While medical school teaches students how to diagnose and treat specific medical conditions, one resident says the four years of schooling doesn't prepare students for the bureaucratic burdens they will encounter as full-fledged physicians.
Nathaniel Morris, a second year resident in psychiatry at Stanford (Calif.) University School of Medicine, wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post detailing his first experience with the "bureaucracy of medicine." Mr. Morris says residents are largely unexposed to the administrative side of the profession, making the transition all the more challenging.
"Young doctors are just scratching the surface of the healthcare bureaucracy. As residents, we're often shielded from the complexity of medical billing. We don't yet have to grapple with establishing our own practices, maintaining staff, hospital contracts or malpractice insurance … As my first year of residency has gone by, I've become increasingly aware of how much time [physicians] dedicate to the administrative side of medicine … I can write a comprehensive hospital discharge summary, but I can hardly place an IV in a patient. I know what a prior authorization form looks like, but I don't know what my patients' pills look like. I often spend 12 busy hours in the hospital but less than a few hours with my patients … The bureaucracy of providing patient care in many ways defines how we learn to practice."
To read the full op-ed, click here.
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