Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Against the bachelor's degree

But you are proving my point, aren’t you?
I’m sorry, I didn’t feel up to delving into that link you so thoughtfully provided. (Twobad nights with sick kid...ugh).

My point was that the criterion for recognition was NOT where the education systems in these countries place the transitions from general education/general STEM/targeted medical education and training at the ages of 16/18/20 or 22, with the UK and the US being at opposite ends of the spectrum. The criterion is these specialists’ medical education and training, and if the credentials they bring happen to be in the English language and acquired in education systems the Canadian body feels familiar with, you end up with this specific set of countries.

Haha, I wish, lol. No, comparative education must, at thistime remain my hobby (i think it started for me when i read Gaudy Night at the age of 12 or so). Still trying to find ways to turn this passion into a career, but it would probably mean to go back for a PhD.

No worries, just delighted to have an interesting conversation with you! You're asking all the right questions, IMO, and they deserve to be answered (if not by me, then by someone with the funding).

Sorry the kiddos aren't feeling well. Rest up and take it easy!

Keep me posted and feel free to PM any time on this subject. It's definitely an interesting one, and I'm loving hearing your thoughts.

You’re editing even faster than I am.

Again, I think you are proving my point - it’s targeted education that has a chance of improving health outcomes, not proxy education. Pharmacology, psychology, communicating with at risk populations - that’s not the same thing as “3 credits in social sciences, 3 credits in language and literature etc. All of this should be part of medical education, but you need to prescribe it, not trust that a student who may not even be sure about med school at that point, somehow stumbles their way there. If you then squeeze all of the targeted education into 4 years of med school, those subjects probably fall by the wayside more often than not,

Thank you, I’m blushing! If at any point my high needs kids turn into medium or even low needs kids I might actually find the time to at least seriously think about this. So much more interesting than the taxation PhD I dropped out of. Maybe I’ll compare the various laws, and implementation therof, on inclusion in education with special regards to both gifted kids and kids with disabilities or something, to straddle disciplines. I hear that Canada does great on inclusive models!

Sure, there's probably not a lot of daylight between our arguments. I do wonder what proportion of students self-select into those kinds of courses. If there's significant overlap and those general credits are being met with practical material, then that approximates a specialized credential.

I do maintain that the Canadian model is an excellent one in making those requirements explicit. (But maybe that's just national pride showing and junk, a priori conjecture.)

And yes, x1,000 that med school provides inadequate coverage of many important subjects that should properly be broken out as core classes. Here's a small example of that--in Canada, GPs receive 1 hour of instructional time on breastfeeding. This is a universal food and a vaccine, and yet it receives less instructional time than the rhythm method in family planning.

Reducing the debt burden on doctors would not have as great an impact on overall health costs because of the way the system is structured. For instance, there is a wide disparity between what doctors make depending on what kind of treatment they provide. This has some correlation with how much training they must undertake post-residency, but it is not strictly tied to that. Additionally, the salaries are set across the board, with doctors in smaller cities making relatively the same salary as a counterpart practicing in a metropolitan area with a much greater cost of living (although they are sometimes compensated with housing subsidies if the costs are too outrageous). There is also little salary incentive when it comes to supply and demand. There are often a shortage of pediatric specialties because they are among the lowest paid physicians, often making far less than their adult medicine counterparts. In rural areas this can lead to higher costs as the county may have to chip in to offer a physician a sizable bonus to attract them to the area. But why does the correlation between DR salary, education level, and treatment population seem so caddywhompus?

Those salaries are based on billing. Meaning, the doctor's are paid based off of what they can bill for - in clinic visits, testing and lab work, surgery and procedures, etc... This effects the treatment decisions that your doctor makes, often running more tests than are required, and even sometimes recommending surgery when it may not 100% be required. More tests and more procedures means that you pay more overall and the doctor gets a cut for his services.

Here's a case I'm currently dealing with. My 3 y/o has severe allergies so we need to start immunotherapy. Our allergist offers an oral therapy option (which would be awesome, because - no shots - and we can do it at home instead of weekly office visits), but it's generally not covered my insurance, even though traditional immunotheraphy injections are covered. Why? Since we do administer the medication at home the doctor's can't bill for an office visit, so it hasn't been widely adopted as an allergy treatment in the U.S. However, it is quite commonly used in European countries where salaries are not tied to billing.

This model has all sorts of implications for how offices are run, how research is conducted and where health services are available.

So yes, you can lower the debt incurred by doctor's, but that isn't going to reduce healthcare costs. It is a structural flaw in the billing system that is the cause of inflated costs. Unless that is fixed, lowering the debt burden will only result in greater take home pay for the physicians.

*Squeal!!* A fellow tax geek! Gifted/2E inclusion! PM coming your way.

I love Davidson.

/Sorry to everyone else, this thread has clearly appealed to my inner nerd-dom. Thanks for politely putting up with the OEs flying here.

Seem so what? Caddywhompous? This is not a real English word, is it?

And pray, who is running this show? The insurance should JUMP at the chance of paying the cheaper option. It’s the doctors who need to pay off their med school debts who must insist on Bulling office visits - the insurance doesn’t profit.