Oh, I do tease our Canadian cousins, don't I?  But I was just sent this email which I thought was of dual interest.  It's an article from the BBC about a Canadian mother giving birth.  Why is that of interest at all?  Check it out...

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Don't we have a thread already on this a la M Moore that died? 

http://www.2000revue.com/community/topic.cfm?topicid=2988 

Anyway, yes, Calgary is growing so fast the hospitals have been having trouble keeping up (there are some new ones being built).  When this happens our gov't health coverage covers the cost of placing someone in an alternate hospital, sometimes the States.  All this at no charge to the patient.

"We cannot allow a mine shaft gap"

Good thing the US has those hospitals for the Canadian spill over. No telling but if we had US-run-health-insurance, we may not have the room for 4 new babies -- then we're ALL in trouble.

What really bothers me about US run insurance is that it will turn into the same mess that we have with our education system, MEDICARE, Social Security and other large programs - a big, horrible mess. Guess the US will never learn.

"All this at no charge to the patient."

Oh and BTW - that's not exactly true. The patient is being charged every day of their life for that hospital stay in the long run. I'm curious do you know how much you spend in health tax each year?

Jordan .

Calgary has been experiencing unprecedented growth and the city planner and gov't have done a poor job planning and keeping up.  The article above is not correct in that there was no room anywhere in Canada, Montana was simply the closest alternative. 

And yes Jordan, I should have said "all that at no additional cost".  An average family making 90k a year would pay about 25% in taxes.  This would include Employment Insurance, Canada Pension Plan contribitions and federal and provincial tax.  On top of that there is a 6% GST (a federal sales tax) on all purchases.  In Alberta there is 0% provincial sales tax (which would be the equivalent of state sales tax in the US).  Of that amount paid I have no idea what percentage goes into health care but of course we pay for it with our taxes.

Has a city in the US ever grown so fast that the hospitals and schools simply filled up to overflowing?  And even if you hate our system some good things are coming out of it (see current events forum).  With all it's imperfections (and of course we have flaws) I'll still take our socialized medicine any day of the week. 

"We cannot allow a mine shaft gap"

Bait the hook, throw out the line and bingo!  The Big Fish bite!  Hiya, Danwhy!!!

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

She should've had them in Australia.

Poor or wealthy?  Doesn't matter. 

No health insurance?  Who cares?

Rock up to her nearest hospital, check in and get the same doctors and treatment that privately insured patients pay for.

Our health system is slowly moving to a more user-pays system, but at the moment for things like accidents, sickness, injuries and pregnancies - it's all covered by the govt.

OH!!!  I almost forgot to mention my brief visit to Canada many years back involved a visit to a hospital.  My younger brother tipped some boiling water on himself, and got 3rd degree right down his leg - the skin was literally peeling off in sheets.  So we went to the hospital expecting to just get straight into emergency treatment (as you'd get in Australia) - but no...they wanted to triple-check credit card details and all the other financial stuff while he lay there screaming in pain.  It took 30-45 minutes before they actually considered looking at him.  It was bloody ridiculous and something I'll never forget from Canada.

I don't recall what the hospitals were like in the US, but remember hearing it was ridiculously expensive and health insurance was a "must have".  The local hospitals were also leading edge in research though, so I'd expect a high quality of care there.

The emergency rooms of the US are both the general practitioner location of choice for the uninsured and the trauma centers for keeping the seriously injured alive.  Here in LA that primary emergency room is known as County USC Hospital. It is a first class insititution for anyone in the area who has been shot, stabbed or critically injured in a car accident.  You all may recall actress Frances Bay (Mrs. Tremond, etc.) who was hit by a car while crossing the street a few years back.  The was in her 80s at the time.  She spent months at County USC where one leg was amputated.  Her wounds healed and she is alive and well, still acting, in fact!  Many of the techniques practiced on victims (and perpetrators) of violent urban gangland wars, have been utilized in caring for war injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Another function of County USC Hospital in Los Angeles -- it is the maternity ward of non-citizens and non-legal residents of Los Angeles.  I can't recall the exact stats but it is a slim minority of babies born there whose moms are in the US legally.  There are organized travel programs out of China, for example, where pregnant women plan their trips to the US to coincide with their due dates in order for those babies to born at an American hospital.  Their children, upon birth, are automatically US citizens thereby compounding an immigrant problem and any future potential deportation issues.  

