Lots of people wish they were doctors, and hey, it shouldn't be a surprise. I get to talk to a lot of smart people that have public health aspirations.(and a lot of idiots that want to be doctors because of medical TV shows)
This is a slant of the career choice that no med school jockey can tell you: Economic trends explain why we have such an intense fixation with Doctors and what will happen in the near future.
AUTONOMY AND CHOICE
The Medical Doctor is a job with a high degree of self-autonomy. Especially in private practice, an MD has the freedom to make decisions with little direction from above. Even lawyers and politicians, despite higher prestige and salary, do not have the latitude that doctors enjoy. Thus, being a doctor is very desirable.(especially to those that desire power and influence)
CYCLICAL SUPPLY OF DOCTORS
For some reason, Doctors come in waves. In a continuous cycle, a shortage of MDs is always followed by an excess number, followed by another period of scarcity. Right now, we demand more doctors than we have hanging around, and our affection for them shows during primetime television.
LIMITING THE SUPPLY OF DOCTORS
Requiring that doctors receive licensing has legally limited the number of practitioners to 1% of the population and no more. By doing this, MDs not only increase their wage, but also make the process of becoming a doctor extremely expensive and intensely competitive. Job security.
While there are many reasons that someone may chose to pursue doctorship, these 3 probably explain a great deal of that motive and the flood of pre-meds that inundates us. Although, it should be noted that this doesn't say anything about how many of those pre-meds are going to make it. Only the passage of time tells that.
7 comments:
What's worse are the self proclaimed "I'm GOING to be a doctor". You know who I'm talking about.
Hey, you really didn't discuss any economic trends. I wanna know.
Yeah i did! The whole thing is screaming scarcity for medical services. In other words, there is extra motive to become a MD even to people that would be better off somewhere else. But this only applies to MDs, the love nugget of TV sitcoms, not to vets.
Oh. I was thinking that scarcity was always going to be a factor, regardless of time. I was wondering if other things affected it, like current housing markets and the prime interest rate and blah blah blah
B O R I N G needs more explosions
also IT'S LUPUS!!!
http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Image:GOODNIGHTMEME.jpg
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