Family Doctors’ Burnout Is about More than Their Workload | The Walrus
Family Doctors’ Burnout Is about More than Their Workload | The Walrus
Many physicians believe there needs to be a reset in how they treat patients—and their own well-being
I hate how these articles always dance around the main issue. Yes, team-based care is great. But what we really need is to urgently train thousands of family doctors and nurse practitioners. We have a massive shortage and it's only getting worse. But nobody wants to pay for it, and even lefty outlets like The Walrus aren't calling for urgent funding. I dread what this is going to look like in ten years.
This is purely speculation on my part, but I think the Canadian Medical Association, the group which represents Canadian physicians, is interested in maintaining a shortage of physicians and, for example, would vehemently oppose graduating 5-10% more physicians starting now as a means of filling the physician gap. Their motivation is to keep existing physicians in very high demand so that they can maximize compensation and job security.
I think the ultimate problem (neoliberalism) is that there are too many people in positions of power that are trying to profiteer off of a system that's intended to provide a public service (e.g., privatization of healthcare, hospital inaccessibility in rural communities, the large number of Canadians without a primary care provider)
I don't think the CMA has much power over this. Medical school and residency spots are controlled by provincial governments, and even the provincial medical associations exist at the will of provincial governments. I'm not saying you're wrong that this might be the CRA'stake, but I don't see much of a causal relationship there.
Much more immediate, I think, is the unwillingness of (more or less conservative, and as you point out, neoliberal) governments to fund medical schools and residencies because the impact on voters would take almost a decade, which is much longer than an election cycle.