Just wondered what everyone's response is to the recent article by a Canadian doc Dr Brian McKinstry which has had a lot of press. He basically says that one of the major reasons behind the physician shortage is due to the influx of women into the medical profession. Women are more likely to drop out entirely or work significantly less hours. Raises the idea of whether or not it is even cost effective to train females although I think he makes a point of not wanting to go back to when women a very small minority of physicians (how nice of him...)
I say, what would they do without us? The best doctor is an emotionally balanced and healthy one and if we women need to juggle and flex things a bit more to be that, that's just the way it is...

I think I saw that article. And I'll return that with this: http://www.aap.org/womenpeds/womeninpedstfrpt.pdf

This is a statement from the AAP essentially saying that having a family-friendly environment is better for the profession of medicine, and pediatrics in specific, and then proceeds to lay out a plan to do so at all levels, medical school onward.

Raising the profile of family needs should make it better for everyone, men and women. And their children.

I think the profession as a whole needs to come up with some ideas for improving physician quality of life, while ensuring that patients get optimal care.

Yeah, I think that people need to realize going in that hours will, by necessity, be unusual at best. (After all, people don't only get sick during the day!) But this whole "cost-effectiveness" is bunk. What about physicians who retire early due to the stress? If there were livable solutions for *everyone* (and managed cost of medical school) medical school could be more cost effective for everyone. (Oh yeah, and we all pay for our own medical school, and those who don't practice as much suffer the consequences.)

I'm also going to include a link to a wonderful story about a female neonatologist in her 80s. She's still practicing (part time!), so clearly her education was cost-effective. I really want that to be me in 50 years. http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/15791.html

Blah. I maintain that the only substantive difference in educating men and women that will persist once we've figured out how to treat people like humans is that women are the only ones who can lactate.

Thanks for the links twinmom! I am the only female partner in a 5 physician practice and most days the majority have left before I have and they do not limit their vacation time/time off anymore than I do. I think I have a good balance between work and home life and no one advertises the fact that it can actually be done...

Well, in my case McKinstry was right... I still feel a bit guilty (although unapologetic, since I do have to make my own decisions for my life) whenever I visit the attendings who trained me during residency, as they are accustomed to training serious academicians, researchers, and many future department chairs. Although I have no idea what the actual statistics are, I'm sure it would have a significant impact on any field if a significant enough portion of their workers either work only part-time or drop out completely.

romd - I was thinking about this during the day. You paid for your own, correct? You practiced for a while, correct? And I'm guessing (I could be wrong, and perhaps I'm just projecting) you'll probably want to go back and practice some once your kids are all in school. (I can't imagine being anything but bored with kids in school all day.) So - if this is the case, you weren't any less cost-effective than one of my classmates who started med school at 32 (thus having a career that's 10 years shorter than "standard") and wants to do radiation oncology.

And, geez, how do we quantify the good we do, or the good use of resources? I'm absolutely positive that's something we haven't figured out yet.

twinmom ~ you're right; any person's usefulness is not easy to quantify. I will likely go back to work once the kids are in grade school, but I know it won't be more than 1/2 time (probably a lot less). On one hand I feel fine with my decision. It's my life, afterall. And I don't owe anyone anything. Plus, in the short time that I practiced, I feel that I did make a difference in the lives of at least some people. That's invaluable, right? (In line with your example, there was a 47!-year-old in my med school class. Even PT, I'll probably see more pts than her over the lifetime of my career...) On the other hand, I come from such an academic residency where people have joked that training private practitioners is a waste of their resources. They take pride in training researchers and leaders who're the top in the field. So I guess I'm definitely a "waste" in their eyes. Anyway, I have great admiration for physicians (both women and men) who manage to balance work and family well.

Wow it takes a LOT of guts to say something so ........... I'll let you fill in the blank.

IMHO, there's a HUGE difference between a 35 year old plastic surgeon who does Boob jobs for the next 20 years (and NOT mainly for mastectomy patients and other trauma patients either) and a 52 year old new graduated Physician on an Indian Reservation who works for 10 years.

"Quality" of career is NOT measured in how many years you practice but in who you helped, and I mean truly helped in your career. Unless of course, ones man goal is to help themselves and their families which sadly seesm to be the case in so many career fields.

One "old fart" attorney who saved one innocent man from death row, is worth more than 10 million "accident" attorneys IMHO.

Geez a weez.............. :rolleyes:

pathdr2b, you shouldn't keep grabbing 1 or 2 sentences out of a long post of mine, taking it out of context, and completely misinterpreting it! If you read the entire paragraph, you would have seen that the point I tried to make is that a physician's value SHOULDN'T be dependent on how much or how long they choose to practice, both in my case where it's by choice AND in the case of the 47yo where it's in part due to age. As I said in the above post, it's making a difference in someone's life that should be considered valuable, not whether someone decides to practice PT vs FT or how many years they choose to work. I wish that my residency didn't see me as a waste of resource, and that they would take a note from the med school admissions committee who viewed the older applicant as a worthwhile investment. As twinmom said, we have yet to figure out how to quantify the good we do (or don't do...)!

I'm in my 40's too, so shoot me for taking your very clear words "out of context".Next time, use someone in YOUR own age group if you don't want to get called out about it.
:p

A 47 year old who does FP (which is apparently the most common field among those who enroll over age 30) and only practices for 13 years isn't a "waste". A 27 year old who practices for only 13 years is IMHO (unless they leave due to some extenuating medical condition). Why? because there's 20 additional years they could have practiced and "helped more people" and they didn't. And when I say practice, I'm including those fields where medical knowledge is used in the performance of ones job duties.

Call me an extreme feminist but outside of some medical issue with myself or a close family member, bringing home some "bacon" is very important. And I say that if in the end, you go to med school and say marry a doctor (which women MD's frequently do), then decide not to work at all, then please be upfront enough to admit that perhaps your enrollement in medical school was suspect in the first place.