Culture & Economics 06 Dec 2008 04:10 pm
Medical school inefficiency: women in medical school
I'm feeling provocative…
From a Freakonomics blog entry from yesterday:
My husband is K.C. and the kids are Jacob (10) and Jared (6). We live in Connecticut, and K.C. commutes into New York City to work as a portfolio manager. I am a stay-at-home mom with a medical degree.
Emphasis mine.
With the relative shortage of physicians, it would make more sense to give priority to those students who actually intend to practice medicine when they graduate from medical school:
"Due to population growth, aging and other factors, demand will outpace supply through at least 2025," they wrote. "Simply educating and training more physicians will not be enough to address these shortages. Complex changes such as improving efficiency, reconfiguring the way some services are delivered, and making better use of our physicians will also be needed."
The projected shortfall was attributed to a slowly expending physician workforce in the face of an expected 50% growth in the U.S, population and a doubling in patients older than 65.
Couple that with the demand we are probably about to manufacture, and this whole thing is going to crumble for at least 7-10 years, since that is the minimum built-in lag time for increasing the number of practicing physicians. (4 years of medical school, 3-6 years of residency depending on specialty.)
Giving slots to people who don't practice medicine once they're finished with school is wasteful in a profession already strapped for human capital. I have similar feelings about other professions like pharmacy and dentistry. While it is probably not possible to weed out those who will play traditional gender rolls from those that will work throughout their lifetimes, I wonder if asking a question like "If you get married, do you intend to continue practicing medicine?" would be allowed during the medical school interview process. I'm inclined to think it wouldn't be. Should it be allowed?
How do you reconcile personal choice and personal freedom with real human capital shortages in important, life-saving industries? Can it be reconciled? Should it be reconciled?
