ERDoc Posted February 20, 2012 Posted February 20, 2012 I'm not sure what you are saying about the most beautiful of places in which you live, Kiwi. Here in the US you can see a pediatrician or GP, though GPs are an endangered species. You probably don't see this so much down under because you don't have as many frigging morons down there and because you don't have as many awesome celebrities like Jenny McCarthy, like we do. Only in America can the opinion of a porn actress be more valid than the opinions of thousands of world-wide specialists and experts.
Kiwiology Posted February 20, 2012 Posted February 20, 2012 I'm not sure what you are saying about the most beautiful of places in which you live, Kiwi. Here in the US you can see a pediatrician or GP, though GPs are an endangered species. You probably don't see this so much down under because you don't have as many frigging morons down there and because you don't have as many awesome celebrities like Jenny McCarthy, like we do. Only in America can the opinion of a porn actress be more valid than the opinions of thousands of world-wide specialists and experts. I know you're going to absolutely hate me now, but like 90% of the population has a General Practitioner here and in the UK it's even higher where GP's do not operate as private businesses with a fee-for-service like in NZ but are free to the patient under the NHS. General Practice is a very endangered speciality here and it has taken several years and tens of millions of dollars of funding to reverse that problem; when you become a GP Registrar here the Government gives you like $50,000 or something fucking mental, that's probably over half to 2/3 of your medical school bill paid off *clicks fingers, just like that. There are problems attracting and retaining GPs in rural areas here because of extremely high workload and limited break fro that workload. And why do you think I want to do a year or two of my post-graduate training in the US? Because medicine has a strange alure in your land almost somewhere between celebrity and godliness; and heck it pays too I know a surgeon who had to "settle" for half a million a year, poor bloke
ERDoc Posted February 20, 2012 Posted February 20, 2012 I don't hate you bro. I will always love you (not literally but that is my tribute to Whitney). $50k, you say? That is much less then 2/3 of my med school loans. FYI, I don't make anywhere near $500k, unless you include the unpaid care, then maybe I might make close to that, but gross and net are much are much less.
Kiwiology Posted February 20, 2012 Posted February 20, 2012 Medical school here is cheap, only about $70,000 for five years none of this fight to the death for a spot in a four year $300,000 program And we don't even have to learn Krebs cycle intermediaries ... Acetyl CoA, something, oxyaceteate or something, 2x AMP > 2x ATP then next minute NAD + H+ > NADH ... yes I think that sounds about right The only problem is you do not use doctors on the helicopter (very few places) ... I'm trying to get a year in the US during school, I'd come to the Great Mitten but you'd make me pay my half of the check and then dump me on Nine Mile Road or something so I'd get shot by gangbangers from Harper Woods ... prick .. so its off to California or Florida or something where Doctors are treated like celebrities
ERDoc Posted February 20, 2012 Posted February 20, 2012 If you don't know the Krebs cycle, then your program sucks, lol. Where I come from the helicopters are staffed with doctors and there is no Harper Woods.
Kiwiology Posted February 20, 2012 Posted February 20, 2012 We have to cover and understand them, but we are not expected to be able to regurgitate them from memory on a standardised test. Oh and just to stay on topic .... refusing to see people because they are not vaccinated is bad *wags finger
systemet Posted February 20, 2012 Posted February 20, 2012 Aussiephil, you bring up a few good points. No one is being bullied in this case. The physician is simply saying, "You and I have different opinions on what is best You would be better served finding someone who shares in your beliefs." These parents are not being reported to CPS or put on some blacklist. You say that the bullying is being used, "to take free choice from people." Are you not taking free choice away from the physician? So, does no one on here believe in the autonomy of the physician? Should a lawyer be required to take all cases that come their way? This is an interesting question as well. I don't want to argue based on a "slippery slope" fallacy, but there's got to be a consideration of what happens to the unvaccinated children if physicians are refusing to see them. Obviously they no longer have equal access to care, but would they still have enough access? Is an inevitable result of allowing physicians to refuse to see unvaccinated children that many of them won't be able to find a physician willing to manage their medical care? The potential injury to these children has to be balanced against the potential loss of freedom to the individual freedom of the physicians to interact in the marketplace with whatever customer they want. I think the comparison of physicians to lawyers isn't really valid either. I think a physician has (or should have) a responsibility to the community to provide medical care that's different from any responsibility that a lawyer might have. I don't think it's an issue of bullying either. There's a part of me that wonders whether parents shouldn't be forced to vaccinate. There's a point where the children need to be protected against the consequences of bad parenting. But this is a very tricky issue. Right now herd immunity pretty much takes care of the unvaccinated under most circumstances. The major risk is probably to the immunocompromised, and those too young to be vaccinated. You also bring up BASE jumping. There has been some discussions about making people responsible for their own bills when they do things such as extreme sports. Most of it comes from the insurance industry (yeah, biased I know). There was some talk from an incident on Mt. Ranier or Mt. Hood a few years ago about making people who get lost/hurt doing such things, pay for the SAR resources (there goes Washington State trying to save money again). This does happen in some places. I used to do a little bit of mountaineering in the national parks in Canada. If I paid for a valid pass to enter the park, any rescue operation was covered. If I snuck in, or was lazy and just paid for one day but stayed for a week, then the cost of a rescue was on me. Most travel insurance, and much personal injury insurance / life insurance doesn't cover these activities either, but the insurance companies are usually more than happy to sell you extra coverage. This is also an issue in a lot of the Alps. Often if you pay for a membership in, for example the Austrian Alpine Club http://www.aacuk.org.uk/ , then they'll cover the cost of rescue. The trouble is, a lot of people doing these activities are living in a small mountain town, making minimum wage so they can climb / ski / mountaineer / whatever on their time off. Just to completely derail this absolutely awesome thread, let me add an absolutely kick ass video:
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