Doctor shortage.....

R

rgp

Well-known Member
Location
Milford,OH
On the radio right now this is the topic.........

The experts speaking are saying we are @ this time short some 45000 docs & 100,000 nurses. And those numbers are expected to double within the next ten years. And of course it's our fault!.......as per them, 10,000 people per day reach 65 yrs of age. And that is creating a huge demand on the medical practitioners , causing early burn-out.

"PA's" are becoming the practitioner that we will see face to face when we go to the [doctors] office. Actual doctors are going directly into specialization .

It is said that the average [doc] does four years of med school, as well as an average of 7 years residency before he is [fully] licensed , whereas a [PA] is granted full PA license after just 2-1/2 to 3 yrs of med school.

PA's make just north of $100,000 p/year, Doc's on average double that, & up.

Experienced nurses they say are making salaries close to that of PA's....so look for the salaries of the PA's to increase . And of course the cost of med care to rise with along with it.


So my question is........what does all of this mean in regard to the quality of med care we receive ??

Like it isn't scary enough..........
 

Heard from health care professionals that over the last 10 years it has become very difficult to open a practice as an individual doctor and most wind up in a group practice. Not everyone wants to work as part of a group for various reasons including less money and control for them.

Also it was discovered in the past that the AMA tried controlling the number of medical school graduates with some legislation and budgeting. Throw in skyrocketing loans it's no wonder.

Expect to see more Nurse practitioners, specialists and technicians.

Knowing medicare/seniors who wound up being over treated/medicated that could be a good thing for some.
 
Statistics show that less than 5% of today's med students intend to enter their profession as Primary Physicians....95% want to become a specialist, because that is where the Big Money is. Within a very few years, making an appointment with a family doctor, for some minor issue, may be a real problem. We will probably see more and more GP's being imported from India, etc., just to meet basic demands. But then, our entire system is headed for a brick wall due to soaring costs, etc.
What I would like to see is a program where med students receive a free education..IF they agree to become a GP afterwards.
 
More and more reasons to work on Being Thy Own Doctor, support Big Supp more for your own sake. Stay out of the hands of doctors and hospitals period.

More and more hospitals today have MDs from other parts of the world. Good or bad, who knows.

My recent hospital/rehab mess had a team of docs from all over NOT getting to the issue of the staph infection in my knee. Would other MD's have gotten to the issue sooner? Again who knows. Maybe
 
Doctors are more scarce where we are. While I don’t use them often I do go to our medical establishment when I need to.
There are 2 doctors. One full time younger doctor and one semi retired doctor but most of their appointments are made with RN’s. There are about 5 of them and they are excellent. What I really appreciate about them is that they support my use of natural supplements and never push treatments I’m not open to. Their reception is friendly and helpful and the atmosphere there is comfortable.

I agree that more nurses are being used.
 
You think you have a shortage of Doctors? try being here ..... we have to wait an average of 4 or 5 weeks for a routine appointment with our Local GP.. (unless it's an absolute emergency) ..and don't get me started on how long it takes to see a hospital consultant once referred by the GP...average 4 to 6 months but anything up to a year!!

I'm still waiting for a referral made for me last September by one hospital consultant to a specialist at a London hospital.. (8 months now)
 
hollydolly said:
You think you have a shortage of Doctors? try being here ..... we have to wait an average of 4 or 5 weeks for a routine appointment with our Local GP.. (unless it's an absolute emergency) ..and don't get me started on how long it takes to see a hospital consultant once referred by the GP...average 4 to 6 months but anything up to a year!!

I'm still waiting for a referral made for me last September by one hospital consultant to a specialist at a London hospital.. (8 months now)
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If you are waiting 8 months it can't be too serious. Here so many surgeries are assembly line surgeries like the replacement business. These are not emergencies and still are done so much and fast. In my opinion, unnecessary surgeries. Maybe this is karma saying stay away from surgery, maybe you are being saved from the knife.

One of the support boards I visited a lot after my hip replacement in 2010, was a board stationed in the UK and many people had a lot of issues with their replacements. THis just reminded me.

