertainty in this field, a lot of the young doctors brim with hope that may be spurred by the nationwide patronage of medical themed soap operas which also increase people's appreciation of medical studies. This female physician still professes her love for her profession claiming that it is still the best in the world even with the fact that they don't anymore make the same income or have the same autonomy older doctors used to hold.
