Vol. 33 No. 13
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1Mazidi
So far, this issue hasn't really captured my interest, but perhaps it's the 100+ degree heat here in Texas baking my brain.
One article that was interesting to me was the Diary, this week by Jonathon Tomlinson. It was a glimpse into a typical day for a GP in East London.
As my country is trying to move to a more humane distribution of health care services, it is interesting to see England moving to a more market-based system. Either way, the devil is in the details.
As I read over Dr. Tomlinson's day, as he struggles to deal with complex medical/psychological cases in 10 minute increments, while dealing with paperwork, etc., it occurred to me that he would be greatly helped by an idea that is growing over here: Nurse Practitioners. These are registered nurses, with extensive practical experience and graduate work in medicine. Also, there are PAs - physicians assistants with extensive graduate work who can do many of the tasks that doctors do but at a lower cost to the system. These types of medical professionals could ease the burden by handling routine visits for checkups, common illnesses, diabetes management, and so on, and leave the physician time to treat the more intractable cases.
In my personal experience with these types of medical professionals, I find them to be more relaxed, easier to talk to, and more generous with information than physicians.
One article that was interesting to me was the Diary, this week by Jonathon Tomlinson. It was a glimpse into a typical day for a GP in East London.
As my country is trying to move to a more humane distribution of health care services, it is interesting to see England moving to a more market-based system. Either way, the devil is in the details.
As I read over Dr. Tomlinson's day, as he struggles to deal with complex medical/psychological cases in 10 minute increments, while dealing with paperwork, etc., it occurred to me that he would be greatly helped by an idea that is growing over here: Nurse Practitioners. These are registered nurses, with extensive practical experience and graduate work in medicine. Also, there are PAs - physicians assistants with extensive graduate work who can do many of the tasks that doctors do but at a lower cost to the system. These types of medical professionals could ease the burden by handling routine visits for checkups, common illnesses, diabetes management, and so on, and leave the physician time to treat the more intractable cases.
In my personal experience with these types of medical professionals, I find them to be more relaxed, easier to talk to, and more generous with information than physicians.
2daithi
There are changes of that sort taking place. One of the huge political hot potatoes here is hospital provision; there is an argument that many conditions that even only recently required a hospital admission can now be done on an out patient basis in a local health centre. Consequently not so many/not so much hospital provision is needed. However any decision to close any particular hospital kicks up a huge storm. And of course as almost all medical provision in the UK is by the state ultimately all these decisions are political.
(I say almost all -there is private medicine but it is both expensive and few people bother with it)
(I say almost all -there is private medicine but it is both expensive and few people bother with it)
