Medical students graduate, on average, with $140,000 in debt, with many having loans in excess of $200,000.
The majority who enter school wishing to practice primary care often change their minds when greeted with this fiscal reality. Combined with the fact that primary care role models are overburdened in a practice environment so toxic towards generalist practice, it is no wonder that most students change their minds, and gravitate towards specialties with both more lucrative pay and manageable lifestyles.
MedPage Today talked to a few of these students, who recently went to Capitol Hill to make their feelings known.
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The issue isn’t primary care vs specialist (although that makes the better sound byte and will probably be the talking point going forward).
The real dichotomy is procedural vs non-procedural care. In addition to PCPs, you’ve got a potential constituency in all the general surgeons who are fed up with having to do post-procedural care for people seen by IR, etc. as well as the specialties that don’t really have procedures to bill for like endocrine and genetics.
It’s a simple reality and, though I’m uncertain federal regulation will ever come about, something must be done if the shortage of primary care doctors is to be rectified. After eight years of school, $200,000 is a lot of debt to face and–in business terms–generalist practice is a poor investment.
In the chiropractic arena the worries are just as great. Maybe all those “stimulate the economy by forgiving student loan debt” emails were on to something…
It is very expensive to go into medical school. Although the price is very high and should be more reasonable, I still think that the price of tuition should remain high. If you have to work to pay for school you have a better chance of appreciated your profession.
Physicians want to be free from the clutches of the federal govt but where do they turn for help? The federal govt. Mixed message at a minimum.
You forget that there is also the midlevel issue where our country is sending the message that we don’t want primary care physicians. Instead we want primary care providers. It is hard for a student to make the leap into primary care as a physician when the government, insurance companies, and even other physicians are claiming those with no more than a third year medical student’s education can do your job just as well. Any physician in primary care knows darn well that it takes a physician to do a physicians job. Our country will suffer with having lowered its minimum standard for practicing autonomous primary care.
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