If you live in highly urbanized areas like Berlin, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, or Frankfurt....there's no numbers problem on doctors. In hundreds of rural communities around Germany, the public is keenly aware of the numbers crisis going on for doctors.
So I noted this short story over in Focus this morning.....talking over actions to correct this.
Bavaria is one of those German states that has the significant shortages. So after careful review, they did an odd thing in Bavaria.
Germany has a total of 38 medical schools. Bavaria? Of the 38....they (the state of Bavaria) run five of them.
There is a ranking order (depending on your grades, and other factors) to who gets placed in a medical school each fall, and who gets pushed back a year, possibly even two years.
So Bavaria has stood up and said if you put down on the form that you will volunteer and place yourself after graduation in a rural environment in Bavaria for ten years.....they will move you to the top of the status group.....getting a seat in the fall semester. To ensure you comply? They inserted a paragraph into the sheet which you sign.....if you leave for a urban job....you pay Bavaria 250,000 Euro (roughly 300,000 US dollars).
Improving the situation? It'll probably take at least ten years to confirm the success of this idea.
1 comment:
The U.S. has a similar "rural doctors" plan and I believe it is nationn-wide. I lived in a small town in Nevada that used that system. The only problem was that the length of time the new doctors had to stay was two years. That meant a rapid turnover as they headed for urban areas, where the money was, as soon as their time was up.
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