Who pays?  Californians.  Win win and it's free to the patient by and large.  Point is, no one is turned away.   It is the same for emergency rooms throughout the US.  Not ideal.  But not Canada either.  Thanks heaven for that.

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

i can't think of any city in the US that is growing faster than their infrastructure. But the US wouldn't have that issue as bad (if at all) when it comes to hospitals because we don't have 100% state-run facilities. If the market is calling for more hospitals, then greedy corporations will build hospitals, and "they will come" in droves. If govt is in control of when and how hospitals get built 100% then, well, you're gonna have problems because govt is 1) slow, 2) slow, and 3) slow.

It just bugs me that people seem to say that health care is "free" in state-run health care schemes. It's not free, never will be free. Someone is paying for it, whether it's the guy who is making 30,000/year or the guy making 20 million a year. And as we head into this new election season, we're going to be hearing a lot about "free health care." ARGH!

Jordan .

I got this email today which I think puts perspective on the anecdotal nature of many claims and counter-claims re/Canadian or Euro-style "free" health care versus the US brand.

Let's see what we can agree with or disagree on.  To paraphrase Jordan while morphing Bruno, "free lunch" -- ich don't think so.

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

We can find articles and go back and forth till the cows come home.  The facts are such that everyone can support their own interpretaion of them!  How about the latest census info on life expectancy?

U.S. Life Expectancy Below That Of 41 Other Nations

Main Category: Public Health News
Article Date: 15 Aug 2007 - 16:00 PDT


Life expectancy in the U.S. has reached its highest point ever, but it is exceeded by the rates in 41 other countries, the AP/Arizona Daily Star reports. The U.S. has been slipping for decades in international rankings of life expectancies as other countries are improving health care, nutrition and lifestyles, according to the AP/Daily Star. Countries that rank above the U.S. include Japan, most of Europe, Jordan and the Cayman Islands. A U.S. resident born in 2004 has a life expectancy of 77.9 years, placing the U.S. in 42nd place, down from 11th place two decades ago.

Researchers say the lower U.S. ranking is attributed to the high uninsured rate among the population, in addition to rising obesity rates and racial disparities in life expectancy. Black U.S. residents have a shorter life span, at 73.3 years, than whites. The U.S. also has a high infant mortality rate compared with other industrialized nations, with 40 countries having lower infant mortality rates than the U.S. in 2004.

The country with the longest life expectancy is Andorra at 83.5 years. Swaziland is last at 34.1 years, attributed to sub-Saharan Africa's high rate of HIV and AIDS, as well as famine and civil strife.

Comments
Christopher Murray, head of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, said, "Something's wrong here when one of the richest countries in the world, the one that spends the most on health care, is not able to keep up with other countries." According to Murray, improving access to health insurance could increase life expectancy, but he predicted that the U.S. ranking would not improve as long as the health care debate is limited to insurance. Murray said policymakers must direct their efforts to reducing cancer, heart disease and lung disease. Murray supports additional efforts to reduce tobacco use, control blood pressure, reduce cholesterol and regulate blood sugar.

Sam Harper, an epidemiologist at McGill University, said, "It's not as simple as saying we don't have national health insurance. It's not that easy." Paul Terry, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Emory University, said, "The U.S. has the resources that allow people to get fat and lazy," adding, "We have the luxury of choosing a bad lifestyle as opposed to having one imposed on us by hard times" (AP/Arizona Daily Star, 8/12).

