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Health
Care Reform: Attacking the Root Problems
We
are a coalition of doctors, nurses, ancillary healthcare
workers, educators, and healthcare policy makers dedicated
to making healthcare training cost free, efficient, and readily available.
We have a severe problem with
health care delivery. Although
there has been an enormous struggle to discover a solution,
answers have not been found, largely because people
have been looking in the wrong places.
If we
reexamined the antiquated educational requirements
currently needed to practice medicine, we could have a |
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plentiful
supply of creative, compassionate, and reasonably priced
physicians.
PPO's,
socialized medicine, rationing treatment, or legalistic approaches have
not worked because they have not addressed the fundamental
obstacle. We have gone in circles with these kinds
of proposals and made virtually no progress. However,
once the root cause of the current medical system's ineffectiveness
is thoroughly examined, the outlook for the future becomes
extremely favorable. The real issue is not money,
but rather our mindset. Since our society appears to
be stymied, it follows that some fundamental assumptions about
the way our systems are organized must be questioned. We
tend to hold to certain beliefs very rigidly, and dismiss new
ideas that contradict them impulsively. |
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Most Pre-Medical Education is
Irrelevant. The M.D. degree requires twelve years of
higher education, most of which has little value to the future
practicing physician. In many schools, the educational
pattern is memorize, pass the test, and forget. The
pressures encountered by medical students are mentally damaging,
and waste many valuable years. By the time the
doctor graduates, he has forgotten most of what he has learned.
Patient Centered Learning:
The
solution is to permit alternatives to rigid institutions, utilize
free internet programs, and have medical students assist practicing
physicians |
by
assisting practicing physicians in taking patient histories. These students would offer valuable,
free services to doctors. At
the same time, they would have a vivid learning experience
by spending several hours each day interacting with actual
patients.
The Cost Of Medical Education
Would Be Negligible. The expense of healthcare is directly proportional
to the cost of the doctor's education. With the
institutional bottleneck gone, there would be a greater
number of doctors, and the cost of healthcare would
plummet. Doctors would have ample time to devote
to their patients, keep abreast of new developments,
and conduct research. This equates to more time
and care per patient at a lower cost.
New
addition: The basis of dysfunctional medical education.
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