The AMA isn't limiting the supply of doctors. The actual limit is in the number of residency program slots funded by the US Federal government. If you actually want to increase the supply of doctors then lobby Congress for higher residency funding.
The AMA backs the residency requirement. In my opinion it potentially gives doctors bad habits: Tolerating a miserable sleep schedule, placing too much value on quick diagnosis, equating long hours with effectiveness, and perhaps not placing enough value on teamwork with nurses.
It should take much less time and money to become a doctor than the current status quo. We don't have to look too far - most OECD countries have a much easier path to becoming a doctor, with significantly lower prices and better population outcomes.
But surely if those OECD countries don't put doctors through nearly a decade of hazing and well into the six figures of educational debt, they must have (more) patients dying left and right?
The poor population outcomes and lack of access to healthcare in America is shameful and disappointing. One of the big issues in my mind that comes from the debt is that it traps people who realize that they don't want to be doctors after they start medical school into the medical field. The other is that the debt loads are starting to exclude people from lower paying specialties (family medicine, pediatrics, infectious disease).
The training time between US and other countries ends up being more or less the same when you add the fact that their residencies tend to be a little longer than in the US (due to less hours). Here is a list from the UK: https://thesavvyimg.co.uk/how-long-is-specialty-training-in-.... Many of the surgical specialties that take 7-8 there take 5 here (urology, vascular surgery, etc.). So even if their pregraduate training is only 6 vs our 8, there are some specialties where it comes out to be a wash. There's also definitely hazing/long hours in some other countries as well. Here's an example of an Australian plastic surgery hopeful: https://mindbodymiko.com/the-ugly-side-of-becoming-a-surgeon...
You're arguing against something the parent didn't say. They argued for removing the residency requirement. They didn't say there should be zero post-school training.
It's not that hard to imagine a postgraduate training system for doctors that isn't the US residency program. The original poster did, in fact, present a false dilemma: that if you think the current system is bad, then you must oppose all postgraduate training.
Fair assessment. Any thoughts to what could work as an alternative? For it flaws, overwork being the main one, I think other parts of residency make sense. Every year you advance further in a system of graduated responsibility until you become an attending. It would be nice if it were easier to switch fields or programs, but the different specialties do take care of different organ systems with their own unique pathology and skills needed for each.
Apprenticeships in many (most?) fields are sponsored by the professional organization (akin to a guild) and paid for by laborers at lower-than-master wages. And yet, here is the AMA itself saying the problem lies with federal government funding. Curious. Seems like a convenient scapegoat.
I think you are significantly underestimating how much a medical residency costs.
Also, most apprentices end up working for/with the company/professional that trained them. I'm not sure there are many doctors who employ "apprentice/junior" doctors to work along side them the way a plumber/bricklayer/blacksmith/electrician would.
This is propaganda by the AMA. They are the primary lobbying force on this issue to Congress and they help write most of the legislation. The AMA is the negotiating partner you'd deal with to get this issue corrected.
The doctors they're probably working in the interests of are no longer residents. It'd be altruism to make prospective life better for prospective doctors.
That's a common misconception quoted by the medical cartel (i.e. MDs), among other ones such as "we should pay doctors 3x the amount Europeans get[1] because they study and burn out so much", which is a self-imposed problem. Congress funding for residency slots is a small part of the puzzle. The larger issues is the medical cartel making it so expensive to go through residency in the first place through excessive requirements. Here's an incomplete list of anti-competitive behaviors of medical cartel that push healthcare prices up in the US:
1. Restricting scope of practice for NPs and other midlevels
2. Restricting new facilities through Certificates of Need
3. Restricting immigration of foreign medical professionals from OECD countries through NCFMEA
4. Increasing costs & duration of medical education
5. Restricting patient's ability to obtain their open record digitally with the purpose of switching providers, or taking control of their health (good luck getting your imaging data from Kaiser if you ever want to leave them and seek better alternatives)
6. Restricting OTC availability of simple drugs available without doctor middlemen in other OECD countries
7. Restricting development of AI systems through data BAAs
8. Restricting scope and speed of processing for de novo and breakthru devices that automate work performed by physicians
None of these have a valid patient safety counter-argument because essentially in every case there is a precedent of safe operation in other OECD countries.
Other honorable mentions include:
1. Fighting against surprise billing legislation
2. Fighting against government's ability to negotiate rates
3. Fighting against public option
4. Fighting against any mention of moving away from fee-for-service
https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-fun...