<story><title>Physician burnout widespread, especially among those midcareer, report says</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/physician-burnout-widespread-especially-among-those-midcareer-report-says-11579086008</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nradov</author><text>By &amp;quot;medical cartel&amp;quot; are you referring to the US Congress? Because the actual bottleneck in physician production is in the shortage of residency training slots, and the vast majority of those are funded by the Federal government. The American Medical Association has been lobbying for more residency slots. Every year students graduate from medical schools but are unable to practice medicine because they can&amp;#x27;t get matched to a residency program.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ama-assn.org&amp;#x2F;press-center&amp;#x2F;press-releases&amp;#x2F;ama-fund-graduate-medical-education-address-physician-shortages&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ama-assn.org&amp;#x2F;press-center&amp;#x2F;press-releases&amp;#x2F;ama-fun...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>zionic</author><text>The medical cartel will never allow that. They have a complete stranglehold on both licensing and education.</text></item><item><author>pkaye</author><text>Another solution is allow more doctors to be licensed so they don&amp;#x27;t need to be as overworked.</text></item><item><author>xzel</author><text>Both of my parents are doctors. In high school I had real thoughts of going into medicine. They strongly discouraged me towards going into that field. In college I was pushed towards a MD&amp;#x2F;PhD program by my lab&amp;#x27;s PI. I thought about graduating at 28-30 and decided against it.&lt;p&gt;Jr year I interned at Amazon after that experience I knew I made the right decision. It is a really, really hard sell for this current generation to do another 5 years of school with residency and then specialization when you can quickly make 100k+ at a tech company. All of my friends who went into medical school are working hours like 6am-6pm or 8pm-8am. They get like two days off every two weeks. I think there are a bunch of possible solutions but the easiest one is making 5 year medical programs (2 years undergrad, 3 graduate) more common in the US.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>goodells</author><text>Why do we need the federal government to fund these slots at all?  Hospitals work resident physicians to the bone and bill patients exorbitantly for it.  Their hours are capped at 80 per week yet they receive no overtime pay[1].  Yes, the residents are &amp;quot;in training&amp;quot; but it&amp;#x27;s not like it&amp;#x27;s a burden for a hospital to take them on - they are the workhorses that handle a huge number of cases and drive hospital revenue.&lt;p&gt;[1] - &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Medical_resident_work_hours&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Medical_resident_work_hours&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Physician burnout widespread, especially among those midcareer, report says</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/physician-burnout-widespread-especially-among-those-midcareer-report-says-11579086008</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nradov</author><text>By &amp;quot;medical cartel&amp;quot; are you referring to the US Congress? Because the actual bottleneck in physician production is in the shortage of residency training slots, and the vast majority of those are funded by the Federal government. The American Medical Association has been lobbying for more residency slots. Every year students graduate from medical schools but are unable to practice medicine because they can&amp;#x27;t get matched to a residency program.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ama-assn.org&amp;#x2F;press-center&amp;#x2F;press-releases&amp;#x2F;ama-fund-graduate-medical-education-address-physician-shortages&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ama-assn.org&amp;#x2F;press-center&amp;#x2F;press-releases&amp;#x2F;ama-fun...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>zionic</author><text>The medical cartel will never allow that. They have a complete stranglehold on both licensing and education.</text></item><item><author>pkaye</author><text>Another solution is allow more doctors to be licensed so they don&amp;#x27;t need to be as overworked.</text></item><item><author>xzel</author><text>Both of my parents are doctors. In high school I had real thoughts of going into medicine. They strongly discouraged me towards going into that field. In college I was pushed towards a MD&amp;#x2F;PhD program by my lab&amp;#x27;s PI. I thought about graduating at 28-30 and decided against it.&lt;p&gt;Jr year I interned at Amazon after that experience I knew I made the right decision. It is a really, really hard sell for this current generation to do another 5 years of school with residency and then specialization when you can quickly make 100k+ at a tech company. All of my friends who went into medical school are working hours like 6am-6pm or 8pm-8am. They get like two days off every two weeks. I think there are a bunch of possible solutions but the easiest one is making 5 year medical programs (2 years undergrad, 3 graduate) more common in the US.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pc86</author><text>Similarly you have both prospective residents not matching into any program, but also programs having unmatched slots. These students then have a week to call around and try to get one of these slots, very often changing specialties in the process (usually to family medicine). Imagine spending $200k to go to college, get good enough grades for med school, get into med school, want to practice anesthesia or rheumatology or internal medicine only to not match and then have to choose between either waiting a year and trying again or going to the middle of nowhere Montana to a family medicine program.&lt;p&gt;Residency is a job and should be interviewed for and selected like any other job.</text></comment>