Latin America
Related: About this forumWhy We Can't Blame Cuba For Our Doctor Shortages
Why We Can't Blame Cuba For Our Doctor Shortages
[div class="excerpt" style="margin-left: 2em; border: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius: 0.4615em; box-shadow: 3px 3px 3px #999999;"]
But before Americans, and especially Floridians, scold Brazil, we should consider our own looming and inexcusable physician shortage. Florida, in fact, might as well be Brazil. When the state legislature approved a medical school at Florida International University in 2006, it pointed out that Miami was then the nations second largest metropolitan area without a public medical school. Florida needed to license 2,500 new physicians annually to keep up with demand, yet it graduated only 500 medical students a year.
The situation hasnt improved much today: 16 Florida counties still have fewer than seven doctors per 10,000 residents compared to 22 per 10,000 for the U.S. as a whole. But dont think the country isnt in trouble, either.
According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the U.S. is staring at a shortage of 100,000 physicians by 2020. The problem will be especially acute in poor rural pockets. Not coincidentally, the Philadelphia Inquirer recently reported that the number of medical scholarships offered by the federal governments National Health Service Corps has dropped from 6,159 in 1981 to 250 today.
I wouldnt suggest we alleviate the U.S. shortage by recruiting Cuban doctors (though its always amused me how U.S. pols like those in the Cuban-American caucus vilify the quality of Cuban docs who work abroad but then suddenly extol their skills when they defect). But railing at Cuban doctors doesnt fix our problem, either -- just as recruiting them wont solve Brazils problem.
Brazil has apparently decided that a Cuban doctor out in the Amazon is better than no doctor at all out in the Amazon. But thats a lame healthcare policy -- and Florida and the U.S. need to be mindful of that too.
More --> http://wlrn.org/post/why-we-cant-blame-cuba-our-doctor-shortages
Judi Lynn
(160,598 posts)[center][/center]
I wouldn't touch them with a 9 feet pole!
Going where the big bucks are is what the heck happened.
No one wants to invest all that much money in his/her education, or take out humongous loans unless he/she can be assured of making the colossal incomes, it appears.
In Cuba, people STILL go into medicine because they WANT to assist life, to promote healing, to improve people's quality of life in ways that lift them up above helpless suffering.
The clowns in Venezuela also threw the same gibbering at the government when it was decided that the poor of Venezuela were going to get medical treatment, too, for the FIRST TIME. Greedy bastards are the same everywhere, aren't they?
It really makes good people feel like barfing realizing such malignant personalities are still among us. They are the disease in the world's body.
The thought that there are actually people working in the world to help OTHERS, NOT THEMSELVES FIRST has to just drive them insane. So do they take time to think it over, and ponder their own morals? HELL, NO!
They try to revile the ones who are doing the right thing. Oh, my shrieking god.