Online Education

The medical field has always been an attractive option to many young people. But recently the focus has shifted to those fields of study where the monetary rewards and other material benefits of a medical career are passed over in favor of the personal fulfillment one achieves by working for the public good.

One young man recently turned down job offers of more than ,000 from organizations including medical schools, drug companies and private foundations. He founded an organization while in medical school and prefers to continue with that organization, earning only ,000 annually. This is just one example of the new breed of doctors who commit themselves to the improvement of the quality and delivery of medical care in America.

He states that he has no intention of practicing in the customary manners of medicine. He is the founder of a four-year-old institute that deals with individual communities to study their most pressing medical, dental, educational and legal needs. The belief is that the needs of an entire community must understood in order to better develop more effective programs for individual health care. The issue here is that there are such few opportunities out there for students who would like to grow within this niche.

The U.S. is experiencing a crisis within the health field. Medical programs are trying to address these issues, but they are going to need a push. The medical students themselves are pushing the issues and many of the medical schools across the country have begun responding to their demands. The majority of the medical students are now aware of these problems and want to work towards fixing them.

The dean of a premier medical school states that presently, students evidence a higher degree of social awareness, a true sense of empathy, a great sensitivity for injustice and a clarity of purpose. Students are exhibiting a new level of drive and dedication to service that was often missing in traditional medical practices where the motivation was financial. Moreover, he added that the medical students of today put in much more time and energy to accomplish their goals. For these individuals, the lifestyle that we have come to associate with doctors, the big cars, golf games and material wealth, is less of a motivation. Today’s student is very sensitive to his not being caught in social regimentation.

Students of modern medicine no longer believe that their status as doctors elevates them above other people. They were a part of an exclusively gregarious association, being more concerned about wealth and a strictly prearranged lifestyle that meant comfort, security and prosperity. Present day students do not see eye to eye with their former generation’s counterparts.

The era of community medicine, where students learn to care for the whole being and that medical care is accessible to all regardless of financial situation, has begun. Despite the billions of dollars being spent in the U.S. on medical care, patients are not realizing any benefit, nor are the services they are receiving improving, according to an associate professor who is at the forefront of bringing about reform in the curriculum and objectives of the nation’s medical schools. Not only have improvements not been realized, but in the absence of changes, conditions in the health care industry are likely to deteriorate.

Fortunately, an organization has been formed to encourage medical students to concentrate more on public and environmental health, and preventive medicine. These groups promote community awareness and service through various community outreach programs around the country. This program also works full time to get community health projects into the classrooms to expose aspiring doctors to them.

Of the students who have participated in a number of these community medical projects, many have said that they wish to continue to serve the people of these areas when they begin their careers as physicians, according to a student who has spent time as the organization’s program coordinator. Other than establishing public health clinics and projects in under-served locations, a lot of hospitals and medical training programs are also looking to educate physicians who are members of minority groups.

?

Tags: "medical training", Care, doctors, learning, Medical, Miss, Patients, Really, School, Spent, Their, They've, Time