Why are docs unhappy with primary care and medical students not interested? NBC News hits the nail on the head last night:
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Family medicine isn’t the only primary care specialty facing these issues. Pediatrics is suffering as well, and even more dramatically because the income base is much lower nationwide.
Primary care is the core of our health care system. More people will go to primary care docs, family docs and pediatricians, than specialists each year so it really doesn’t make sense that the slice of our medical system that is burdened the most with patients is paid the least.
I don’t begrudge specialties like surgery or radiology commanding high salaries but I do resent primary care docs not being compensated what we are worth to the overall system. To not be compensated anywhere in the ball park of just about every other specialty so devalues us, it’s no wonder people are becoming discouraged and leaving the field after a few years, or not entering it at all.
Right now it is safe to say the primary care doc is becoming an endangered species, and truly is such in many parts of our country. Unless health care reform rectifies the economic discrepancies, we’re likely to see it soon becoming extinct.
Hi Dr. Gwenn! I worry too about all that docs, especially pediatricians, have to do in so little time. As a psychologist (and mother of three) I'm amazed that pediatricians are expected to know not only medicine but also basically, psychology – and be experts on parenting and child behavior and mental health too. That's a lot for the narrow time slots!