Posted on 08/03/2013 5:22:57 PM PDT by neverdem
Never did three words, surely, have a more explosive and utterly disproportionate effect.
In a Commons debate last week on the deficiencies of the new 111 emergency service, a Tory MP, Anne McIntosh, suggested one reason why there were too few GPs to answer urgent calls.
Since some 70 per cent of medical students were now women, she said, the fact that many of them wanted to have children and then go part-time meant a ‘tremendous burden’ on the NHS if it effectively had to train two GPs to do the work of one.
In reply the junior Health Minister Anna Soubry said: ‘You make a very important point when you talk about, rightly, the good number of women who are training to be doctors, but the unintended consequences
She didn’t actually finish her sentence, but left the thought of ‘the unintended consequences’ hanging in the air. For these three words, she was instantly jumped upon and metaphorically beaten up by a steady procession of angry women.
Dr Clare Gerada, head of the Royal College of GPs, was incredulous ‘that women doctors are being blamed for problems in the NHS’. Another commentator accused Ms Soubry of having delivered ‘the biggest guilt trip of all when it comes to flexible working’.
Yet others heaped withering scorn upon the hapless Health Minister. Didn’t she understand that women had babies? So of course women doctors wanted to work part-time. Duh! And because it suited women to do so, there couldn’t possibly be any problem with that. It was obviously the perfect solution for absolutely everyone. End of argument. No awareness whatever of the total absence of logic in such claims — not to mention the failure to acknowledge the interests of anyone other than women doctors.
No, the only possible explanation for Ms...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Government-run medical care is the problem. Everything else is just details:
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Nail on the head! Well-said.
Many “problems” are really symptoms, and they’re usually symptoms of the “invisible foot” of government interference in free choices.
The military has a similar problem.
Good point. It’s a shame when a woman wants to have babies and then maintain her marketable skills for when the kids grow up and leave.
You’re correct. They complain when people work; they complain when they don’t work.
A dear friend of mine received her medical degree the same month she had her first child. Very high-energy female doctor, kept working as a family doctor through her second child as well. Her husband, also a physician, was as involved in caring for the children as she was. One terrific family.
So, perhaps some of these women in med school can work it out so that everyone wins.
one specialty does not refute the fact that pediatrics, Int Med and Family Med are low paying compared to Surgical specialties.
BTW I don’t know what dermatologists make.
“why does the sex matter in choosing a speciality? The ones with mostly women are low paying.”
Women choose specialties that are “family friendly”. Meaning, specialities that allow for part-time work and acceptable maternity leave. Surgical specialties, as a rule, don’t lend well to part-time schedules and long-term absences from patient care. Nature of the beast.
Dermatologists who work half the week can still earn $150-300K per year, depending on the balance of surgical, cosmetic and medical patients in their practice. Further, there is very little “on call” time, or, if there is, it’s low stress. The demand to be a dermatologist, therefore, is incredibly high, and it is now one of the top 2 or 3 competitive specialities for residency. Nearly 2 out of every 3 new residents are women, currently, as women in medical school have correctly assessed dermatology as a win-win.
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