A slippery slope says Scott Haig:
The incursion of business practices into our profession has made uncomfortable bedfellows of those with an avocation and those without. The union leaves our professions, especially the nurses, in a fragile state right now. If you derail the dignity and mission of what we do, we’ll simply stop and do something easier. Indeed, it’s happening. Nearly 150,000 nursing jobs languish unfilled today in the U.S. (We’ve already lured over every nurse that Ireland and the Philippines had to offer, and now we’re recruiting in sub-Saharan Africa.) And these are good-paying jobs. There’s a doctor shortage too “” and those jobs pay even more.What’s wrong? The answer is simple: we’ve lost sight of that boring and corny moral imperative to do what’s right for those in need, to love your patient as yourself. That approach has always driven good medicine. Not customer satisfaction.
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{ 4 comments }
There is no shortage of nurses, and there is no shortage of doctors.
There is a shortage of nurses willing to work the way that many hospitals and healthcare entities require them to work. The demands and stress are so great that many opt out — they go into administration or stop working as a nurse altogether.
Doctors spend a tremendous amount of time in training only to find that some specialties are not worth practicing, so the only shortage is in low-paying fields in low-paying parts of the country.
The more you are dedicated to treating the patient as you would like yourself treated, the more you are used, and you are certainly not compensated for it. And there is no indication that P4P is going to make any substantial difference in this trend.
Dittos
I would only add that the money only starts to loom in importance after the system turns what began as a holy calling into a job. Show me a doctor or a nurse demanding a raise, and I’ll show you someone unhappy with their working conditions–meaning too many obstacles to doctoring and nursing.
There are some that are loving their patients as they love themselves. Too bad for them that it usually leads to a charge of moral turpitude.
What kind of fairytale world do you guys live in that you just get to do your job and the money magically appears?
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