Why can't high school students go directly in to medical school? Compared to most of the rest of the world, the United States has by far the most costly system for producing doctors. That is the idea behind this blog.
I am an engineer and can tell you that I had to take all kinds of worthless classes that cost me both time and money. For our medical doctors, the situation is much worse. When our doctors graduate medial school and start serving patients, they are the "oldest" of any country in the world. They have invested much more money and time, plus they have significantly fewer working years to get back their investment. The impact is that we have a shortage of doctors and the most expensive doctors in the world. With the picture being so clear, you have to ask why no one is addressing the problem. It seems that the total focus is on insurance when it should be "cost". If more people could afford their own medical costs, we would not need any big government program to run the medical system.
State governments control the two factors that seriously need change, Those are the licensing medical doctors and lawyers. We have too many lawyers and too few medical doctors, I could say the same for engineers and liberal arts majors. I feel that the student loan program should be totally changed and used to encourage college majors that strengthen the United States rather than providing recreation for spoiled students. We have a limited population of potential doctors and engineers and we should be looking at programs to help them. Fewer and fewer of our kids are selecting engineering and medicine as their majors as a percentage of our population. The absolute numbers of both of these may have increased, but it has not kept up with the growth in the population. That means we are falling farther behind.
I could go one step farther and that is in regards to specialization. I have used this example before, but it deserves repeating. How long do you think it would take for an above average kid to learn how to do simple carpal tunnel surgery? My guess is that he could get very good at this in less than two years. That means if he started at age 18, he would be doing carpal tunnel surgery by age 20 rather than the current age 36 or older. If he worked to age 60, that would give him 40 years to get his bait back. Compare that with the current situation where the average doctor only works 24 years! It is no wonder that our medical costs so much. Henry Ford figured out how to make cars cheap when he made his workers "specialize" on just one job until they got good and fast at it. That was over 100 years ago.
How about reading x-rays? Those are some of the highest paid doctors. Why is that not a specialty like carpal tunnel surgery? You can now e-mail images around the world and get them read any place and for a lot less than here in the United States. In many cases, it is cheaper to fly to another country to have medical procedures done, even including the air fare. We have to get off this "insurance" thing and start working on making medical procedures cheaper and I have not even started in on the cost of medicine. I know from experience the most veterinarians use the same medicine as regular doctors, but it costs 90% less. Why is that?
PS---Who is the best teacher? The one who teachers the "smartest" students or the one who teachers "average" students? It seems that teachers want to teach the "smartest" students so that they are viewed as the "best" teachers. It has been my observation that the "smartest" students don't need teachers. Our system for selecting medial school students only wants the "smartest" students. What we need is a system where "average" students can be taught what they need to know to be good doctors. I think it is a cop-out by our medical schools. That is the main reason we produce less than 50% of the doctors that we need. What do you think is the solution? Make parents have "smarter" children or make our medical school do a better job of teaching?
I am an engineer and can tell you that I had to take all kinds of worthless classes that cost me both time and money. For our medical doctors, the situation is much worse. When our doctors graduate medial school and start serving patients, they are the "oldest" of any country in the world. They have invested much more money and time, plus they have significantly fewer working years to get back their investment. The impact is that we have a shortage of doctors and the most expensive doctors in the world. With the picture being so clear, you have to ask why no one is addressing the problem. It seems that the total focus is on insurance when it should be "cost". If more people could afford their own medical costs, we would not need any big government program to run the medical system.
State governments control the two factors that seriously need change, Those are the licensing medical doctors and lawyers. We have too many lawyers and too few medical doctors, I could say the same for engineers and liberal arts majors. I feel that the student loan program should be totally changed and used to encourage college majors that strengthen the United States rather than providing recreation for spoiled students. We have a limited population of potential doctors and engineers and we should be looking at programs to help them. Fewer and fewer of our kids are selecting engineering and medicine as their majors as a percentage of our population. The absolute numbers of both of these may have increased, but it has not kept up with the growth in the population. That means we are falling farther behind.
I could go one step farther and that is in regards to specialization. I have used this example before, but it deserves repeating. How long do you think it would take for an above average kid to learn how to do simple carpal tunnel surgery? My guess is that he could get very good at this in less than two years. That means if he started at age 18, he would be doing carpal tunnel surgery by age 20 rather than the current age 36 or older. If he worked to age 60, that would give him 40 years to get his bait back. Compare that with the current situation where the average doctor only works 24 years! It is no wonder that our medical costs so much. Henry Ford figured out how to make cars cheap when he made his workers "specialize" on just one job until they got good and fast at it. That was over 100 years ago.
How about reading x-rays? Those are some of the highest paid doctors. Why is that not a specialty like carpal tunnel surgery? You can now e-mail images around the world and get them read any place and for a lot less than here in the United States. In many cases, it is cheaper to fly to another country to have medical procedures done, even including the air fare. We have to get off this "insurance" thing and start working on making medical procedures cheaper and I have not even started in on the cost of medicine. I know from experience the most veterinarians use the same medicine as regular doctors, but it costs 90% less. Why is that?
PS---Who is the best teacher? The one who teachers the "smartest" students or the one who teachers "average" students? It seems that teachers want to teach the "smartest" students so that they are viewed as the "best" teachers. It has been my observation that the "smartest" students don't need teachers. Our system for selecting medial school students only wants the "smartest" students. What we need is a system where "average" students can be taught what they need to know to be good doctors. I think it is a cop-out by our medical schools. That is the main reason we produce less than 50% of the doctors that we need. What do you think is the solution? Make parents have "smarter" children or make our medical school do a better job of teaching?
