#physician shortage

[pervysmirks]

If you are a woman or care about women’s health, this gives you a good idea of what life is like right now in Texas & other states that have banned abortion outright.

And, frankly, it’s FRIGHTENING.

[topaz-eyes]

All doctors need to become salaried employees, period. None of this fee-for-service or "enrolled"-type exclusivity--it simply does not work. Patients cannot always wait weeks or months for care. They should not be penalized if their doctor cannot see them in a timely manner and they must go elsewhere.

Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.

Nearly 100 people contacted CTV News Toronto over several days in response to a callout for personal experiences(opens in a new tab) with the process known as “de-rostering.”

Many said that they had no idea that they could be dropped as patients and only found out about it after they visited another clinic for care.

Ottawa resident Ashley Desrochers said that in mid-January she made the decision to visit an after-hours clinic for urgent care after her legs started to severely swell. Her family doctor agreed to see her, she said, but had no availabilities for about two months.

She decided to go to a walk-in facility associated with her primary care provider, and while there she saw her own family doctor – who promptly gave her an appointment a few days later. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[knightdykes]

it's only taken me an entire year of avoidance and amnesia, but I finally pulled on my big boy boots and scheduled an appointment with a dentist in this city! I've been living here for two years next month and have just... been putting this stuff off because I didn't know how to get started. I feel a hell of a lot better having gotten this task off of my back, even though I still have to go through the cleaning and try to explain my issues with local anesthetic. that's a different battle for another day.

[indizombie]

Staff shortages mean longer waiting lists. Yet despite repeated promises from the Welsh Government we still don't have a funded national workforce plan for health and social care – or, indeed, any idea of when it will be published. These delays are making a difficult situation worse: without up-to-date vacancy data we simply don't know the scale of the problems facing us. Anecdotally we know that health and care staff are overwhelmed and at risk of burnout and, what's worse, we're flying blind without the information we need to plan ahead.

Dr Olwen Williams, vice-president for Wales at the Royal College of Physicians

[thetrainingnetwork]

Do you think we can do that? 

"‘Ugly’ sums it up. A Physician Associate's story exposes toxic NHS culture, workplace bullying, and systemic issues. Can we balance innovation with civility in healthcare? #NHSCrisis #HealthcareReform"

Ugly… that’s the first word that came into my mind. A story on the BBC news website. A bio-tale about a woman called Julia, working in the NHS, as a physician’s associate. It tells of her joy at starting her work and how it’s since become toxic, as she is ostracised in the workplace by doctors.  Not because of who she is, or how she behaves but because of what she is. How it’s perceived she…

[minnesotafollower]

Minnesota Experiencing Increasing Shortages of Physicians and Nurses

This blog previously noted that the U.S. existing population of physicians is aging and reaching retirement and therefore needing replacement and hence the need to recruit  physicians licensed in other countries.[1] Not surprisingly the State of Minnesota is experiencing the same problem for physicians and nurses.[2] “Aging is taking its toll on the [State’s] doctor ranks, causing the vacancy…

[thetaylor829fdninc]

Doctor shortages are here — and they’ll get worse if we don’t act fast

There are a number of reasons for the projected physician shortage and a number of solutions to the problem have been identified—and they all have one thing in common: the need to get started right away.

[newsbites]

The North Island’s health-care crisis continues...

[reasonsforhope]

"Growing up, Mackenzee Thompson always wanted a deeper connection with her tribe and culture.

The 26-year-old member of the Choctaw Nation said she grew up outside of her tribe’s reservation and wasn’t sure what her place within the Indigenous community would be.

Through a first-of-its-kind program, Thompson said she’s now figured out how she can best serve her people — as a doctor.

Thompson is graduating as part of the inaugural class from Oklahoma State University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine at the Cherokee Nation. It’s the first physician training program on a Native American reservation and in affiliation with a tribal government, according to school and tribal officials.

“I couldn’t even have dreamed this up,” she said. “To be able to serve my people and learn more about my culture is so exciting. I have learned so much already.”

