Speaking as a Medical Intern, this Health Reform Bill is of utter importance to all medical students and practicing physicians in the United States. It is of importance because this affects the overall health of the nation, as well as the basis of the future for those who are studying or are already practicing in the field.
We all know, given, that there are a substantial number of Americans that do not have health care insurance due to a plethora of reasons:
1. Lack of physicians/specialists in their area
2. Inability to access a health insurance provider
3. Financial depravity
etc,
The reason for this, friends, is to this day the United States still maintains a cap on all medical residency spots; these spots are required by a AMA (American Medical Association) in order to train graduated doctors in their specific field of interest; this means that throughout the United States there are set number of residency spots for residencies in: Family Practice, Emergency Medicine, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, General Surgery, Dermatology, Radiology, Urology, Obstetrics, Gynecology etc,. And additionally, the United States' Medical Institutions are only graduating limited amounts of doctors every year due to the rigidity of America's Pre-Medical curriculum, and Medical School Proper.
So, we are seeing an asymmetric situation. The demand is increasing (as population increases and as age-related problems increase), but are only given a limited amount of resources (physicians) due to the legal and medical / professional requirements being stringent.
At this current situation, it is impossible to treat all Americans and be expected to provide them with the BEST CARE that we can if we are to implement this health care reform immediately without changing some laws and increasing the amount of physicians we graduate/ or matriculate into society. Right now, as we speak, we are short in medical professionals. The United States' Medical System in understaffed. Not enough doctors, and surely not enough nurses. If we are to implement this reform bill truly and want to see effects, we will have to increase and lift the residency caps, graduate more medical students, and import more foreign graduates into the United States. We need more doctors, we need to graduate more physicians, or at least import more from abroad to address the current situation.
I am for a reform bill, considering the fact that as a physician-in-training, I and my peers cannot deny medical treatment to a patient. My heart is sympathetic to the poor and to the underprivileged as well as the ill. I entered and chose this profession because my heart calls me to it, to see the poor and ill and to aid them, to treat not only the body, the disease, but the person behind the disease.
There are others that enter this profession for the business / financial aspect of medicine. That, in my opinion, is the wrong reason to enter this field.
Even if the pay of a physician was decreased, I would not change my view.
To treat and care for a fellow man, and patient, is a privilege, and an honor.
IMHO.
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