Editorial
A "growing body of evidence" indicates that the U.S. is not a "leader in providing good medical care" but a "laggard," a New York Times editorial states. According to the editorial, a comparison of the U.S. and other industrialized nations in several important areas of health care finds that:

• "All other major industrialized nations provide universal health coverage" -- most with "comprehensive benefit packages with no cost sharing by the patients" -- but the U.S. "to its shame" has 45 million uninsured residents and millions of residents with inadequate coverage;
  
  
• U.S. residents receive "prompter attention" than those in most other nations, but "even Americans with above-average incomes find it more difficult than their counterparts abroad to get care on nights or weekends without going to an emergency room";
  
  
• The U.S. "ranks dead last on almost all measures of equity," with the "greatest disparity in the quality of care given to richer and poorer citizens";
  
  
• The U.S. ranks "near the bottom in healthy life expectancy at age 60" and 15th among 19 nations in deaths that would not have resulted "if treated with timely and effective care";
  
  
• The U.S. ranks "first in providing the 'right care' for a given condition" and high for preventive care but performs "poorly in coordinating the care of chronically ill patients, in protecting the safety of patients and in meeting their needs and preferences";
  
  
• The U.S. in a recent comparison of five nations "had the best survival rate for breast cancer, second best for cervical cancer and childhood leukemia, worst for kidney transplants, and almost-worst for liver transplants and colorectal cancer";
  
  
• U.S. residents "hold surprisingly negative views of their health care system," and "American attitudes stand out as the most negative" in a recent comparison of five nations; and
  
  
• The U.S. health care system -- despite "our vaunted prowess in computers, software and the Internet" -- is "still operating in the dark ages of paper records and handwritten scrawls," with many U.S. physicians "years behind doctors in other advanced nations in adopting electronic medical records or prescribing medications electronically."

So, some of the same facts above (eg:  The U.S. ranks "first in providing the 'right care' for a given condition") look a little different when other facts are added (eg:  but performs "poorly in coordinating the care of chronically ill patients, in protecting the safety of patients and in meeting their needs and preferences).

Bottom line for me, the system in my country is not perfect but I like it.  Bottom line for you, you like your countries system.  Awesome, we have winners all around and we are living in the right countries for ourselves!

"We cannot allow a mine shaft gap"

Danwhy - it's rare that you and I agree on things, but I tend to agree that we can do this all day until the cows (and moose) come home (while increasing global warming, mind you). But as long as Moore, and the Democratic candidates keep pointing to Canada's helath care system, and everyone else as the "correct way" to go, you will continue to hear stories and I think it's important that fellow Americans realize that it's not a bunch of good-smelling "free" roses in all cases when it comes to socliazed medicine. When govt steps in, it can cause more problems than it's worth, and when govt steps in to control costs, well, the last time the US govt did that, Americans waited in line for gas!!

The fact of the matter is that there is a bigger question here that Americans have to ask themsleves (not CAnadians, not the French, not the British) - should the US FEDERAL govt provide health care? The US govt could look at the best of our current system, could look at the best of the Canadian system, and the French, and the British, and on down the list, and come up with the bestest health care system in the world, but the question still remains - is it the job of the federal govt to provide health care?

Furthermore, is it their job to FORCE health care on people who don't want it?

WHAT IS SO FRICKIN' HARD FOR PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT HEALTH CARE AND INSURANCE!!! It costs a buttload for a variety of reasons (mostly because of lawyers but that's for a different discussion), and because of that, insurance costs money and if you want to proctect you and your family you need to sacrifice a little each month to pay for health care. YES, I would love to bring home an extra $300/mo instead of paying for Caleb and Kelly through my company's health care plan (it covers me 100%), but I know that my family NEEDS health care. Every state that I know of has some sort of health care plan for those people who are in need of it - they just have to ask. MANY MANY MANY small and large companies provide insurnace in some form (not every one does, but MANY MANY MANY do).

The fact of the matter is that peoople CHOOSE to not have health care. Every state in the union requires every driver to have insurance to pay for the other person or their car in case of an accident. This protects the OTHER person, and smart people will decide that they need to carry coverage over themselves. If you want to drive, you have to have it, and so the same goes with health insurance - if you want to not have to pay thousands to a hospital if you get sick, you better get some insurance to cover your butts.