Thompson is one of nine Native graduates, who make up more than 20 percent of the class of 46 students, said Dr. Natasha Bray, the school’s dean. There are an additional 15 Native students graduating from the school’s Tulsa campus.

The OSU-COM graduates include students from 14 different tribes, including Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, Alaska Native, Caddo, and Osage.

Bray said OSU partnered with the Cherokee Nation to open the school in 2020 to help erase the shortage of Indigenous doctors nationwide. There are about 841,000 active physicians practicing in the United States. Of those, nearly 2,500 — or 0.3 percent — are Native American, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

When American Indian and Alaska Native people visit Indian Health Service clinics, there aren’t enough doctors or nurses to provide “quality and timely health care,” according to a 2018 report from the Government Accountability Office. On average, a quarter of IHS provider positions — from physicians to nurses and other care positions –are vacant.

“These students here are going to make a generational impact,” Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. told the students days before graduation. “There is such a need in this state and in this region for physicians and this school was created out of a concern about the pipeline of doctors into our health system.”

The Cherokee Nation spent $40 million to build the college in its capital of Tahlequah. The walls of the campus feature artifacts of Cherokee culture as well as paintings to remember important figures from Cherokee history. An oath of commitment on the wall is written in both English and Cherokee.

The physician training program was launched in the first year of the pandemic.

Bray said OSU and Cherokee leadership felt it was important to have the school in the heart of the Cherokee Nation, home to more than 141,000 people, because students would be able to get experience treating Indigenous patients. In Tahlequah, students live and study in a small town about an hour east of Tulsa with a population of less than 24,000 people.

“While many students learn about the problems facing these rural communities,” Bray said. “Our students are getting to see them firsthand and learn from those experiences.”

While students from the college are free to choose where to complete their residency after graduation, an emphasis is placed on serving rural and Indigenous areas of the country.

There’s also a severe lack of physicians in rural America, a shortage that existed before the COVID-19 pandemic. The Association of American Medical Colleges has projected that rural counties could see a shortage between 37,800 and 124,000 physicians by 2034. An additional 180,000 doctors would be needed in rural counties and other underserved populations to make up the difference.

Bray said OSU saw an opportunity to not only help correct the underrepresentation of Native physicians but also fill a workforce need to help serve and improve health care outcomes in rural populations.

“We knew we’d need to identify students who had a desire to serve these communities and also stay in these communities,” she said.

Osteopathic doctors, or DOs, have the same qualifications and training as allopathic doctors, or MDs, but the two types of doctors attend different schools. While MDs learn from traditional programs, DOs take on additional training at osteopathic schools that focus on holistic medicine, like how to reduce patient discomfort by physically manipulating muscles and bones. DOs are more likely to work in primary care and rural areas to help combat the health care shortages in those areas.

As part of the curriculum, the school invited Native elders and healers to help teach students about Indigenous science and practices...

Thompson said she was able to bring those experiences into her appointments. Instead of asking only standard doctor questions, she’s been getting curious and asking about her patient’s diets, and if they are taking any natural remedies.

“It’s our mission to be as culturally competent as we can,” she said. “Learning this is making me not only a better doctor but helping patients trust me more.”

-via PBS NewsHour, May 23, 2024

[hospitalrecruiting]

Physician recruiting is a buyer's market, which means your job postings need to stand out from the crowd. #recruitment #recruiting #healthcare #physician #staffingshortage

[morlock-holmes]

We are now, what, two three years into the Adderall shortage, and I have been informed by my pharmacy that their next order will arrive during a weekday in November.

Yes, that is how specific the information is.

The amount they will get in November will almost certainly not fill all extant prescriptions, so it will be distributed to whoever calls in and asks for the prescription to be filled on that day.

There is no automated method for informing customers whether the pharmacy has received a shipment, you must call and speak to a pharmacy representative.

This is a very small version of what I assume it must have been like to live in the Soviet Union: Every single decision maker insisting that they are actually operating at 110% efficiency and there are no further improvements that could be made, while meanwhile shortages drag on for literal years and everything grinds to a halt in a bureaucratic mire.

