Can I get recent statistics for how many undergraduates or graduates
are making the choice to become Doctors and how many under graduates
and graduates are making the choice to become attorneys?  Is this
becoming a problem because of the large damage awards and malpractice
insurance?  Because we seem to live in a society that rewards
victimism, the rewards seem obvious for becoming an attorney.  With
insurance companies cutting fees that are allowed for all medical
procedures and insurance companies being forced to raise malpractice
premiums to a punitive amout for doctors to pay - what insentive is
left to become a doctor and how do you see this affecting our future? 
Researchers and

Researchers and commenters:  What do you think about Tort reform and
caps on a single medical event or terrorist attack?  It is my
understanding that insurance companies have no problem with projected
loss of income due to acts of terrorism or medical.  It is the massive
millions that are awarded in punitive damages that are the problem. 
How do you see Tort reform.  Should there be a cap on medical events? 
On acts of terrorism, should the awards be capped at projected life
income or should the large punitive damage awards be allowed?terrorist

The question will be answered by providing me the information on
students choosing medicine and students choosing Law + this one more
answer to a rumor I have tried to research.  I have heard that after
9/11, the insurance companies did not have problems with settlements
involving loss of projected income.  However the punitive damage
awards caused them to withdraw from issuing insurance policies on new
buildings in New York and buildings being sold.  Because the insurance
companies were pulling out, the Federal Governmet stepped to the plate
and now is the insurer, subject to pay-out of any future punitive
damages for the next terrorist acts.  Is this true?

Do any of you think that there is a political figure to take tort
reform on?

Please - all researchers, any readers - I invite your comments.  Pink
Freud you too.  I am a mortgage broker and in no way connected to
doctors, attorneys or insurance companies.  Please, all of you
comment.

My Comment:  Our local Florida Hospital, one of the 100 top hospitals,
can no longer afford to have a staff Neurological surgeon because they
have to pay over $250,000 per year on malpractice insurance.

Hello again, Carolyn! It's always nice to get a good, meaty question
like this one. After a while, a Researcher enjoys a question a bit
more substantial than "What brand of socks does James Bond wear?" or
"Why are some bellybuttons 'outies'?"

======================================================================

Apparently new lawyers outnumber new doctors by more than 2 to 1. Each
year, schools in the United States are graduating about 40,000 new
lawyers, and only about 15,000 new doctors.

"There are more than one million practicing lawyers in the United
States today. Over 50,000 men and women enter law school each year and
more than 40,000 become new lawyers each year."

A Good Lawyer
http://www.agoodlawyer.com/ 

"Law schools routinely graduate 40,000 new lawyers each year."

Negotiating Skills
http://www.negoskills.com/situation.html

Some interesting reading:

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: Lawyers, An American Epidemic
http://www.rpi.edu/~verwyc/Chap4law.htm

"Meanwhile, the United States is sending home 8,000 American-trained
foreign physicians each year, if they like it or not. And 8,000 new
docs are imported to replace them. Universities and hospitals have to
fill 23,000 residency slots each year, but American medical schools
mint only 15,000 new doctors a year. Foreign docs take up the slack."

Memphis Business Journal: Doc program targets need in rural areas
http://www.visalaw.com/news/mbj20030317.htm 

"About 25,000 physicians start a new practice each year, he said. That
includes established doctors who move to a new job and about 15,000
new doctors just finishing their residencies."

Sunday Gazette-Mail: Hinton native brings recruitment business home
http://sundaygazettemail.com/news/Business-20030209/

Regarding your question about insurance companies in the wake of 9/11,
these articles may be of interest:

New York City Partnership 
http://www.nycp.org/2001_news/NPR_06_14_02.pdf 
 
Insure Against Terrorism 
http://www.insureagainstterrorism.org/facts_faq.html

======================================================================

More interesting reading:

Liberty Haven: Are There Too Many Lawyers?
http://www.libertyhaven.com/politicsandcurrentevents/constitutionscourtsandlaw/theretoolawyers.shtml

American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons: Study finds per capita rate
of malpractice lawsuits relates to number of lawyers
http://www.aaos.org/wordhtml/press/mal.htm

National Review: America’s Medical Enron
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-howard100302.asp

Forbes: The Tort Mess
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/0513/090.html

American Association of Health Plans: Medical Malpractice Lawsuits by
the Numbers
http://www.aahpechochamber.org/malpractice/numbers.cfm

Overlawyered.com: Litigation vs. good medicine
http://overlawyered.com/topics/medical.html

======================================================================

Search terms used:

"new lawyers" + "each year"
"new lawyers" + "every year"
"new doctors" + "each year"
"new doctors" + "every year"
"malpractice insurance"
"tort reform"

======================================================================

Thanks for asking an interesting question, and thanks for accepting my
comment as the answer. I hope we'll attract a few remarks from
Researchers and commenters who are doctors and lawyers.