There are problems with both the US system and the socialized system. BUT govt needs to intrude in our lives less and less, and allowing govt to intrude in on our health is a very dangerous thing, IMO. We've all read the stories about the conditions of some of the Veteran Hospitals are, and how long they have to wait to get help, so that's just a small example of what a full US govt run health system would look like. Almost every single department in the US govt is run poorly, and this would be just one more poorly run system that will end up costing more money for every single taxpayer than what many of us are paying now. We can barely pay for our Social Security, how in the world can we even consider paying for socialized medicine? Socialized medicine WILL be the final nail in the US budget and will lead to great, great financial problems for both the govt and us citizens who have to pay out to the govt.

Jordan .

Danwhy, you are a young healthy guy so you've likely not had to be subjected to the problems detailed in my article or the one that follows. Surely you must have heard some of these horror stories about long waits and dying while waiting. Back in 1996 when my then 72 year old dad was having a second heart valve operation, his surgeon at the FABULOUS world renowned Cleveland Clinic told me that had my dad lived in Canada he would not even qualify to have the surgery. He was a high risk patient with a complicated set of symptoms, "elderly" and had already had one open heart surgery. In Canada, he would have been sent home to slowly deteriorate and his leaky heart valve became increasingly malfunctional. There would have been no treatment to slow down the process either. Do you deny this is the case in Canada?  

I don't claim the US system is perfect because I'm not a believer in perfection. I'm also not a believer in what works for one country being automatically transferrable to another country especially when one country is 10 times as large and has a large immigrant population from every nation in the world who enter in great numbers each year which, at least upon the first generation, bring with them the life expectancies, health problems and health habits of their native lands.

Nothing lasts forever, including life, but neither does the free ride. In countries with socialized medical programs, a problem has evolved where there are too few doctors per patient. It is not just a Canadian problem but a British and most notably, a Cuban problem. In Cuba, where doctors make substantially less than a waiter at a tourist hotel, it is hard to persuade young students to study hard enough to go through medical school. In England the doctors have had to be imported from the Middle East as was described most compellingly in recent months with the bungled Glasgow airport attack masterminded by Pakistani doctors working in the UK. The other fact of life regarding matters in flux is that the Us socialized medical program -- Medicare -- is also on thin ice. There are those who say the dilemma coming with Social Security (another of our social programs) will be nothing compared to the unraveling down the line of the Medicare system.  Don't even get me started on the dentists.

This wasn't a thread about life expectancy in the US, though, but if the life expectancy range in western nations varies by a few months here or there, what do we ascertain about health care from that information? Or are there other reasons for that discrepancy beyond health care?

Here's another article for everyone.

Susan

More lies from Moore

BY SALLY PIPES

Posted Friday, July 6th 2007, 4:00 AM

Be Our Guest

Moore adores the Canadian system. I do not.

I am a new American, but I grew up and worked for many years in Canada. And I know the health care system of my native country much more intimately than does Moore. There's a good reason why my former countrymen with the money to do so either use the services of a booming industry of illegal private clinics, or come to America to take advantage of the health care that Moore denounces.

Government-run health care in Canada inevitably resolves into a dehumanizing system of triage, where the weak and the elderly are hastened to their fates by actuarial calculation. Having fought the Canadian health care bureaucracy on behalf of my ailing mother just two years ago - she was too old, and too sick, to merit the highest quality care in the government's eyes - I can honestly say that Moore's preferred health care system is something I wouldn't wish on him.

In 1999, my uncle was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. If he'd lived in America, the miracle drug Rituxan might have saved him. But Rituxan wasn't approved for use in Canada, and he lost his battle with cancer.

But don't take my word for it: Even the Toronto Star agrees that Moore's endorsement of Canadian health care is overwrought and factually challenged. And the Star is considered a left-wing newspaper, even by Canadian standards.

Just last month, the Star's Peter Howell reported from the Cannes Film Festival that Mr. Moore became irate when Canadian reporters challenged his portrayal of their national health care system. "You Canadians! You used to be so funny!" exclaimed an exasperated Moore, "You gave us all our best comedians. When did you turn so dark?"

Moore further claimed that the infamously long waiting lists in Canada are merely a reflection of the fact that Canadians have a longer life expectancy than Americans, and that the sterling system is swamped by too many Canadians who live too long.

