To the editor:
In the May FP Report, pages 4 - 5, AAFP focuses on prevention -- good stuff. No smoking, lots of exercise, no extra pounds -- good stuff. Reserve 30 minutes a day, four days a week, for exercise, just 1.2 percent of an entire week -- good stuff. Finding out why people don't get enough sleep -- good stuff. Web site devoted to prevention -- good stuff.
Page 6 discusses resident work standards -- 80 hours per week. Six days of more than 13 hours each. This is on-site work. Does not count preparation, reading, studying.
Sleep deprivation, code name "call," every third night. Standards allow resident to work 48 hours out of 58-hour stretch (that's including the 10-hour minimum rest period.)
Let me get this straight. Our training programs demand the above work schedule (new and improved) while we promote all that politically correct "good stuff"?
Gentlemen, can you say hypocrisy?
Jeffrey Waggoner, M.D.
Aurora, Colo.
To the editor:
This is in response to the letter in the March FP Report in which the writer is advocating, "harness the power of midlevel providers." This idea is one of the reasons the specialty of family practice is in danger.
These spurious "practitioners" are slowly undermining the medical profession by obtaining a de facto license by legislative fiat instead of by a proper medical education. Physicians who employ these people are merely obtaining a short-term increase in their cash flow in exchange for a permanent long-term loss for their profession.
If these practitioners can really deliver quality medical care, why are billions of the taxpayers' dollars being thrown away yearly to operate medical schools? The greatest losers are the American public. People are oblivious to what is occurring: the slow demise of the primary care medical profession and top-quality medical care.
Milton Johnson, M.D.
Macon,
Ga.
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To the editor:
"Medicaid cutbacks" was the lead story in the May FP Report. The usual litany of complaints was heard. Nowhere was there even a simple acknowledgment of the fact that Medicaid payments come from taxpayers. Why is it considered routine that one group of people should be able to take money from my kids at gunpoint to pay for other kids' health care?
This is theft, pure and simple. The only reason that doctors pay any attention to it is because our bottom line is affected. If we care so much about these people, let's see them for free.
The real problem is government regulation of medicine, in all its forms (medical practice acts, FDA, etc.), that has driven the cost of medical care beyond the reach of the average citizen. Of course, we physicians have benefited monetarily from this, but that doesn't make it right.
Jeremy Klein, M.D.
Louisa,
Ky.
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