Friday, July 3, 2009

NPR: Young Doctors Weigh In On Health Care


I want to thank my friend Roland for pointing me to this link. There's an interesting NPR segment titled, "Young Doctors Weigh In On Health Care." Here's the description of the clip:
"Two young doctors, just finishing up their residencies, discuss the decisions behind their career choices. Nicole Loeding is going into primary care, while Brian Southern, after becoming disillusioned with primary care, has chosen pulmonary critical care."
How do medical students choose their specialties? Why do some decide to pursue a career in primary care? As we go through healthcare reform, will the interest in primary care increase or decrease? Will more physicians choose to leave clinical practice to pursue non-clinical careers?

The 8 minute NPR segment is interesting, but perhaps what's more interesting are the 12 comments that discuss physician salaries. So how much do primary care doctors make? It really depends on your geography and your patient volume. To access the NPR segment, click here.

3 comments:

  1. Subject: Healthcare Comparison

    A recent Investor's Business Daily article provided some interesting statistics from a survey by the United Nations International Health Organization.

    (England and Canada have government run healthcare)

    % Men & Women who survived a cancer five years after diagnosis
    U.S. 65%
    England 46%
    Canada 42%

    % Patients diagnosed with Diabetes who received treatment within six months:
    U.S. 93%
    England 15%
    Canada 43%

    % Seniors needing hip replacement who received it within six months:
    U.S. 90%
    England 15%
    Canada 43%

    % referred to a medical specialist who see one within one month:
    U.S. 77%
    England 40%
    Canada 43%

    Number of MRI Scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per Million people
    U.S. 71
    England 14
    Canada 18

    % of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are in "excellent health"
    U.S. 12%
    England 2%
    Canada 6%

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  2. One of the excellent aspects of the current American health care system is that most people can get immediate help if they become very ill. Not true in places like Canada or the UK, where waiting lines for crucial imaging tests can range in the several months, which can mean the difference between living and dying. USA rates are #1.

    Research shows that cancer patients live longer in the United States than anywhere else on the globe.

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  3. To the poster of the comment in the form of the "Investor's Business Daaly article" with interesting statistics, the only place I have seen these purported UNIHO stats is in forwarded e-mails and internet posts that copied those emails and pasted them to a board. I can find no mention via search within Investor's Business Daily.

    ReplyDelete