The rapid advances of medical science, patients’ expectations, the loss of autonomy, insurers’ regulations, fears of litigation, and the documentation burden of recording patient data on electronic medical records all contribute to widespread physician dissatisfaction, and cynicism with medical practice referred to simply as “burnout.”
Some have reduced their hours, some have quit medicine. Some just suffer in silence.
But of the many causes, inputting information electronically is the number one “pain …
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1. Before anything, advertise yourself as a protector of the public against incompetent physicians.
2. Design the examinations for each specialty with a “one size fits all” approach. You can achieve this by disregarding the fact that many physicians prune their practices over time to accommodate to the demographics of their communities and their availability of specialty care. This has particular significance for internal medicine and family medicine.
Also, by including a large …
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We have met the enemy, and he is us.
-Pogo (a comic strip character of Walt Kelly)
I doubt that physicians would have supported the creation of the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) in the early 1900s if they had known that eventual maintenance of certification (MOC) might be used as requirements for re-licensure.
In my state of Connecticut, we already have continuing …
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Congratulations! You are an amazing group of young men and women. In college, medical school and residency your dedication and discipline, but most of all your idealism helped you to persevere and conquer some difficult challenges. In college, your friends studying philosophy and literature and history wondered how you had the endurance to study biochemistry and organic chemistry and calculus. Not to mention the Krebs Citric Acid Cycle.
You studied hard …
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It’s common knowledge that fewer medical students are entering primary care and that patients are having a hard time finding a primary care doctor. Part of the reason is that insurance companies place little value on much of the work that primary care doctors do.
Even though physicians’ complaints are seen in the medical and lay media, it is rare to see descriptions of a primary care physician’s “typical day” in …
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