Comments on: Do part time doctors worsen the primary care shortage?

By: jsmith

jsmith — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:52:11 +0000

I’ve seen this too, doing locums here and there way back in the 90s. They gave me the easy pts, the full-timers got the chronics.And urgent care paid as well as FP and was much much easier. At bottom, full-time, full-spectrum family medicine and internal medicine are exceedingly painful professional experiences compared with the alternatives, and those that do them are either saints, suckers or both. I predict society will do nothing but give lip service to this cancer at the heart of medicine and that doctors will gradually hand off primary care to the nurse practitioners and PAs, if they’ll take it.

By: k

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:45:21 +0000

do you think any resident gets paid $110,000? try less than half that. gross. then you pay taxes. don’t pretend that residents don’t need to pay rent, eat, and pay bills. try paying down $200,000 after that.

By: medcat

medcat — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:59:50 +0000

Part time also means less responsibility…When I worked per- diem at a group of clinics I only saw acute patients, thus leaving the chronic pain, back, neck, pseudo-depressed, etc., patients to the regular full- time docs. In the 2 years I worked like this…the turn-over of the “permanent” staff was amazing. But, I kept working and was somewhat content because I could control where I worked and when… We are just factors of production…therefore must use that anyway we can.

By: t petrusick

t petrusick — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:11:16 +0000

The problem with part-time is you still have all the same expenses such as insurannce , licensing, support staff. If not taking call, resentment from full timers in the same practice.

By: Dr. Mary Johnson

Dr. Mary Johnson — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:22:04 +0000

O Good Lord. Here’s another (hopefully just as politically incorrect) point for you, Manalive:

Women who work full time and who are just as willing to go the extra mile as men are CRAPPED ON.

I WISH i had given more consideration to my personal well-being and happiness way back when I was being someone’s indentured servant – all for the greater good.

Yeah right. Putting bonus money in some suit’s pocket.

By: Manalive

Manalive — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:34:55 +0000

Shhh, Kevin! You’re dangerously close to a politically incorrect point:
Women doctors eager to work part-time (usually 9 – 3 weekdays) bid down the wages for the rest of us.

By: alex

alex — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:47:28 +0000

Let’s not pretend that it really costs 110k to hire someone to work twice as many hours as a midlevel for half as much money. Medicare GME subsidies are primarily there because otherwise academic hospitals that have to take all patients regardless of insurance would go bankrupt due to their terrible payer mix. They call it GME but it’s safety net funding.

By: Reeta Luthra

Reeta Luthra — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:45:47 +0000

Everyone’s entitled to make decisions that give them a good lifestyle with time for family so can’t begrudge them for choosing to work part-time.

It’s a shame however if it’s poor working conditions, controlling government and a litigious society that’s causing the trend because if newly graduating doctors are being pushed towards part time work for these reasons, how are they going to pick up – on a timely basis – the volume of essential and practical experience that turns them into the great doctors that they probably dreamt of becoming?

By: IVF-MD

IVF-MD — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:35:30 +0000

“These aren’t the type of numbers the government, which spends large sums of money to train these doctors, is hoping for.”

If this truly reflects the government’s position on this, one can’t help but laugh at the hypocrisy.

First of all, the government commits the immoral act of self-imposing monopoly control over people who want to learn how to help heal others, essentially saying “If you wish to dedicate your life to healing, then you must do it according to our terms, rules and regulations”. And then they complain when those they seek to control choose to make individual decisions regarding their personal work/family balance.

Sorry if that comes off as overzealous, but I fully empathize with the physicians, patients and people of this country who are frustrated that a few elite people far far away think they can make decisions about everybody’s lives better than the individual people themselves can.

By the way, although I, myself am an MD, who gets to personally profit from this state-imposed monopoly, I still empathize with those who are being harmed by this unfair abuse of power. I trust I am not alone in wanting some relief from the bureaucracy and coercion of big government.

By: bladedoc

bladedoc — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:19:19 +0000

The government spends an average of $110,000/yr per resident. So unless you’re spending $330K (assuming a 3 year residency) your assumption is wrong. And if you did spend $330K for medical school, your medical school choice was wrong.