Quote:
Originally Posted by ikestoys
Yup 100% agree. There's no reason to go to post grad for 8 years plus a 3 year training program to be a pcp.
*Quick edit, this post is made assuming your claiming that becoming a PCP doesn't need that much education, if your just saying you want to make more money then thats a perfectly reasonable personal choice
(This is coming from someone who plans on specializing because I want to do academics)
This post makes it pretty obvious that your not in medical school yet, the general public (pre-meds included) don't understand the scope of what PCP's do in practice. Yes, midlevels are being used to "replace" some FM MD's, but in the vast majority of situations these midlevels are working in a group practice that has FM MD's that handle the groups more complex patients.
If you leave urban or upscale suburban areas its common to have FM docs delivering babies (including C-sections), caring for neonates in the nursery, doing colonoscopies, treating their patients when admitted to hospital for DKA/pneumonia/etc. (including ventilation management for intubated patients) and staffing ERs in addition to their normal outpatient practice.
Even in suburban/urban settings, its still really common for FM docs to deliver babies, do tons of gyn care, spirometry, EKGs, joint injections, laceration and fracture care, tons of dermatology (excisions/biopsies), psychopharmacology, etc. And of course managing extremely complex patients where you can't just focus on one organ system and punt them back to the PCP like specialists do.
In all settings, one of the most important jobs of a PCP is helping patients make complex health decisions, when patients visit specialists (cardiology has been catching a lot of heat lately for unnecessary angioplasty) they tend to get rail roaded into interventional treatments because when you get paid to swing a hammer, everything looks like a nail. You need to have extensive medical knowledge to help your patients only get treatments that are actually indicated given your long term knowledge of a patient's history.
Last edited by surftheiop; 12-29-2011 at 07:32 PM.