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Comment by verroq | Hacker News Reader

Solution: allow more people to become doctors.

Ok, but what exactly do you propose? funding to support residents comes from the federal government, and this funding is already strained.

Should we lower standards? Lower quality of care? If the answer was easy we would have already implemented something.

If you really want simple solutions to more doctors:

Don't promote/require undergrad before med school. As in premed is not an actual degree anyone would ever get. Don't require multi year residency's, if the goal is education then 12+ hours days actively block that goal by inhibiting memory formation.

Shockingly both of those require zero money and would add up to 4+ more years of practice and lower education costs. However, US doctors don't want that as it would lead to lower pay just like every other country.

Limiting under grad education - sure, that is reasonable, that is how non-US countries do it. You get fast tracked to medical school after high school. But you still need some amount of undergrad education before medical school.

But no multi-year residencies? You are misinformed. It takes years to learn how to take care of the sick and dying. We don't just punish ourselves with lengthy training programs for fun.

It takes years for the sleep deprived to do so. That does not mean it must take years. As you know actual doctors continue to look things up, so you don't need them to memorize every edge case, just know when something could be an edge case.

Yea, well. I just don't think we can continue this argument.

The problem isn't the number of doctors we produce, but the number of residency spots.

And why is that number so low?

There is limited funding from the government to support residency positions.

Ehh, it's just another part of education, let some people pay their own way. However, that requires fewer years upfront so the costs are more reasonable.

Pay their own way? Residents are already in 8 years of debt after undergrad and medical school education. How could you expect a person to keep paying their way for a total of up to 13 years of education (what it takes minimum to become a surgeon after high school in the US)?

As I said somewhere else, undergrad should be removed. But, if the current system costs X and students pay for 5% now you get more doctors.

You don't get it. The government limits the amount of residency spots. They fund the residency spots. And most students do not pay upfront, they go into debt to fund their education. Having students pay more or go more into debt will do nothing. The amount of residency spots is ultimately determined by the US govt

This is factually incorrect the US government pays for a fixed number of slots, but they don't pay for 100% of the residency slots available. Thus there is no legal limit on slots.

So who should pay for more slots?

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