boodog Posted January 3, 2009 Report Share Posted January 3, 2009 Does anyone have any comments on the status of family med? It seems to be improving in terms of pay, respect, etc to me at least. Or is this just the propoganda the med schools are feeding us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boodog Posted January 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 23, 2009 no ideas anyone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MilSarah Posted January 23, 2009 Report Share Posted January 23, 2009 Family med is awesome! You get to see patients from all ages, walks of life. You get to deal with the social as well as the medical. You are at the front line of medicine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abcwxyz Posted January 23, 2009 Report Share Posted January 23, 2009 Family med is awesome! You get to see patients from all ages, walks of life. You get to deal with the social as well as the medical. You are at the front line of medicine. I think that this is exactly the propaganda the original poster was referring to. I doubt your post helps him very much as it concerned none of the issues that he referred to. I shadow a family physician and he told me that family physicians still aren't exceptionally happy. These are his views and certainly not shared by all family physicians. He said that most legislative changes undertaken so far have largely been lip service although he still loves his job. Concerns up to this day include (even with recent changes): i) Problems with managing patient expectations and resources. Despite it being a huge issue in the 2006 election, the efficacy of efforts to alleviate the waitlists are questionable. Patients demands have increased due to the web and guidelines suggesting things like elective colonoscopies. The problem is that the waitlist for something like an elective colonoscopy is 1.5 years. Patients are often dissatisfied with their inability to procure the what they are reading about/want. ii) Treatments, referrals, and diagnostics that the physician wants for the patient also suffer from this problem of a lack of resources. iii) Family physicians, particularly those outside major centers, feel that their roles are being decreased. Caring for patients in the hospital, doing ER shifts, and delivering babies are roles that many family physicians outside of very rural settings are giving up. Established physicians feel that giving up these duties marginalizes their job. He said that the pay has increased by ~30% with the shift towards payment based on a different model (payment for patient on the list I believe and not exclusively fee-for-service). Family physicians are also allowed to incorporate in Ontario now, thereby decreasing taxes. Thus pay is less of a concern for most nowadays. Anyway, as I said... these are the opinions of just one family physician. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MilSarah Posted January 24, 2009 Report Share Posted January 24, 2009 Please please please don't forget about the essence of family medicine when choosing your field. The rest are only speed bumps that can be worked on. All this talk about money and reputation worries me. Although I must add, the previous poster is very on the ball with the main concerns of family physicians. My mother was president of the Ontario College of Family Physicians last year and had to deal with this hard issues. The speed bump analogy comes from her as she has always told me to keep in mind all the good involved in the field when making a decision. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bones Posted January 24, 2009 Report Share Posted January 24, 2009 iii) Family physicians, particularly those outside major centers, feel that their roles are being decreased. Caring for patients in the hospital, doing ER shifts, and delivering babies are roles that many family physicians outside of very rural settings are giving up. Established physicians feel that giving up these duties marginalizes their job. I've always wondered about this. I suspect the reason why family physicians in more urban settings are "giving up" these duties (by and large, but exceptions exist) is because they simply can't get the hospital/ER time because specialists insist on filling and controlling these spots. But, is another reason that they will be disciplined (by a college?) for not referring to a specialist to, say, deliver the baby or care for their patient in the hospital? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hp18 Posted January 24, 2009 Report Share Posted January 24, 2009 I am not saying money is the most important factor....but just curious to know what kind of money family physicians make in urban setting per year and on the average per patient? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svp2k5 Posted January 24, 2009 Report Share Posted January 24, 2009 iii) Family physicians, particularly those outside major centers, feel that their roles are being decreased. Caring for patients in the hospital, doing ER shifts, and delivering babies are roles that many family physicians outside of very rural settings are giving up. Established physicians feel that giving up these duties marginalizes their job. I think this is very centre dependent. In London, the ER's still have a significant (albeit) decreasing number of Family docs with their Fellowship in ER. There is also a significant patient population who have their family docs deliver their babies. Many other family doctors work in the hospitals as hospitalists. Giving up aspects of the Job, such as obstetrics/ER/In Patient Care, seems to be more of a choice by the family doctors than them being forced out of the job. Once you get out of the academic centres, you find that family doctors are at the forefront in almost every aspect of patient care. I worked with one family doctor from Fort Francis who basically covered obstetrics, emergency and in patient/internal medicine for her patients. She was getting a bit older and had decided to focus on her practice, but this was still available. Cities such as Windsor, Kitchener/Waterloo, Barrie, North Bay, Guelph, Niagara Falls and Cambridge still are very much dependent on their family doctors for many different roles (I am from SW Ontario so these are the places I am most familiar with). The best way to see what the roles are of family doctors in different communities is to do rotations throughout your clerkship and electives. Sometimes it is quite surprising how different their roles can be. Academic centres are where we spend most of our time, but there is much more to medicine then these locations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ocean Posted January 25, 2009 Report Share Posted January 25, 2009 In the NWT, family physicians work as hospitalists, in the ER, and assist women to deliver babies. most are salaried, and the benefits appear to be very good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
