Wed. May 8th, 2024

Four years ago, NYU’s School of Medicine ended tuition for its students and that class just graduated. Check out the image above to see how many went into primary care. Can’t find it? Yeah, me neither. I think it is under Medicine Primary? They can’t even say our specialty name right. Look at how pathetic that number is. And you know damn well the 17% that went into internal medicine are still going to be specialists.

It doesn’t help that NYU has no family medicine department. How is this still possible in 2022?

The ONLY hope for primary care is DIRECT PRIMARY CARE. That is it. End of story. We are now seeing some specialists catch a clue and do Direct Specialty Care but it isn’t as smooth and successful as DPC. Do I feel bad? Yes and no. I don’t want any physician to suffer except maybe these spoiled NYU graduates mentioned in the article who chose to still go for the money!!!

Too much? I apologize. I need to drink more coffee before I write these opinion pieces.

But how the f$ck are we supposed to fix the primary care shortage when making medical school free doesn’t work? The answer: promote DPC. Will it happen? No, because no governing body (AMA, ACP, AAFP) will do it. The only way is for us to promote ourselves.

99900cookie-checkIf We Just Made Med School Free Then Everyone Would Go Into Family Medicine! Nope.
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By Douglas Farrago, MD

Douglas Farrago MD is board certified in the specialty of Family Practice. He is the inventor of a product called the Knee Saver which is currently in the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Knee Saver and its knock-offs are worn by many major league baseball catchers. He is also the inventor of the CryoHelmet used by athletes for head injuries as well as migraine sufferers. From 2001 – 2011, Dr. Farrago was the editor and creator of the Placebo Journal which ran for 10 full years. Described as the Mad Magazine for doctors, he and the Placebo Journal were featured in the Washington Post, US News and World Report, the AP, and the NY Times. Douglas Farrago, MD received his Bachelor of Science from the University of Virginia in 1987, his Masters of Education degree in the area of Exercise Science from the University of Houston in 1990, and his Medical Degree from the University of Texas at Houston in 1994. His residency training occurred way up north at the Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Maine. In his final year, he was elected Chief Resident by his peers. Dr. Farrago has practiced family medicine for twenty-three years, first in Auburn, Maine and now in Forest, Virginia. He founded Forest Direct Primary Care in 2014, which quickly filled in 18 months. Dr. Farrago still blogs every day on his website Authenticmedicine.com and lectures worldwide about the present crisis in our healthcare system and the effect it has on the doctor-patient relationship. Dr. Farrago’s has written three books on direct primary care: The Official Guide to Starting Your Own Direct Primary Care Practice, The Direct Primary Care Doctor’s Daily Motivational Journal and Slowing the Churn in Direct Primary Care (While Also Keeping Your Sanity) are all best sellers in this genre. He is a leading expert in direct primary care model and lectures medical students, residents, and doctors on how to start their own DPC practice. He retired from clinical medicine in October, 2020.

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