My mom and her sisters all lived with joint issues and long lives and no replacements. Things sure have changed and in many ways for the money especially the U.S.
 
hollydolly said:
You think you have a shortage of Doctors? try being here ..... we have to wait an average of 4 or 5 weeks for a routine appointment with our Local GP.. (unless it's an absolute emergency) ..and don't get me started on how long it takes to see a hospital consultant once referred by the GP...average 4 to 6 months but anything up to a year!!

I'm still waiting for a referral made for me last September by one hospital consultant to a specialist at a London hospital.. (8 months now)
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That’s a long time to wait. We can usually get in to see a nurse within 2 or 3 days and the doctors usually take up to a week to see. When our last doctor retired we didn’t have a regular doctor so my husband counted on the walk in clinics.
Specialists can take that long though. It took about 8 months to see an ENT specialist. The better the doctor the longer the wait.
 
Keesha said:
That’s a long time to wait. We can usually get in to see a nurse within 2 or 3 days and the doctors usually take up to a week to see. When our last doctor retired we didn’t have a regular doctor so my husband counted on the walk in clinics.
Specialists can take that long though. It took about 8 months to see an ENT specialist. The better the doctor the longer the wait.
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you're right Keesha.. some specialists take forever to see mainly because we have a great shortage of them, which is what's happening in my case. In the whole country there's only 2 hospitals who deal with the complaint I have, both of them are in London, which fortunately for me is very close..but due to the lack of the specialists the wait is horrendously long. In fact my initial consultant who referred me and did my 6 month follow up last month, fully expecting me to have been seen by the London hospital, was shocked I'd waited so long but unsurprised , and made an 'urgent '' second referral... ..a month on, I still have no appointment
 
hollydolly said:
You couldn't be more wrong!! there are thousands of people who have died while waiting for treatment in the UK
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Sorry to hear that, but your issue is a life or death? Maybe that's why social medicine is so unpopular subject with the population here. Maybe it's not the answer either. Some think it is and many don't. Insurance companies make out like bandits as do drug companies here. Medicare here in the U.S. is great but a lot of doctors are opting out of providers. Again, take care of ourselves on our own as much as possible.

And then I think of a fellow on my other health group who is in Eastern Canada I believe and is forever saying how great their care is. He's now on dialysis and complains about going 3 times a week for 4 hours to save his life. Some people.
 
hollydolly said:
you're right Keesha.. some specialists take forever to see mainly because we have a great shortage of them, which is what's happening in my case. In the whole country there's only 2 hospitals who deal with the complaint I have, both of them are in London, which fortunately for me is very close..but due to the lack of the specialists the wait is horrendously long. In fact my initial consultant who referred me and did my 6 month follow up last month, fully expecting me to have been seen by the London hospital, was shocked I'd waited so long but unsurprised , and made an 'urgent '' second referral... ..a month on, I still have no appointment
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That’s a long time to wait especially when you don’t know what’s going on and need a professional opinion.
I had a similar experience when I had an appointment made to see a specialist. The appointment was a long wait and when I finally went it turned out that he was working at his clinic at the hospital but nobody informed me so I had to rebook and wait longer. Luckily it wasn’t too long since it was there mistake.

I would have thought London England would be thriving with doctors.
 
Keesha said:
That’s a long time to wait especially when you don’t know what’s going on and need a professional opinion.
I had a similar experience when I had an appointment made to see a specialist. The appointment was a long wait and when I finally went it turned out that he was working at his clinic at the hospital but nobody informed me so I had to rebook and wait longer. Luckily it wasn’t too long since it was there mistake.

I would have thought London England would be thriving with doctors.
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No, unfortunately we have a desperate shortage of Doctors , and that combined with the huge influx of immigrants in recent years has pretty much brought our health service to it's knees.

When it's good it's very good, but when it's bad it's terrible, and sadly the latter is becoming more of the norm than even as recently as 5 years ago...
 
I see my doctor who is an Internist. I was offered another PA through another doctor and only want to see a real doctor!
 

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