Thread: Doctor Shortage?

We all know there is a doctor shortage in the US. There aren't enough doctors to care for the patients. Especially, primary/family doctors. The bottleneck is said to be in the number of available residencies and rotations. Anyone know what the current situation is and if hospitals are going to increase the number of reidencies/rotations?

i work as a hospitalist, currently there are 8 jobs to each hospitalist. its an IM specialty. the result? the pay is great. i work in the SE, and make about triple what an office IM in chicago would make.

The bottleneck isn't the number of residencies. Most people who do an IM residency go into a subspecialty. People just don't want to do it. Pay should go up for IM in the near future. They have to entice people into it somehow. G

Doctor shortage must be in rural area or so, in the city much more competetive to get a spot. On my interview trail, NYC paid so little for hospitalist or clinic, California where good suburd paid less than in the middle of nowhere and it is more difficult to get an offer from big city. IM hospitalist is still a good pay for new resident fresh out of residency. I practiced in California as a hospitalist, and earned almost double salary than OP -clinic doc. So far, haven't see any new annoucement about open more resident slot in IM. Also most IM resident want to do fellowship so I guess it is where the shortage of PCP come from. The trend may be change worsen for clinic, OP primary care. My class/small program 8 graduate this year, 5 of us became hospitalist, one went to cardio fellowship and only 2 went to private practice, OP PCP.

from what i hear, the trend of the PCProvider is going towards NP and PA. The nursing lobby is very strong and are slowly getting more privileges such as writing prescriptions and being allowed to hold private practice and not having to be supervised by an MD. Soon, if this trend continues, primary care will mostly be manned by non-MDs which will drop IM and FP salaries even more. Why pay an MD when you can get the same from a NP or PA for cheaper. The other day, I was in a hospital where a nurse introduced herself as doctor. she apparently had a Doctorate in NP. I never heard of this and asked around and it happens to be an Online degree that NPs can get. the nursing lobby is going all out on this and their hope is to blur the distinction between a DNP and an MD. The AMA is trying to fight this, but us Drs are too busy to care about the future of our profession. Unless we band together, us being caribbean drs will be the first ones that ARE SCREWED!!!

read this if you don't believe me...
Advanced Nurses want Medicine Rule Lifted - 22nd Dec, 05:09 PM - Nursing for Nurses

Its a tough situation overall for primary care. I mean, in all honesty who would want to go into primary care? You have to deal with tons of paperwork, drug seekers, hypochondriacs and at the end day the pay sucks for the headaches. Even hospitalists get dumped on by the other lazy *** specialities. Surgeons that consult for postoperative fever? Jesus, anybody that has read first aid or surgery secrets could manage that. I have lost all respect for other general specialties at this point. Subspecialty decreases the amount of crap an Internal medicine trained doc has to deal with for sure. Good luck with your choice though. Go into anesthesia. I would if I had it to do all over again. Find your niche in medicine, thats the key to happiness.

Originally Posted by Gator98MD

Its a tough situation overall for primary care. I mean, in all honesty who would want to go into primary care? You have to deal with tons of paperwork, drug seekers, hypochondriacs and at the end day the pay sucks for the headaches. Even hospitalists get dumped on by the other lazy *** specialities. Surgeons that consult for postoperative fever? Jesus, anybody that has read first aid or surgery secrets could manage that. I have lost all respect for other general specialties at this point. Subspecialty decreases the amount of crap an Internal medicine trained doc has to deal with for sure. Good luck with your choice though. Go into anesthesia. I would if I had it to do all over again. Find your niche in medicine, thats the key to happiness.

Hey Gator98MD,

I was curious to learn why you favor anesthesia? Would you mind sharing your reasons?

thanks

Originally Posted by rossmdhopeful

Hey Gator98MD,

I was curious to learn why you favor anesthesia? Would you mind sharing your reasons?

thanks

The pay is excellent. great lifestyle. You dont have to admit or get consulted. minimal paperwork. etc, etc
The most important part of choosing a specialty is knowing yourself.
Medicine is no different than other jobs, in that you cant stick a round peg into a square hole just like if you have a surgeons mentality you should not choose internal medicine or other primary care specialties

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pay in cities is low. i applied to a few hospitalist jobs in chicago(where the cost of living is high) and the starting salary was a pitiful $125,000 a year. i stayed in SC, and make bucoo more. and we cant get people to work at our hospital, even though we are ranked in teh top 100 places to work in healthcare, and press-gainey does a doctor satisfaction survey, and our hospital ranked in teh top 3 out of soemthing like 4000 hospitals in the country. (gator, i told you to come work with me!!! no dumping going on here!) . you would think that citys would still pay. the place i interviewed in chicago had a contract for 15 shifts a month, but their docs were working 28 to 30, as they were so shorthanded! those guys(includinga rossie from the mid 90's graduations) had a serious "deer in th headlights" look about them. i told them what i had been offered at the place that gator works at now, and they didnt believe me. surprised they didnt all come running to the south!