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0 pointsmichaelochurch13y ago0 comments

Perhaps I shouldn't have picked medicine as an example. The principle of professionalism is sound, but many of the traditional professions have departed from it. Law has outright imploded, while medicine has seen very long hours on account of the doctor shortage.

If they aren't seeing patients, they aren't billing.

Right, but 2000 hours per year wasn't traditionally the requirement. That may have changed. The professions have declined over the past 30 years.

For example, before the legal profession went to hell, 1200 billable hours was the requirement. Remaining time was for networking, keeping current, attending conferences, etc. If you billed 1500 hours, you were a rock star and guaranteed to make partner. Enough money was made in the billed hours to pay for the off-meter stuff.

They go to school an unthinkably long number of years and then they're put into a sleep depravation nightmare called "interning" for years

That is true. Medical school and residency are extremely difficult.

before they get to have a career that normally includes "on call time" where they're woken up at all hours of the night to go save someone's life.

Obviously, medicine can't be limited to the 9-to-5 hours, because people get sick all the time.

Regarding the very long work weeks, this problem was at least partially created by the AMA. They've been limiting medical school admissions to keep an artificial shortage of doctors. That has created an environment in which working hours are much more than they used to be.

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gamblor95613y ago

I don't know who told you this, but this is inaccurate. 1600 was the normal billable hour standard prior to the legal boom among large law firms; 1500 was the standard among smaller law firms. Government lawyers were expected to spend 1800 hours or more on legal tasks (36 hours/week accounting for 2 weeks vacation). 1200 was only ever the requirement for partners, since their time by necessity include a lot of unbillable time spent with clients or potential clients.

Enough money was made in the billed hours to pay for the off-meter stuff

Lawyers used to bill their clients for everything, including the paper drafts were printed on. When the state bar associations and clients clamped down on these practices in the late 1990s, billing rates started going up, and kept going up when firms realized that clients were willing to pay.

ameister1413y ago

I don't think your point about the AMA is entirely accurate; I know people that have been practicing medicine for 40 years and they would disagree about the increase in hours per week; in fact, residents now have a cap on the number of hours per week they can work, something that didn't exist in the past.

A bigger problem with the AMA is that it's made up almost entirely of academics and yet wields a massive amount of power over the government's decisions regarding clinical practice.

The thing you might not realize is that in order to maintain board certification, doctors HAVE to read periodicals and go to conferences. There's a continuing education requirement so that they stay current.

jrs23513y ago

"A bigger problem with the AMA is that it's made up almost entirely of academics" followed by "There's a continuing education requirement so that they stay current."

Which is the the fox guarding the hen house. The academics controlling the AMA guarantee their own paychecks. And as you said this, academics controlling the AMA, is the bigger problem. It leads to a huge conflict of interests.

ahoyhere13y ago

"Perhaps I shouldn't have picked medicine as an example."

I don't think the mistake was in picking medicine, but rather declaring things without the benefit of facts.

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