Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Dropout Doctors

An interesting new article discusses, "Dropout Docs: Bay Area Doctors Quit Medicine to Work for Digital Health Startups"

One quote from the article:
Tech culture is very appealing when juxtaposed against the hierarchy and myriad hoops to be jumped through in clinical medicine.
Another quote:
Many of the dropout docs expressed a desire to improve the doctor-patient experience. In interviews with KQED, several said they spent very little time administering care during medical school, and they felt that patients were too often kept out of the loop.

A recent study found that doctors-in-training spend an average of just eight minutes with each patient. This is a drastic decrease from previous generations and is linked to more record-keeping requirements and restricted on-duty hours.
If young physicians find entrepreneurship more rewarding than clinical medicine, perhaps those who are setting the rules governing clinical medicine need to re-examine their policies. Until then, med school graduates should pursue whatever careers that they find the most professionally and personally satisfying.