Is there a need for doctors?

Answer 1

From what I've come to understand, there are multiple bottlenecks set up within the medical educational system (whether they're on purpose is hard to say). Simply put, qualified students aren't getting into medical school; and then qualified medical students are not getting into residencies; although most residents do get into fellowships (which are generally the last laps of education before officially practicing medicine, not always though). The qualifications of matriculants from just a decade ago are no longer good enough, and go back another decade and the system isn't even the same. The fact that there are people overseeing the system who have come into it decades ago makes it a bit more difficult for them to grasp just how competitive it's become. While you would think competition is a good thing, look at it this way: if you have two equally qualified candidates for one spot, the admissions committee has to split hairs and decide on factors that go beyond being a good doctor, because the candidates are essentially the same. The difference between this example and what's going on in the system is that instead of there being 2 qualified students vying for one spot, it's more like 100. Most medical schools have an acceptance rate well below 10%, a lot of them hovering around 2-3%. You can't tell me with any hint of seriousness that all 97% of the other applicants are unqualified candidates for med school, when many of their own applications would put those of the admission committee members' to shame. Then when it comes time for medical students to apply to residencies, 3 out of 4 students get Matched into residencies. That means 1/4 of highly educated and hard working students can't get into residency. So what do they do? They either enter into this essentially random system called the Second Match or if that doesn't work out they apply during the next Match period along with the new batch of candidates. This pool of applicants builds and builds every year now that it's backing up with all of those 1/4's reapplying. To be fair, most US allopathic med student graduates get matched, but those numbers plummet for US citizens that have graduated from a non US med school, a US osteopathic school, or for non US citizens that have graduated non US med school. Provisions are being made to increase the number of med school spots and residency spots. Sadly this rate is being outmatched by the growing healthcare demands of the population to such an extent that studies conducted by the AMA and 3rd party analytic groups suspect the country to be in need of about 100,000 doctors by 2020. Where will those doctors be? They won't exist. Why? These bottlenecks have a lot do with it. Some say the answer it to look to nurse-based clinics to offload some of the stress on doctors; I don't buy it though. Others still go so far as to recommend virtual clinics, where the patient and doctor never even physically meet, which I find appalling. Personally, I think it's going to start with education. Many of these residency programs cry that they simply don't have enough teachers. My answer: doctors are teachers. Literally, doctor is based off the Latin docere, meaning teacher. As such, I think it's only befitting that we look to the many practicing doctors out there to put their teaching abilities to use and train up-and -coming doctors to fill the spots of those that are about to retire, and there are MANY soon-to-be retired doctors.

So what have we learned?

The limited number of spots currently allotted by the system, for financial or political reasons, is limiting the number of qualified people who want nothing more than to become doctors. And I'm one of them. It's going to take more than seeing patients to fix the system. It's going to take doctors: the people who see the system from the insides out, who live and breathe the stuff every waking moment, who are prepared to take on Washington.

Answer 2

Doctors help mankind stay alive.