“Primary Care Physicians are Incompetent. We Need More of Them.” by Hide

About this episode

The episode discusses the incompetence of primary care physicians and suggests that making it easier to become a PCP could improve healthcare outcomes.

The typical primary care physician is incompetent in every measurable respect. This is a huge problem. Here, I make the case that Primary care physicians are broadly, grossly incompetent This is due to empty credentialism Making it much (~10X) easier to become a PCP is a good solution Primary Care Physicians are Broadly, Grossly Incompetent The standard of competence I am comparing primary care physicians against is: They should be able to reliably diagnose diseases they are trained to diagnose. They should be knowledgeable to a standard similar to what is required to qualify as a doctor They should be attentive and empathetic towards patients Visiting them is empirically superior to not visiting them When actually examined according to these standards, PCPs fail on all counts. Failure to diagnose uncommon diseases is rampant A survey of patients with rare diseases found that, in about half of cases, patients received at least one incorrect diagnosis, and two thirds required visits to at least three different doctors before being diagnosed. For 30% of them, a correct diagnosis took over five years. Another survey of children with rare diseases showed that 38% of them needed to…

People in this episode

Guest: Hide

Topics covered

• healthcare
• primary care
• physician competence
• credentialism
• diagnosis
• patient care

Keywords

• primary care physicians
• incompetence
• credentialism
• diagnosis
• patient care
• healthcare
• rare diseases

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