Tales from the Emergency Room weighs in…
I have stayed mostly quiet on the topic of the Macleans article that hit newsstands in January. It examined the doctor shortage across Canada, gave tips on how to find a family doctor, and looked in particular at the shortages in rural areas. Sprinkled liberally with anecdotes and horror stories, it was intended to sell magazines.
IT’S NOT A WOMAN THING.
Physicians just aren’t like that anymore. Gone are the days of the kindly old doc who has a family practice, delivers babies, does shifts in the emerg, cares for his inpatients in the hospital, does house calls, visits the nursing home, and does coroner call on the weekends. You know the type… known to everyone in the community but a stranger to his own family? Men have wised up. That’s not a life. No one ever lay on their deathbed and wished they’d spent more time at work. The popularity of ‘lifestyle specialties’ is a testament to this. For the past few years, there have been spots left over after the match in specialties like general surgery, orthopedic surgery… hell, even neurosurgery hasn’t filled in the first round. At the same time, the popularity of anesthesia, radiology and emergency medicine have gone through the roof. It seems that the only surgical specialties that are still uber-competitive to get into are the ones that offer a reasonable lifestyle on top of the hefty paycheque– like ENT and plastics.
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