This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The amount of resource investment in a medical student (and later resident) is immense, like millions of dollars of physical stuff (like cadavers) and valuable time (not just lecture style teaching but academic physicians taken away from care provision to do education) and infrastructure. Not to mention the cost in tuition.
Once started you are locked in and if you leave at any time you leave with nothing. In the case of BS/MD programs if you drop out from difficulty you often end up without even an undergrad degree.
Even cutting undergrad out training time is 4+(3-7)+(0-???).
This isn't really comparable.
And all of that to say nothing of the Western values of general education and such that you get out of a regular degree.
Okay, so let's reduce the investment by $100k-$200k (average cost of undergrad degree).
True for every degree program.
Totally irrelevant, retention for GE material is near zero.
Talking to you on this topic is remarkable because you seem totally convinced that everything in medicine is exempt from fundamental economic laws like supply and demand, it's impossible to change anything that touches doctors without making things worse (pay no attention to the other western countries that train MDs out of high school despite the allegedly ruinous cost of this and the other countries being much poorer than the US), and this margin is too small to contain a description of anything that can actually be done.
Medical school is totally different structurally than undergrad, and smart kids can struggle with academically rigorous programs, since high school success doesn't necessarily correlate with success in college. If being a doctor means committing at 18 to an expensive, academically rigorous, and time-consuming program that if they wash out effectively means starting college over again, I'm not sure enough will take the deal to meaningfully increase the number of doctors. At least in rigorous undergrad majors you spend most of the first two years taking core courses so if you struggle with college math then maybe engineering isn't right for you but at least you have your math credits complete.
More options
Context Copy link
This is really just an example of the more general very common phenomenon where Americans (and yes, it's specifically Americans who do this) will treat their current system as an unchangeable law of nature when presented with "why don't you do X like this large group of countries?" instead of actually engaging with the question.
It's a strangely pervasive attitude that I've noticed it time and again ever since I first got internet access 30 years ago (first when it came to internet access and then mobile plans).
More options
Context Copy link
I did not say that it is impossible to change anything without making things worse.
Also large swathes of medical care do not follow the laws of supply and demand due to things like inelasticity.
And also - medical school and residency need to be two separate buckets with two separate applications. One without the other does not work and has the potential to be worse than useless. This differs from most professional training.
Sure, but it is your uniform response to every proposal.
I'm not sure how you would have heard about "elasticity" without realizing that we talk about the "elasticity of supply or demand" and that it's a fundamental part of how supply and demand determine a market clearing price. To say that inelasticity means that supply and demand doesn't apply is to completely misunderstand Econ 101 level topics.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link