Kind of shocking to me how blase our hosts are about residency. If residency was a choice, I think that case would be much stronger. That is to say, if you graduated medical school and could work as a clinical physician and attain licensure without any further training, through a free market of jobs, and residency was a choice for those …
Kind of shocking to me how blase our hosts are about residency. If residency was a choice, I think that case would be much stronger. That is to say, if you graduated medical school and could work as a clinical physician and attain licensure without any further training, through a free market of jobs, and residency was a choice for those who wanted to specialize and improve their training, then it would make sense. This isn't crazy at all; a new physician graduate is better trained than an APP but is unable to be legally employed in a similar capacity. And frankly, if you graduate from medical school with an MD and can't actually work in the capacity for which you've trained, you've been defrauded. The only thing needed to practice should be to pass the exams and attain an MD; if this isn't the case, then it is possible that someone can attain a doctoral degree in medicine but not be a doctor in any meaningful sense.
Given that residency is mandatory, certainly practicing in a supervised capacity is not the same as being an attending, but a resident or fellow should easily be paid as much as a PA.
It's also much harder to get a residency even than when our hosts would have been searching, with several thousand perfectly qualified unmatched grads and growing and the slots not expanding to match demand.
In Australia, where I studied, all domestic medical school graduates are guaranteed employment as an intern, and can continue working thereafter and apply for a specialty at their leisure, or not apply and perhaps become a GP. They also get paid substantially more than we do, and they work a 40 hour work week like a normal person, maybe stretching up to 60 in high-demand circumstances. They think our system is insane. I agree.
The fact that young single people with money can make it work in the short term and reap the benefits in the long term does not mean that the system is not abusive. And the obvious fact that many people work harder for less money under worse conditions does not mean that we as physicians should keep our mouths shut until we are the worse off. We're supposed to be leaders.
Kind of shocking to me how blase our hosts are about residency. If residency was a choice, I think that case would be much stronger. That is to say, if you graduated medical school and could work as a clinical physician and attain licensure without any further training, through a free market of jobs, and residency was a choice for those who wanted to specialize and improve their training, then it would make sense. This isn't crazy at all; a new physician graduate is better trained than an APP but is unable to be legally employed in a similar capacity. And frankly, if you graduate from medical school with an MD and can't actually work in the capacity for which you've trained, you've been defrauded. The only thing needed to practice should be to pass the exams and attain an MD; if this isn't the case, then it is possible that someone can attain a doctoral degree in medicine but not be a doctor in any meaningful sense.
Given that residency is mandatory, certainly practicing in a supervised capacity is not the same as being an attending, but a resident or fellow should easily be paid as much as a PA.
It's also much harder to get a residency even than when our hosts would have been searching, with several thousand perfectly qualified unmatched grads and growing and the slots not expanding to match demand.
In Australia, where I studied, all domestic medical school graduates are guaranteed employment as an intern, and can continue working thereafter and apply for a specialty at their leisure, or not apply and perhaps become a GP. They also get paid substantially more than we do, and they work a 40 hour work week like a normal person, maybe stretching up to 60 in high-demand circumstances. They think our system is insane. I agree.
The fact that young single people with money can make it work in the short term and reap the benefits in the long term does not mean that the system is not abusive. And the obvious fact that many people work harder for less money under worse conditions does not mean that we as physicians should keep our mouths shut until we are the worse off. We're supposed to be leaders.