Readers React: What do new doctors want -- instant wealth or a chance to serve?

To the editor: The Op-Ed reporting the substantial number of young doctors receiving dual medical and business degrees is disturbing if it results in reduced numbers of young physicians actually practicing medicine. (“A new balance sheet for doctors,” Opinion, Dec. 23)

Society invests a great deal of money in training doctors, and if one-third of medical-school graduates drop out of medicine (as those from Stanford do, according to this article), the general population is ill served.

Doctors who also have business degrees drop out because of the allure of money and creative independence. The business world offers unlimited riches for those with drive and creativity, and the payback is not deferred as it is in medicine.

In the past, doctors were independent people of above-average intelligence who practiced by themselves or in small group offices and earned a generous income for their efforts. The evolving health industry has made that much more difficult to do, and the federal government is also not too subtly pushing doctors into large organizations where they are known as “providers.”

While the MD-MBA graduate may be better equipped to develop his or her own medical practice, the entrepreneurial business world is attracting those with ideas and creative drive and the remainder are opting to become well-paid cogs in the managed care machine. Consumers are not well served by this.

Cary Feibleman, MD, Long Beach

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To the editor: Rich Joseph’s complaints on the quality of life facing new doctors in residency training fail to elicit great sympathy from this physician.

Yes, the issues cited deserve consideration, but what about the priorities? He might consider the millions of Americans suffering from untreated or poorly treated cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other ailments. Many still lack basic health insurance.

How will the tech-savvy generation employ their unique skills to address this torrent of suffering? Hopefully, they will not focus exclusively on the “greasy foods,” “fluorescent lights” and “cramped, dusty, sun-starved rooms” in hospitals as deterrents to serving sick people.

Becoming a good doctor requires focusing on the needs of others regardless of one’s own experience. If cushy Silicon Valley jobs divert some medical students away from their mission to relieve suffering, they might have been headed down wrong career path anyway.

Daniel J. Stone, MD, Los Angeles

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To the editor: So, more than 30% of Stanford medical students choose not to pursue a clinical residency.

I wonder how many taxpayer and unsuspecting donor dollars go to support this. Medical school itself hasn’t much to do with the business of medicine; that comes with residencies and clinical practice.

I have no problem at all with accomplished physicians pursuing careers in management and administration. But it seems that what is being sold here is mostly the cache of having “MD” after one’s name.

Hyman J. Milstein, MD, Studio City

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