Canada's media know better. In 2006, the average wait time from seeing a primary care doctor to getting treatment by a specialist was more than four months. Out of a population of 32 million, there are about 3.2 million Canadians trying to get a primary care doctor. Today, according to the OECD, Canada ranks 24th out of 28 major industrialized countries in doctors per thousand people.

Unfortunately, Moore is more concerned with promoting an anti-free-market agenda than getting his facts straight. "The problem," said Moore recently, "isn't just [the insurance companies], or the Hospital Corporation and the Frist family - it's the system! They can't make a profit unless they deny care! Unless they deny claims! Our laws state very clearly that they have a legal fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits for the shareholders ... the only way they can turn the big profit is to not pay out the money, to not provide the care!"

Profit, according to the filmmaker-activist, has no place in health care - period.

Moore ignores the fact that 85% of hospital beds in the U.S. are in nonprofit hospitals, and almost half of us with private plans get our insurance from nonprofit providers. Moreover, Kaiser Permanente, which Moore demonizes, is also a nonprofit.

What's really amazing is that even the intended beneficiaries of Moore's propagandizing don't support his claims. The Supreme Court of Canada declared in June 2005 that the government health care monopoly in Quebec is a violation of basic human rights.

Moore put me, fleetingly, into "Sicko" as an example of an American who doesn't understand the Canadian health care system. He couldn't be more wrong. I've personally endured the creeping disaster of Canadian health care. Most unlike him, I'm willing to tell the truth about it.

Pipes is the president and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute and author of "Miracle Cure: How to Solve America's Health Care Crisis and Why Canada Isn't the Answer."

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Ah Susan, but this still just takes us round and round and round!  I have yet to see one of these stories or studies that would cover everything needed for a true and complete discussion.  Sure, wait lists are a part of it, but there are so many other factors that go into what makes for good health care.  I would love to know so many other things from not just how long it takes to see someone but right through type of treatment received, medicine dispensed, follow up care, etc.  And I would love to know this by age group and by socio-economic groups.  If I made a list I would probably want to know at least a hundred things but that's not sensational enough for current "news" reporting.  Much sexier to tell the horror stories from Canada or the US or Britain and make a dramatic case out of it.  Why are Canada's wait lists long and can they be improved?  Why is the US infant mortality rate behind 40 other countries (surely this must have something to do with health care)?  I could go on asking a hundred why's but it would be a full year project just to try to decipher the data that's out there.  And yes, I think life expectancy has to have something to do with health care.  Sure, it would have something to do with crime, education, race and socio-economic status as well, but how could health care not play a role?

I'm with Jordan, most things run by gov't don't turn out so well.  That's not always the case but it often can be.  I respect Jordan's position on what he thinks the US gov't can and can't run well.  I also respect his opinion on what he thinks the gov't should and shouldn't run.  I respect his opinion because he lives in the country of which he speaks.  I can and will only speak for my country and will again say our system is by no means perfect and yes, you can find areas where it doesn't stack up to the US.  You can also find areas where it does stack up or where it exceeds, but we don't have the info we need to be able to zoom out far enough to make a genuinely detached factual observation.

I wish you much success in getting what you need from your health care system and I'm sure you wish me the same.  Will we be able to write a few pages and agree on who's the best?  Doubtful.  Could we agree on a list of 100 measures and then compare them and look at who's top in each category?  Yes, we could probably do that and then we would be closer to a better understanding and a better truth but it would take an extraordinary amount of time.  Assuming we had the time, then it would be great to be able to steal best practices from each other and use each other to make ourselves stronger.  Now if only someone would appoint you and I to this task (on a nice salary of course) I'll fly down to meet you and get to work on this.  We'd need some doctors and some access to research that seems to be missing from all the "sexy" studies out there that make headlines but we could do it.  Then we need someone who will give us the power to implement the changes.  The problem is this is so political and our politicians in both countries have their heads so far up their rear ends that the right actions would likely never be taken.

So in the end this takes us back to the circle.  I'm not trying to get out of the discussion, I'm only telling you that to have it honestly I need way more than either of us will ever be able to find browsing the internet.  I can't "anecdotally" offer you anything other than an overall satisfaction with what I and my family and friends currently have available and I'm not overly excited about simply comparing things at the base level of the incomplete information available to us.

