Why would a doctor stop seeing patients?

It’s no secret that training a doctor takes a tremendous amount of time and money, both from the physician and the government, who subsidizes a substantial amount of the cost of training.

So, in the midst of a physician shortage, internist Toni Brayer wonders about doctors who simply decide to stop seeing patients.

After talking to a young physician who made such a decision, and instead, is starting a a pharmaceutical business, she asks, how many “parlay their medical degree into some type of business venture?”

Furthermore, is the medical degree is going the way of law degrees, especially when you consider that “few attorneys actually see the inside of a court room or defend people against injustice.”  Indeed, “are fewer young doctors actually seeing sick patients?”

With the amount of bureaucracy that doctors face today, it’s not surprise that more are transitioning their career out of patient care, into perhaps a more rewarding area of medicine.

And with universal coverage on the horizon, which demands every physician hand on deck, there couldn’t be a worse time to do so.

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