Like, the fact that the way to fix this is to literally call the pharmacy every day and talk to a person means that all of the pharmacists are wasting a tremendous amount of time for, and I cannot stress this enough, literally no reason whatsoever except sheer laziness and apathy on the part of Albertsons management.

In other news, you may remember that after calling four different "Health Homes" that my insurance accepts as PCPs, I got an appointment for 9:40 AM on Christmas Eve. Luckily, they have a telehealth program called "Bridges" which allows you to speak to an RN to get basic health care while you are waiting out the effects of the national Physician shortage that all of our politicians are pretending doesn't exist for some reason.

As best as I can tell, my insurance rejected the claim from the bridges team because they want me to use my Health Home. The one I don't have because they don't have any openings. The one that the bridges team is supposed to cover for until you get establishing care.

I wonder if the people who do health insurance claims ever wonder how many suicides they've caused when they go to bed at night.

[satellitebroadcast]

Israel has killed 1,151 workers in Gaza’s healthcare system since October 2023, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Among the dead are 260 nurses, 184 health associates, 165 physicians, and 76 pharmacists, along with hundreds of management and support staff. While most of the victims’ names have been confirmed by health authorities, over 150 confirmations are still pending due to Israel’s refusal to release the martyrs’ bodies. In addition to those killed, hundreds of health workers remain imprisoned, where they face abuse and torture, as documented by international organizations. Ziad Muhammad Al-Dalu, a physician from Al-Shifa Hospital, was among those who died in Israeli custody, as reported by the Ministry of Health. His death serves as yet another example of Israel’s deliberate targeting of Gaza’s healthcare workers and infrastructure, actions that violate international humanitarian law. The ongoing attacks on healthcare have left tens of thousands of people with life-altering injuries. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 25% of those injured between October 2023 and July 2024 have suffered burns, severe limb injuries, or amputations, with no access to rehabilitation services. Dozens of physiotherapists were killed in the attacks, and inpatient rehabilitation services have been shut down for months. “Even the most essential assistive devices, like wheelchairs and crutches, are lacking due to the restricted flow of aid,” the WHO said. Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid continues to choke Gaza’s healthcare system. At the moment, one of the most urgent problems is the shortage of soap and detergents. With the cost of a small bar of soap reaching USD 10—a price that could buy approximately 2 kilograms of soap in Germany—many families in Gaza are unable to afford basic hygiene supplies. “A family relying on cash-for-work income would spend 60% of the unskilled income on consumable hygiene products,” warned organizations monitoring water and sanitation in Gaza. With soap being an omnipresent product, it might be difficult to imagine how severe the effects of a shortage might be, particularly for children. Health and hygiene officials estimate that adequate access to soap in the Gaza Strip could reduce respiratory infections by 20% and diarrheal diseases by up to 40%. This would potentially prevent illness in at least one in three children currently suffering from diarrhea. However, humanitarian organizations estimate that delivering the 5 million soap bars needed each month to meet demand in Gaza is basically impossible under the existing restrictions. Despite this situation, Gaza recently completed the first phase of its polio vaccination campaign, with an 87% coverage rate among children—just below the 90% benchmark. The campaign is set to resume in the coming weeks, but incidents of Israeli forces obstructing access to those taking part in it persist, jeopardizing future public health efforts. As winter approaches, the need for essential medicines, hygiene supplies, and nutritious food in Gaza becomes even more urgent. Concerns about potential floods and worsening living conditions highlight once again the critical need for an immediate ceasefire and rebuilding of the health system.

[gatheringbones]

[“To understand the shortage of beds, it helps to think of just-in-time delivery. Companies like to have just enough space for what they need, work with, and sell, not more and not less. For a hospital, the human body is the object that is to be delivered, altered, and shipped away just in time. There should never be too many bodies, or too few bodies. There should be just the right number of bodies on just the right number of beds.

