{"id":8665,"date":"2011-03-07T08:36:42","date_gmt":"2011-03-07T13:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pmedicine.org\/epatients\/?p=8665"},"modified":"2011-03-07T09:15:14","modified_gmt":"2011-03-07T14:15:14","slug":"too-many-doctors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/participatorymedicine.org\/epatients\/2011\/03\/too-many-doctors.html","title":{"rendered":"Too Many Doctors?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t hide the fact that I am a dyed in the wool liberal. I read, and agree with, pretty much everything Paul Krugman writes. But, it\u2019s rare for me to discover the kind of synergy between my Krugman-inspired ire over economic policy and politics generally and the e-Patient movement that I awoke to this morning.\u00a0In today\u2019s column, Krugman makes the point that higher education does not automatically guarantee a comfortable, moderate wage job. No big insight there, but his argument includes some subtle implications for medical care.<\/p>\n<p>The kinds of jobs that we associate with college education and beyond are also being outsourced to technology. As an example,\u00a0 Krugman points to a recent NYT piece on the role of software in analyzing legal documents. He also makes passing mention of computer assisted diagnosis in medicine. I\u2019ve argued for a long time that much of what I do as a physician could be better done by either machines, or patients themselves. Taking that idea one step further, it\u2019s clear that we\u2019ll need fewer, not more, doctors in the future. I imagine that this morning Paul Krugman would agree.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/03\/07\/opinion\/07krugman.html?_r=1&amp;partner=rssnyt&amp;emc=rss .\" target=\"_blank\">Here\u2019s a link<\/a> to his column.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t hide the fact that I am a dyed in the wool liberal. I read, and agree with, pretty much everything Paul Krugman writes. But, it\u2019s rare for me [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,2,2304],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-8665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ptdoc-co-care","category-trendsprinciples","category-why-pm"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Too Many Doctors?  - SPM Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/participatorymedicine.org\/epatients\/2011\/03\/too-many-doctors.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Too Many Doctors?  - SPM Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I don\u2019t hide the fact that I am a dyed in the wool liberal. 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