Comment by sol_remmy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sol_remmy | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> Doctors are part of a guild. They artificially limit the number of doctors available by capping the number of medical schools

>> They do not. You may be confusing the AMA (which less than 25% of doctors even belong to) with the AAMC.

Actually the AMA is the problem. They lobby to uphold the incredibly strict licensing requirements that doctors use to maintain the exclusivity of their job.

Doctor licensure requirements are stricter in America than most of Europe. For instance, why do doctors NEED to do a 4-year undergrad degree before medical school? Why do they NEED to go to a 2+ year residency after medical school? In Europe, students can go straight to medical school from high school.

Each additional licensure requirement to become a doctor decreases the supply of new doctors, increases the salary of current doctors, and increases the cost to consumers.

https://mises.org/library/how-government-helped-create-comin...

> For instance, why do doctors NEED to do a 4-year undergrad degree before medical school?

They don't. Medical schools can accept students straight out of high school, as long as they've completed the required pre-medical coursework. They don't, however, because those students drastically underperform their peers who received an undergraduate degree in a different field.

> Why do they NEED to go to a 2+ year residency after medical school?

Because without it, they literally have never been trained to practice medicine. Where do you get the idea that Europe is somehow different? Residency is required (and comparably long) in the UK, Germany, etc.

> Medical schools can accept students straight out of high school, as long as they've completed the required pre-medical coursework. They don't, however, because those students drastically underperform their peers who received an undergraduate degree in a different field.

I guess all those Australian medical schools will be interested in hearing how their graduates "drastically underperform" all these American doctors who did a postgraduate medical school.

http://www.med.monash.edu.au/medicine/admissions/direct-entr... - Bachelor of Medicine, a 5 year undergraduate degree with direct entry from school, and the 5th year being clinical rotations.

Seems to work well enough, to me, as someone who has used physicians extensively in both countries, and worked in healthcare in both. "drastically underperforming" doesn't really fit that picture.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com