I've been getting somewhat concerned about my potential future in medicine. For one, I'm seeing a lot of discontent about mid level providers (on this subreddit for sure but in practice as well). For the most part, this discontent seems merited (sometimes maybe not). I'm concerned about the power of NP lobbies have to push their agenda of increasing autonomy. This is bad for patients and for the physicians' place in medicine. Physicians in contrast don't seem to have any lobby and powerful interest groups to protect their right to practice. Second, while I definitely think we need to expand medical coverage, I've hearing some interesting things about how physician pay could suffer under m4a. I've seen some heated debates, but the debates often end up in someone saying "physician pay is only 10% of the hospital pie, cutting that won't even do much so physician pay will be fine." That brings me to my third area of uneasiness, the above quote is from someone arguing that it would not make much practical and economical sense for politicians to cut physician pay significantly under the m4a system. In reality, I don't think that decision would come from a practical/economical minded framework. People increasingly do NOT like physicians and they think they are grossly overpaid. I hear intense disdain for physicians in the wild, second only to politicians. I've seen ultra Bernie supporters (I'm not against him fyi) say doctors are the rich elites holding the working class down so screw them. If politicians think they'll score a few votes by cutting physician pay under m4a, why wouldn't they? Who's going to do anything? Not the physicians with no interest groups and no leveraging power. Also the constant comparisons of US physicians to UK physicians seems off to me because how many other jobs in the US should get paid less based on that comparison alone?
I love medicine for the field itself not just the money, clearly since I'm aiming potentially for ID. Passion comes before $. I think that physicians, maybe more so in some specialties, would not suffer from some cuts. However, being a physician is at the end of the day a job and I expect the field to remain competitive with other professions that require even close to the same level of training. When I look down the tunnel of school and residency, the last thing I want to see is further storms brewing. I just wanted to express my thoughts, sorry if it was a little ranty but I'd love to hear what those much farther along think about these concerns/trends. Am I wrong and there's nothing to worry about or are these problems we should pay heed to? If the latter, what could I even do as I progress? It all feels like tidal waves of uncertainty where only big unions and interest groups get a say.
Source: Original link