medaholic Posted January 26, 2009 Report Share Posted January 26, 2009 My hunch (no statistical / researched evidence) is that family medicine will be improving in the near future. Especially with the shortage, family docs will have a higher income, more job stability and more specialized practice (at least that's what the trend seems to be). As with the economy, different specialties have cyclical patterns, and I think family is only going to improve (whereas, say spots for cardiac surgeons are still very competitive) Talk to family docs, each one has their own perspective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laika Posted January 26, 2009 Report Share Posted January 26, 2009 In the NWT, family physicians work as hospitalists I know of this happening in downtown Toronto as well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leviathan Posted January 26, 2009 Report Share Posted January 26, 2009 I know of this happening in downtown Toronto as well... FPs work as hospitalists in all of Canada. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laika Posted January 26, 2009 Report Share Posted January 26, 2009 FPs work as hospitalists in all of Canada. Right... I just didn't want people to read ocean's comment and think it was an opportunity available only to FPs in the NWT. Should've made that clearer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leviathan Posted January 26, 2009 Report Share Posted January 26, 2009 Right... I just didn't want people to read ocean's comment and think it was an opportunity available only to FPs in the NWT. Should've made that clearer. Ah, fair enough! I thought maybe you were not aware of this either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polythenepam Posted January 28, 2009 Report Share Posted January 28, 2009 Does anyone have any comments on the status of family med? It seems to be improving in terms of pay, respect, etc to me at least. Or is this just the propoganda the med schools are feeding us. i just don't get why the pay matters. as far as i'm concerned all physicians are paid well. the biggest issue for family med is that everyone, including students (like you!) specialists and the public tend to look down on family med as a lesser career. no one would ask "hey, what's the status on opthomology? i hear they're going to be paid more than six hundred k now..." it's just a viscious cycle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted January 28, 2009 Report Share Posted January 28, 2009 i just don't get why the pay matters. as far as i'm concerned all physicians are paid well. the biggest issue for family med is that everyone, including students (like you!) specialists and the public tend to look down on family med as a lesser career. no one would ask "hey, what's the status on opthomology? i hear they're going to be paid more than six hundred k now..." it's just a viscious cycle. Pay should a very weak, if at all, consideration. The trouble is in part that pay is often considered the objective measurement of "respect" in our society. Line up the list of all professions ordered by "respect/status" and it would correlate well with the list of professions ordered by pay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A-Stark Posted January 28, 2009 Report Share Posted January 28, 2009 I don't really agree with that - are dermatologists really more respected than emerg docs, for example? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted January 28, 2009 Report Share Posted January 28, 2009 I don't really agree with that - are dermatologists really more respected than emerg docs, for example? Well I said it was close, not exact You are talking about a pretty specific specialization. Even with in a profession i have seen computer programmers ranked in status bast on how much they earn. The guy that earns 80,000 was automatically looked up to compared to the 70,000 guy. Again this is all stupid, and if you let money run your life you are an idiot. You get used to whatever amount of money you earn - it just becomes part of the background. Whether you are happy with your job or not, that is in your face every single day, all the time. I joined programming when it was the hot thing. Everyone was told to go into computers for the money, and well they did. Five years later there were so many people stuck in jobs that couldn't stand - it was depressing even working with these people even when I loved it. I never want to see that again, ever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
medaholic Posted January 28, 2009 Report Share Posted January 28, 2009 Pay isn't so much a correlation to respect. Money is correlated to prestige. Doctors, Lawyers, Ivy Leagues, Rhodes Scholar, etc. etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted January 29, 2009 Report Share Posted January 29, 2009 Pay isn't so much a correlation to respect. Money is correlated to prestige. Doctors, Lawyers, Ivy Leagues, Rhodes Scholar, etc. etc. that is probably a better word - I was trying to figure out how to put that - status, respect, prestige etc. I think we know the difference between these but not everyone does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A-Stark Posted January 29, 2009 Report Share Posted January 29, 2009 Well, in medicine, pay is correlated with how procedure-oriented a specialty is, and to what degree elective and/or cosmetic are practiced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boodog Posted January 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2009 i just don't get why the pay matters. as far as i'm concerned all physicians are paid well. the biggest issue for family med is that everyone, including students (like you!) specialists and the public tend to look down on family med as a lesser career. no one would ask "hey, what's the status on opthomology? i hear they're going to be paid more than six hundred k now..." it's just a viscious cycle. yeah, what you say is absolutely right, pay isn't the big issue. but at the same we always get rural med and family med talks, "updating us" on how wonderful family medicine is... i just don't want to end up sold on it because of untruths Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polythenepam Posted February 2, 2009 Report Share Posted February 2, 2009 what untruths? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Titanic Posted February 23, 2009 Report Share Posted February 23, 2009 1. that the pay is improving. NO. it is going to a team model wchich makes pay standardized and salaried. LO AND BEHOLD the salary is WAY LOWER than everyone elses. 2. that it is rewarding. EVERY MEDICAL FIELD is rewarding in some way. to say tht FP Is MORE rewarding is full of HUBRIS 3. that it is portable. if ur in ac ity you refer eerything and cant do any procedures, so you get even less $$. u could go rural but that sucks if u want to b urban. and now the homeodinks are getting rx power?! WTF!!!! 4. that u can do obs, em etc. SURE YOU CAN. but 1. you cant work in cities as much as the 5year guys 2. obs is limited to bread butter obs and 3. they both pay less than the 5 year cooutnerparts. 5. that there are debt forgivenss agreements in place. is your career and lifestyle worth your debt? bvecause if you agree to this, then it is, because ull be stuck in a crap FP job out in the stixf or years. EFF THAT! THIS AINT THE ARMY ther eare more but im donetyping. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smile Posted February 23, 2009 Report Share Posted February 23, 2009 damn. family med sucks that much? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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