"We cannot allow a mine shaft gap"

I don't hold the Aussie system up as perfect...but free as opposed to astronomical costs seems pretty good to me.  When I've had to go to hospital...or my kids...we've always received prompt attention in the best hospital in Perth.  The one my kids go to is world class, and yet to me...free.

The downsides of the current system:

- for elective, non-essential surgery can take months depending on where you live.

- some pharmaceuticals are delayed from getting on our official subsidised medications list until reasonable prices are negotiated with often US pharmaceutical companies.  The exorbitant prices charged for some medications are off the chart, so it's a big hit for the govt to then offer these medications at the subsidised $3 a prescription to people.

- we have a shortage of doctors at the moment, and need to train more up.  Not a drastic shortage, but it does have an affect on rural and regional areas where they can be very remote.

Our conservative govt now has a firmer approach to this issue to cater for the ageing population and the emergence of the super-priced new medicines coming out of the medical research boom.  For every year over 30 they charge an ever increasing fee IF you don't have health insurance.  So this year for the first time I've taken out insurance, but am yet to use it.  It works out cheaper to get insurance than to pay the govt fee, so makes sense.  But even with insurance, you can choose to enter as a public patient if there's a gap between your insurance and the hospital costs for a visit that you have to

I'm pretty happy with our health system, but wouldn't hold it up as world's best or perfect.

Jordan .

Good question, Jordan. To my knowledge, that is not one thing you hear about in the US although it may be so in some smaller cities. I just don't know.

I was just reading an article about the rise in US death rates during childbirth and although rare, no one knows for sure (yet) just what is accounting for it. They speculate in the article that it is mothers predominately among those in their late 30s and older and obese mothers with complications arising from Caesarians.

Then I started thinking a bit about the infant mortality rate and wondering about a breakdown on those stats. I wonder what percentage of those are the result of some of the extraordinarily complicated births that were achieved through in vitro fertilization with multiple eggs for instance. You know, a woman is implanted with several fertilized eggs hoping ONE will take but then 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 do. The mother opts to have the multiple births which put each at risk. One survives, 4 die -- that would raise the infant mortality scale significantly for that day's births. Sometimes the woman has abortions on some to make the pregnancy safer for others in the womb. Do those count within the "infant mortality" rate? I don't know.

Then there are the mothers who are not monitored during pregnancy and those must account for a significant number of the statistics. Mothers who smoke, drink and/or use drugs who wouldn't want to be hassled for their bad habits might not see a doctor.

Anyway, I'd like to see a breakdown. Maybe I can find it by Googling away the day...

Susan

PS  Well that didn't even take all day!  Here's the latest (2004 results) from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) that monitors US infant mortality.  I hadn't realized "infant mortality rate" included children up to the age of 1.  Wonder if this rate includes suspicious deaths that could be the result of baby-battering?

To get an accurate picture of that astoundingly high rate of multiple birth mortality rate which is over 30%, we'd have to compare how many were naturally conceived as opposed to fertility clinic conceptions and then compare the same stats to those of other countries.  Not to open another can o' worms, but abortion on demand free and easy would also probably affect infant mortality rates, right? 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

"I'm not entirely sure why there's a doctor shortage here. Some elements to it though: - not enough uni courses available, so not enough getting through. - growing population. - the dollars aren't as massive as in some other countries. - long hours and real hard work for the bucks, when a miner can earn similar. "

Not enough courses which means the demand isn't there for medical courses? The US colleges and universities have PLENTY of courses because of demand. Might be growing population, but that should result in MORE courses, unless of course all of your higher level education is also state-run...is it?

Money isn't enough for doctors. Sad that the person who saves your life one day only earns what a miner earns.

Both seem to me IMO is the result of socialized medicine. No competition. No need to strive for something (ie money). Thus demand is less and you have fewer doctors.

Jordan .

