[oramar]

NASSAWADOX, Va. — In the modest building that houses Shore Memorial Hospital in this town of about 600 people between the Chesapeake and Hog Island bays, a health care crisis is brewing.

It's a problem rooted in the 1980s and 1990s, when U.S. medical schools put a cap on enrollments, believing that managed health care, among other factors, would create a glut of doctors.

They were wrong. And now the impact of a national shortage of surgeons and family practice doctors is echoing across the country.

The shortage of surgeons is a particular threat to the health care of 54 million rural Americans, medical specialists say, including the "watermen" who catch crabs, scoop clams and grow oysters here.

Shore Memorial, which on average has 61 patient admissions a day, was built 70 years ago to save lives being lost to simple ills such as appendicitis. Having a surgeon is vital to keeping open the doors of Shore Memorial and thousands of other small hospitals like it.

Full Story:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/...shortage_N.htm

[vivibonita]

Interesting article. While i was doing my rotations in the OR (beginning of 2007), I talked to one of the surgeons and he was commenting about the shortage of surgeons, he not only said that medicine has become of a less attractive career, but also that the increase on lawsuits has "scared away" some doctors from becoming surgeons. Also with the influx of people who go into hospitals with little or not insurance, they are not receiving enough money or compensation for the job and service they are providing.

We'll see how it goes, if it keeps going this way, we'll have more patients and people unable to receive help and less health care providers to help. I hope we don't get to that point.

peace.

Vivi

[lindarn]

I have a novel solution to the doctor shortage- let start "Physician Assistants" second career programs. We can let PA's become licensed physicians in a one year"completer" program. This way we can graduate hundreds of new physicians a year and flood the market with physicians. At the same time, we can open the flood gates for foreign doctors to come here and set up practices. After all, those poor doctors in third world countries only make a fraction of what doctors do here. They need the money to send back to their poor families overseas.

Pretty soon, the doctor, surgeon shortage will be "solved". We will have "helped" poor foreign families out of poverty by allowing them to send their US earned dollars overseas.

Sound familiar? Does anyone really think this scenario will ever occur? Not on your life. Why? Because the AMA has too much clout to allow this to happen. It is called, job security. And charity begins at home. Something the ANA and the State Boards of Nursing seems to have never learned. Just hang American nurses out to dry and let them be replaced by foreign nurses. After all, it is good for the economy.

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN
Spokane, Washington

[RNgonewild]

I'm guessing you haven't already seen all the foreign doctors in the US. Look around.

[lindarn]

Originally Posted by RNgonewild

I'm guessing you haven't already seen all the foreign doctors in the US. Look around.

Yes, there are foreign doctors already here. However, the AMA keeps a close tab on how many foreign doctors are allowed to come here and practice. That, from what I understand, is why Filipino doctors are going to Nursing school in the Phillippines, so they can emigrate here more easily. It is easier for a nurse to emigrate here than a doctor because there is a "nursing shortage" here, and our government allows higher
numbers of nurses to emigrate here than doctors.

If you go to the thread here about the nurses on Long Island, in NY, who are being charged criminally for "abandoning their patients" in a nursing home (Sentosa), you will see that two of those "nurses", were doctors in the Phillipines. They went to nursing school in their home country so they could emigrate here. It was noted in the article, that one of the doctors scored a perfect score on her licensing exam in the Philipines.

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN
Spokane, Washington

[oramar]

Originally Posted by lindarn

Yes, there are foreign doctors already here. However, the AMA keeps a close tab on how many foreign doctors are allowed to come here and practice. That, from what I understand, is why Filipino doctors are going to Nursing school in the Phillippines, so they can emigrate here more easily. It is easier for a nurse to emigrate here than a doctor because there is a "nursing shortage" here, and our government allows higher
numbers of nurses to emigrate here than doctors.

If you go to the thread here about the nurses on Long Island, in NY, who are being charged criminally for "abandoning their patients" in a nursing home (Sentosa), you will see that two of those "nurses", were doctors in the Phillipines. They went to nursing school in their home country so they could emigrate here. It was noted in the article, that one of the doctors scored a perfect score on her licensing exam in the Philipines.

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN
Spokane, Washington

Seems to me there was a great influx of foreign physicians back in the 1970s due to a sever doctor shortage. My family doctor is 70 and he was one of them.

[vivibonita]

Well, it seems like nowadays it is harder to validate credits / classes from other country, that is why it is easier for some doctors to just come to the States as nurses.

Vivi




oramar: I love your signature, now "bring out your dead" or "is just a flesh wound"!!

[CHATSDALE]

we have a lot of foreign mds here, many of whom came via the va or state system and then moved into the private sector
some of them spoke very good english but some of them learned to a certain point and really did not put much effort to improve
once you had learned to listen to what they were saying you can run interference with patients

[ibnathan]

Lindarn you hit the nail on the head. It is frustrating to see this so called nursing shortage in the US but we import all these foreign trained nurses to try and stem the shortage. #1 we should train within. #2 Stop the importation of foreign nurses or at least really put max limits per year. #3 Hospitals need to increase the wages considerably, but that won't happen because we bring in foreign nurses and they are happy and will not complain about current wages. It also helps the hospitals keep wages low. Just the beginning of my two cents.

[Angie O'Plasty, RN]

Originally Posted by ibnathan

Lindarn you hit the nail on the head. It is frustrating to see this so called nursing shortage in the US but we import all these foreign trained nurses to try and stem the shortage. #1 we should train within. #2 Stop the importation of foreign nurses or at least really put max limits per year. #3 Hospitals need to increase the wages considerably, but that won't happen because we bring in foreign nurses and they are happy and will not complain about current wages. It also helps the hospitals keep wages low. Just the beginning of my two cents.

Not only that, it helps keep the union voice out of hospitals. No way would a foreign nurse vote for a union. They comprise a good 30% of our total nursing staff. And please don't get me wrong, I love our foreign nurses. They bring a lot of expertise to the table. But politically? They're too scared to say boo and are very obedient to the status quo, where American-born nurses are more willing to challenge it.