Most people believe that your medical education sets you up to be a successful practicing physician.
Unfortunately that is not true.
Today's 63% physician burnout rate should give us some clue, that our traditional medical education does not guarantee a successful practicing physician.
Investing your 20's to complete the slog through medical school, residency and fellowship does produce two consistent outcomes.
1) You learn the bare minimum to practice in your specialty. I say bare minimum because no one graduates from the education process completely capable of practicing independently - especially with the work hour restrictions of today's residency programs. The breadth of the knowledge base in any specialty is so large now and yet the number of available teaching hours within residency programs has been cut by 1/3 compared to residencies before work hour restrictions were put in place.
2) You are also taught - and subconsciously conditioned - to be a good resident.
The complete medical education process takes from 7 to 16 years. At the end of that marathon, everyone who survives is programmed to be a great resident.
- Fortunately for the industrial practice of medicine, great residents make compliant employees.
- Unfortunately for the graduating physician, the same conditioning sets us up for burnout in the first place - especially since 73% of physicians become employees these days.
