Many doctors plan to quit or cut back

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We are definitely in for some changes in the medical field. Many doctors plan to quit or cut back: survey

Tue Nov 18, 1:07 am ET

Reuters – A doctor checks the blood pressure of a patient at the

J.W.C.H. safety-net clinic in the center of skid …

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Primary care doctors

in the United States feel overworked and nearly half plan to either cut

back on how many patients they see or quit medicine entirely, according

to a survey released on Tuesday.

And 60 percent of 12,000 general practice physicians found they would not recommend medicine as a career.

"The whole thing has spun out of control. I plan to retire early even

though I still love seeing patients. The process has just become too

burdensome," the Physicians' Foundation, which conducted the survey,

quoted one of the doctors as saying.

The survey adds to building evidence that not enough internal medicine or family practice doctors are trained or practicing in the United States, although there are plenty of specialist physicians.

Health care reform is near the top of the list of priorities for both Congress and president-elect Barack Obama,

and doctor's groups are lobbying for action to reduce their workload

and hold the line on payments for treating Medicare, Medicaid and other

patients with federal or state health insurance.

The Physicians' Foundation, founded in 2003 as part of a settlement in

an anti-racketeering lawsuit among physicians, medical societies, and

insurer Aetna, Inc., mailed surveys to 270,000 primary care doctors and

50,000 practicing specialists.

The 12,000 answers are considered representative of doctors as a whole, the group said, with a margin of error of about 1 percent. It found that 78 percent of those who answered believe there is a shortage of primary care doctors.

More than 90 percent said the time they devote to non-clinical

paperwork has increased in the last three years and 63 percent said

this has caused them to spend less time with each patient.

Eleven percent said they plan to retire and 13 percent said they plan

to seek a job that removes them from active patient care. Twenty

percent said they will cut back on patients seen and 10 percent plan to

move to part-time work.

Seventy six percent of physicians said they are working at "full capacity" or "overextended and overworked".