How dermatology became the 'it' job in medicine

> Recently, her hospital’s dermatology program received more than 600 applications for four residency slots.

Perhaps if supply of dermatologists was not so strongly limited, prices and wait times would improve.

I doubt that limit is an artificial one. Hospitals don't need 600 dermatologists on staff. I think this is yet another factor of capitalism: selfish interests of individual corporations being in tension with the people's interests of having affordable healthcare. Other developed countries seem to have said "yeah, we recognize that nationalizing healthcare will result in insurance companies and hospitals making less money. But that's what has to happen for the people to be able to get the care they need."

Every time it comes up in the US, nationalized healthcare is demonized in some media. But it just feels like a facade perpetrated by the hospitals and insurance companies (and now private equity) who stand to lose the most. If it's good enough for veterans and retirees, why can't it be good enough for the rest of us? Maybe it's because when the government pays the bill, they don't just roll over and accept $EXORBITANT_FEE after $EXORBITANT_FEE - they negotiate and get some reasonable value.

They dont need 600 dermatologists on staff. They need residency slots. These people aren't asking to work for the hospital permanently, they just have to check the residency box that is artificially limited by gatekeepers.

It is a bit of a logistical issue shoving 600 dermatology interns into a hospital.

Make it a law that all doctor offices need one or two residency slots. That should alleviate the problem in time due to compounding growth.

You've got to be kidding. There's no way that a regular doctor's office could provide adequate graduate medical education. Residents are taught in teaching hospitals.

I have no context. I’m just a layman.

Maybe force every doctor office by law to be a teaching hospital of some sort. They get paid 500K, seems to be a good form of taxation on an undeserved salary.

You've got to be kidding. Physician offices don't have the facilities or the breadth of practice to function effectively as teaching hospitals. Even most hospitals aren't teaching hospitals.

And as for conscripting physicians and forcing them to train residents, that's a completely bizarre and unrealistic suggestion. Forcing someone to teach and mentor who doesn't want to do it will guarantee bad results. And many practicing physicians don't live anywhere near a teaching hospital.

Who are you to decide how much salary someone deserves? I think you deserve $4 an hour. That seems fair to me. In the real world fairness to subjective. What actually matters is negotiating power. The most straightforward way to reduce physician negotiating power is for Congress to increase graduate medical education funding through Medicare. Income in the $500K range is already in the 35% tax bracket (plus any state income tax) so doctors are paying quite a bit; Congress just chooses to spend that money on other priorities.

https://savegme.org/