Take a lesson from the military. It provides an education and in return,
recruits serve for a set number of years.
One of the big factors which keeps doctors from staying in Canada,
taking on general practice or serving in low population communities is the high
levels of student debt from undergrad and medical school. They have a lot of debt to repay and so they
take on high-paying specialties in urban centers or go south to for-profit
medical service.
If the government paid medical tuition for qualified
students, they could then ask that those graduates serve as doctors in places
of the government’s choosing. Seven
years of medical school for seven years of government doctor service. There’s benefit to areas which aren’t
attracting doctors now. First of all,
they would start getting doctors.
Second, those doctors would be up to date on the latest techniques. New doctors would get a chance to build up
their resumes. The government would have
a dedicated pool of medical practitioners.
It’s a win across the board.
There would probably be some initial costs to the
system. It would not be practical to
expect these new doctors to pay for office space and equipment, especially if
they’re kept in transient mode. So the
government would have to set up clinics for these doctors to practice out of.
I’m sure lots of people will tell me this wouldn’t work and
I’ll admit I don’t have hard numbers to back up my opinion on the matter. But I think it’s clear our health-care system
needs some major overhauling. The old
models no longer keep things running smoothly.
If it were up to me, I would have my mandatory service doctors but I
would also allow nurse practitioners to start doing routine diagnosis and
prescription. Most visits to the doctor
are not House-worthy with bizarre symptoms and inexplicable illnesses. The patient can predict the result: I have an
infection, I need antibiotics. It might
be boring for the nurses but it’s equally boring for the doctor.
I believe in publicly-funded health care. I think for-profit health care is too
contradictory. Treating patients and
making maximum money are mutually exclusive goals. I believe a two-tier system inevitably allows
the lower tier to drop in quality. I
don’t believe the current system of public health care is sacred. Canadians are an efficient people and we
deserve better than to be caught by a nostalgic view of times past.
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