I've always been interested in what leads a person to their career choice. Whenever I get to know a person, I'm curious how they came to do what they do. So I ask. The anecdotal evidence I've gathered over the years tells me that it is being a doctor that is the most personally rewarding work. When asked, doctors generally acknowledge they knew from the time they were very young they would be a doctor when they "grew up." I can't think of too many other professions where that holds true. Doctor seems to be the profession with the greatest long term satisfaction as well. That satisfaction may have been chipped away more recently with concerns over malpractice insurance rates, Medicare and other medical insurance issues but still, doctors LIKE their work.

The physician in America has had the prestige and the earning potential that supercedes most other professions but it has not been a field you could enter thinking oh, maybe I should be a doctor. They make a lot of money. The educational process is just too hard if you're not highly motivated. The competition for entry to medical school is intense. You can't bluff your way through medical school either. Too much science to cope with. It's also not the sort of educational direction where a parent can be effectively coercive. "Daddy is a doctor. Grandpa was a doctor. You should go to medical school."

So, what we've ended up with in the US is a physician pool that is highly skilled, highly motivated, very competitive while also being financially well-rewarded. And, by the way, speaking from my experience with two hospitals -- UCLA and the Cleveland Clinic -- two of the most prestigious medical centers in the world -- their staffs include scores of interns from all over the world who have come to train in the US. The American medical student is competing with the top international students vying for spots in medical schools.

And, because I know Booth cares about this subject, did you happen to hear the story about that little Iraqi boy who was badly burned and needs additional medical treatment? I saw this story on CNN yesterday. His mother went public and asked for international aid even though it was a risk to her family; something about her husband working with American forces that made the family a target. Doctors from around the world responded with offers to help the child. The family had many to choose from but guess who they picked? Yes, you're right, Booth! Dr. Grossman of the renowned Grossman Burn Center. In Los Angeles. USA. I was so not surprised when I heard that. In fact, I was mouthing the words "Doctor Grossman" before they even said it. Not Dr. Guevara in Havana. Not Dr. Maple in Toronto. Not Dr. Le Pew from Paris. No. Dr. Grossman. Los Angeles. USA. Excellent choice!

The CNN story.  

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Then what about this? Just one of the 100's and 1,000's of things that need to be understood and another example of going round and round.

Suicide high among female doctors

More than double the rate of general public

Male doctors take their own lives at a higher rate than the general population of white men in the United States. That's been known for some time. Now, the largest, latest study of physician suicides in this country has found that female doctors take their lives much more often.

The study was undertaken by Harvard Medical School researchers following the death of a young female physician who took her life in the School's library.

Eva Schernhammer and Graham Colditz examined the results of 25 studies of physician suicides and concluded that male doctors killed themselves at a rate 41 percent higher than that of other men and women. The more startling finding was that female doctors take their lives at a rate more than twice (2.27 times) that of the general public.

"We do not yet have a clear answer to why this is," admits Schernhammer, who works at Brigham and Women's Hospital, a Harvard teaching affiliate in Boston. "There is evidence that depression, drug abuse, and alcoholism, possibly related to stress, are often associated with suicides of physicians. Female physicians in particular have been shown to have a higher frequency of alcoholism than women in the general population."

The women may feel more stress because of gender bias and an increased need to succeed in this male-dominated profession. That seems likely, but Schernhammer says there have been no conclusive studies to back it up. She also notes that being single and not having children, which applies more to women than men in medicine, "has been linked to higher suicide rates."

According to another study, done last year, the most common way that doctors take their lives is by poisoning themselves, often with drugs taken from their offices or laboratories.

"We cannot allow a mine shaft gap"

Wow!  That's a little surprising though I had often heard that dentists were more suicide prone than others.  Wonder if they were part of the statistical data?

I don't think I've ever known a doctor who committed suicide though I've known more than one lawyer to blow his brains out.  And I'm only serious.  Wonder how they compare to the average white guy who kills himself?

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Not refuting the study, but would be nice to know: 1) what type of doctors are more apt to kill themselves, 2) are rural or city doctors more apt, and 3) what region of the US is more prone to suicide?

Answer those 3 questions, and we MIGHT have an idea as to they why's and the who's a bit better rather than a blanket statement which is what hte story offers.

Jordan .