Good doctors, good nurses, and good assistants resist this logic all the time, but they are pushing a boulder up a mountain. Maintaining beds costs money. No hospital, in American commercial medicine, is going to maintain a reserve of beds when other hospitals do not do so. Since financial logic dominates medical logic, the country must always be unprepared for epidemics. There can never be a reserve of beds, nor for that matter a reserve of protective equipment or ventilators. Managers counting on a quarterly profit cannot factor in pandemics, which arrive about once a decade. Each time a plague comes, the situation will be defined as exceptional, and the shortages will make the emergency even worse than it had to be. Then money will fly around: not to where the doctors might want, since they will not be asked, but to the sectors of the economy with the loudest voices. This just happened, and with commercial medicine it will keep happening.

In the hospital, sad to say, a body is a widget. Kindly assistants, competent nurses, and decent physicians try to humanize the widget, but they are constrained by a system. A body creates revenue if the body is the right kind of sick for the right length of time. Certain kinds of illnesses, especially ones treatable (or reputed to be treatable) with surgery and drugs, make money. No one has an economic incentive to keep you healthy, to get you well, or for that matter to keep you alive. Health and life are human values, not financial ones; an unregulated market in the treatment of our bodies generates profitable sickness rather than human thriving.”]

timothy snyder, from our malady: lessons in liberty from a hospital diary, 2020

[loving-n0t-heyting]

Im reading about the doctors strike in SK and my impression is that its proooooobably bullshit? So the obvious prima facie case against the strike is that a) SK has a doctor per capita rate just underneath the US, whose cartel-imposed doctor shortage i have had to experience firsthand and ii) the strike is in response to the govt mandating larger incoming med student classes to correct for this shortage. Looking pretty bad! Youd better have some serious defeaters for these reasons for me to take you seriously, korean medical union!

And the excuses offered are, uh, not great. Not great as either rebutters or undercutters. The rationales for the strike include complaints like underpaying wages and fear that an influx of new students will exacerbate a concentration of doctors in low priority fields and urban areas. The second complaint here just seems obviously specious: you can add as many new doctors to the cities or dermatology as you please and it wont delete the inevitable new rural surgeons. As for pay... salaryexpert tells me the average south korean doctors base salary is ~127M₩, glassdoor gives an estimated salary for physicians of ~70M₩. Both within the upper ventile or so of sk worker income (the salaryexpert estimate is in the fucking sk stratosphere). A korea herald article from last june confirms that these incomes are exceptionally high among oecd countries

The striking doctors also assure us the public is served just fine by the current low per capita rate of doctors, a claim with which 84% of south koreans disagree

So yea im calling bullshit. Sorry to be a tool of a reactionary govt and a scourge to labour but physician cartels are past the limit of my solidarity

[scientia-rex]

Hey, I just wanted to tell you that I have massive amounts of respect for the work you do, and that you and all medical professionals deserve a hug and a pat on the back and systemic change and reform that allows you to have a healthy work-life balance without being forced to make the choice to compromise patient care or meet your basic needs.

Call your local elected representatives and tell them you want more residency spots that are federally funded so we can train more doctors so we have fewer provider shortages. International medical graduates who WOULD come here to work are being kept out by racism while we know we don't even have enough training slots for everyone who would like to work here. Also, we need lower medical school tuition; this would also allow the salaries for physicians to be lower and would decrease pressure to be in specialties and cities, when the worst shortages tend to be rural primary care. Call your elected reps, pick one thing, say it clearly, tell them you live in their district (and don't lie), and then keep doing that on a regular basis forever.

Also tell them we really, really need reform because United Health Care being allowed to own every step of the healthcare world and profit off of all of it has meant significant decreases in quality of patient care. Vertical integration IS monopoly, and they're killing people every day.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Manitoba's NDP government is more than halfway toward its goal of hiring 1,000 health-care workers since taking office nearly a year ago, with some groups representing health-care staff applauding the news but saying it's a "drop in the bucket" when it comes to addressing staffing shortages. The province announced on Thursday that from April to August it has hired 873 net new health-care workers to work within the public system. This includes health-care aides, nurses, physicians and midwives.

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland