Work

While waiting for some X-ray procedures of a patient, KT - one of our medical officers - sighed, "Why do we need a doctor to do ECG and all the clerical work ? You can train an assistant to do so in two months."

I gave a light-hearted reply, "Well, what proportion of our work really need the training of five years in a medical school ?"

In fact not much. Even for those often-considered precious elements of medical practice, such as physical examination, ordering of investigations, and drug prescription, you don't really need a full 5 or 6 years of medical education. In United States and many other countries, there are physician assistants who, after 2 years of medical education, could practice as primary care provider - and with satisfactory result. The appearance of "In-Store Clinics" in some states of America further shows that we could safely cover a substantial portion of primary care practice by minimally-trained people who follow well defined practice protocols (see Bohmer R. N Engl J Med 2007 February 22).

Then, what's the point of having such an elaborated medical education ?