Critics have said it is proper that the UK is self sufficient in doctors but officials should still look after the international doctors already here.
Why?
We’re not self sufficient in apples, energy, steel, accountants, bankers or builders. Why should we be trying to be self sufficient in doctors?
Haven’t these people ever heard of the benefits of trade?
6 responses so far ↓
1 Letters From A Tory // Feb 7, 2008 at 9:30 am
I think it’s a balancing act. If we spend £250,000 training a medical student, for them not to get a job at the end of it is a terrible waste of resources. Obviously competition for places is not a bad thing, but financially the government cannot afford to waste such large sums on training.
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2 HJ // Feb 7, 2008 at 10:04 am
Aren’t we always being told that there is a shortage of all sorts of medical treatment and resources to pay for them?
If we have an oversupply, this should benefit the user because the cost should fall and so we can afford more.
Oh, I forgot that the government hugely increased medical salaries in the NHS and the unions will protect these gains against the interests of the patients.
3 Tim Almond // Feb 7, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Letters From a Tory
“I think it’s a balancing act. If we spend £250,000 training a medical student, for them not to get a job at the end of it is a terrible waste of resources.”
How much of that £250,000 is the first 5 years of medicine, and how much is the following 2/4 years of post-graduate training?
4 Kay Tie // Feb 7, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Doctors are not fungible: domestic ones can speak English properly.
5 Johnathan Pearce // Feb 7, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Of course, a global market for doctors should, or could, encourage far more people to go into the profession. Trouble is, of course, is that the business of being a doctor is incredibly heavily regulated in many countries and of course there are the still-powerful trade unions that run these professions to contend with. But your basic argument is absolutely correct.
I used to be told that in the age of the Internet etc, that you could get more and more health issues diagnosed online or suchlike. Whatever happened to this?
6 Kay Tie // Feb 7, 2008 at 4:40 pm
“more and more health issues diagnosed online or suchlike. Whatever happened to this?”
There’s quite a bit of banditry on the net regarding medical advice and the peddling of remedies (not just the usual quackery of crystals and homeopathic rot, but fake prescription drugs too). Consequently there’s little trust and a strong incentive to stick with the status quo.
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