Let’s talk about the doctor shortage…. Changing the training isn’t going to help.

1. We need a culture of safety and support. Moral injury is a real thing, and causing people to leave.
2. There shouldn’t be medical school debt. The studies show predominantly affluent people go to medical school. Why? I still have debt. People who don’t have family support will be in debt for decades. We won’t get a diversity of opinions. We will continue to protect the status quo
3. It shouldn’t be a financial hardship to even apply to medical school or residency. I took separate loans out in order to fly around the country interviewing
4. Medical schools, like University of MN, could afford to make medical school free, but they don’t. This would allow the top performers to be selected.
5. There should be more residency spots opened up. Every year we have thousands of American medical graduates go unmatched. Meaning, we have MDs that can’t get into training programs.
6. Culture of silence and abuse.
7. We refuse to be innovative, or recruit people that may change the status quo.
8. The leadership makeup. No one wants to go into an industry where they won’t be taken seriously, or have a chance at moving forward in their career. 12 percent of healthcare CEOs are women. Women don’t even makeup the leadership roles in Women’s health. This is going to get worse post pandemic and with the advent of more private equity involvement and for profit healthcare. Only 2 percent of VCs are women.

….. changing how we “train” medical students is not a solution. We have systemic issues. We refuse to look at the racism and sexism that is rampant in healthcare. This training plan is putting a bandaid on a hemorrhage. Until we actually care about what’s causing: burnout, depression, physician and nurse suicide, and people to leave healthcare, we won’t solve anything.

#nuse#physician#access#healthcare