July 10, 2006
More Doctors, Not Better Care
The Dartmouth Medical School and the associated Veterans Administration hospital consistently churn out some of the most intriguing comparative health care studies being done today. This morning's New York Times brings word of a new study that looked at the ratio of doctors to senior citizen care in various states and cities. Even though seniors in Florida have 40 percent more doctors than seniors in Minnesota and get commensurately more care, they don't live any longer (Sorry, Ponce de Leon; it apparently isn't a fountain of youth). New York has nearly three times more doctors than San Francisco, yet doctors rate the quality of care about the same.
Bottomline for Dartmouth pediatrician David Goodman, who authored the op-ed:
By training more doctors than we need, we will continue to fill more hospital beds, order more diagnostic tests — in short, spend more money. But our resources would be better directed toward improving efforts to prevent illness and manage chronic ailments like diabetes and heart disease.
Which politicians will bring that insight to the health care reform debate?
Posted by gooznews at July 10, 2006 08:47 AMAnyone who has spent time trying to get good medical care for a serious condition will disagree with the idea that there are too many doctors. If we have too many doctors, why are there huge wait lists for some specialties, 3-4 hour waits for specialists, etc., here in our NON-socialized system?
Maybe it is a matter of distribution of doctors, not the overall number.
Just surf the net for stories of people who have serious, chronic, and/or non-routine medical conditions, and I bet you find stories like mine, above- I can't get my doctor to spend more than 6 minutes with me. How is this possible if the problem is oversupply?
Posted by: Jim Harrigan at July 11, 2006 02:47 PM