HMO Training
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Re “New Doctors Need HMO Training, Panel Says,” June 16:
The Commission on the Future of Medical Education at the University of California has written a prescription for the “dumbing down” of medical education. Medical education is not the province of a trade school. Doctors must learn to observe, evaluate and then make potentially critical decisions influencing the lives of their patients. Medical students study anatomy, physiology, pathology and other disciplines in order to understand the nature of disease processes and their impact on normal physiology. Doctors-in-training work in hospitals because that is where the sick people are (or were until managed care discharged them for economic reasons).
To tamper with this time-proven method of education to satisfy corporate interests in unconscionable. Molly Coye is quoted as saying, “We’re not far away from ophthalmologists driving taxicabs.” What we should be worrying about is bus drivers doing open-heart surgery.
RICHARD P. FOX MD
Tustin
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