14 DAY TRIAL // The fact that the national health system is hanging by a thread in the United States should be common knowledge by now, health experts say. Adding to this crisis, the number of primary caregivers in America was recently discovered to be much too low to handle such numerous a population as that of this nation. Out of the 270,000 doctors, 60 percent do not recommend medicine as a career, even though they have been working in this area for many years.
Surveys sent through the mail, to some 50,000 practicing doctors nationwide, yielded some 12,000 responses, which were later analyzed by scientists at the Physicians' Foundation. They found that some 90 percent of respondents argued that the volume of paperwork they had to fill out each day increased drastically over the last few years. Furthermore, some 63 percent of them said that, due to the fact that they had to spend more time with their reports, they had to cut short the time they allotted each patient.
This could only lead to a decrease in the quality of the medical services they provided their patients with. Approximately 78 percent of study participants said that they felt the health system in the United States was vastly underpopulated with physicians, although the number of specialists was well above optimum numbers.
Also, 76 percent of them said that they felt they were overworked, or that they worked at maximum capacity. As a result, they would have to stop seeing a certain percentage of their patients, so as to avoid making mistakes, due to fatigue. 43 percent said that they would either quit seeing patients, or they would move to part-time jobs, while a third category announced its intentions of seeking other jobs in the health system that did not involve direct contacts with patients.
Hopefully, the newly-elected administration will take firm action to address this issue, as President Barack Obama announced, on repeated occasions, that health was one of his main priorities. Along with other agencies and organizations, he advocates the introduction of electronic medical files, in an attempt to reduce the workload physicians are currently faced with.