None of the really smart or talented kids go into medicine any more

What kids don't wanna be when they grow-up

The brain drain in American medicine is horrific. I first noticed it 20 years ago when I came up against the young doctors in HMOs in Atlanta.

The patients who came to me from the HMO clinics would tell amazing stories of ignorance, incompetence and large doses of impertinence.

In the next 20 years this downward trend in American medicine will accelerate. I came across the following anecdote describing the problem perfectly:

In the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons newsletter, Dr. Mark Baldree  commented that his daughter's college counselors noted  how competitive engineering and business schools are. When he asked her about pre-med she told him:  None of the really smart or talented kids go into medicine any more.
 

Looking for the next generation of myth-busters,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD