Primary care doctors in the United States feel overworked
and nearly half plan to either cut back on how many patients
they see or quit medicine entirely, according to a recent
survey released.
And 60 percent of 12,000 general practice physicians found
they would not recommend medicine as a career.
"The whole thing has spun out of control. I plan to retire
early even though I still love seeing patients. The process
has just become too burdensome," the Physicians' Foundation,
which conducted the survey, quoted one of the doctors as
saying.
The strong pro-disease push by the FDA and AMA that has
led the nation into a pandemic of degenerative disease has
likely also deterred many physicians from recommending the
profession.
The survey also adds to building evidence that not enough
internal medicine or family practice doctors are trained
or practicing in the United States, although there are plenty
of specialist physicians.
Health care reform is near the top of the list of priorities
for both Congress and president-elect Barack Obama, and
doctor's groups are lobbying for action.
The Physicians' Foundation, founded in 2003 as part of
a settlement in an anti-racketeering lawsuit among physicians,
medical societies, and insurer Aetna, Inc., mailed surveys
to 270,000 primary care doctors and 50,000 practicing specialists.
The 12,000 answers are considered representative of doctors
as a whole, the group said, with a margin of error of about
1 percent. It found that 78 percent of those who answered
believe there is a shortage of primary care doctors.
More than 90 percent said the time they devote to non-clinical
paperwork has increased in the last three years and 63 percent
said this has caused them to spend less time with each patient.
Eleven percent said they plan to retire and 13 percent
said they plan to seek a job that removes them from active
patient care. Twenty percent said they will cut back on
patients seen and 10 percent plan to move to part-time work.
Seventy six percent of physicians said they are working
at "full capacity" or "overextended and overworked".