I'd like to close with a quote from Lin Yutang. A physician of my
acquaintance had this engraved on a brass plaque that he kept on his
desk:

"Where there are too many soldiers, there is no peace. Where there are
too many lawyers, there is no justice."

Best wishes,
pinkfreud

---

Request for Answer Clarification by schmooz-ga on 26 Feb 2004 18:05 PST

Have not a clue whether you see this.. . . but this has been emailed
nationwide.  On another site, I will ask for a site that presents the
claims of Christ in the most thoughtful, thinkful way.  You may or may
not answer that question but your answer below - was so meaningful.  I
am adding a bonus to this question for the answer on the other
question but. . . you do not need to answer the clarification. 
carolyn at cormey dot net.  I hope you can delete this but . .

Here is contact info for Mel Gibson's "Icon Productions":
 
Icon Productions
http://www.icon-online.com
 
Telephone and fax
Tel:  310 434 7300 
Fax:  310 434 7377 
 
Address
808 Wilshire Blvd
4th Floor
Santa Monica, California 90401
 

If anyone wants to write in to Mel Gibson regarding ?Passion of The
Christ,? here is the place to write.  I am unhappy about the cheesy
trinkets being marketed on the media-hype of this movie.  I have
confirmed that Mel Gibson has authorized these trinkets (fake spike
necklaces, Passion coffee mugs . . . ) and also profits from their
sale.  This made me begin to doubt his personal, stated motivation for
bringing this story to film ? questioning. . ?is it all just about
money??  Two things have come to my attention to help me get back my
focus and let the movie speak for itself.
1.          Philippians 1:15-18
2.         This quote from the researcher who confirmed that Mel
Gibson authorized the marketing and sale of the ?Passion? trinkets:

"The only explanation I can think of for this incredible lapse of taste
on the part of the sincerely devout Mel Gibson is that, as a Catholic,
he may be comfortable with the Church's long tradition of allowing the
merchandising of relics such as saints' bones and alleged portions of
the "true cross." While the peddling of imitation nails strikes my
Protestant soul with revulsion, it is obvious that many people feel
otherwise; the things are selling like the proverbial hotcakes, and I
imagine that most of the purchasers are believers who find nothing
offensive in these products.
There are genuine disagreements over the appropriateness of many
religious symbols. I was once approached in public by a man who
lambasted me for wearing a small gold cross pendant. This man's
outrage was heartfelt: to him, displaying the cross in this fashion
(as jewelry) was disrespectful and blasphemous. To me, it was an
emblem of my faith, a reminder to myself and to others of my
allegiance to the Lord."

These are the things that reached my heart.  I will go to see it and
then most certainly write to Mel Gibson ? to either thank him for
doing a faithful job or . . .

http://www.answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=309906

Carolyn

---

Clarification of Answer by pinkfreud-ga on 26 Feb 2004 18:15 PST

Carolyn,

Regarding your question about adding a bonus, this can only be done at
the time the rating is assigned. The best bonus for a Researcher like
me is to have a customer like you who asks thought-provoking questions
and conducts the interchange of "clarifications" in a friendly and
intelligent manner. That's a bonus beyond valuation.

~Pink

More than I expected.  Thank you so much. How do I add a bonus to this rating?

My personal opinion is lawyer boo hiss. This perception is growing
among the general public and successful people. A correction is likely
soon in the USA, resulting in a huge glut of lawyers. On the other
hand, too many doctors is improbable in the coming decade or two, and
the potential for self-esteem is much better as a doctor even if
victimization continues to be acceptable for another decade.  The true
victims are the people who have to deal with lawyers.  Neil

Apparently new lawyers outnumber new doctors by more than 2 to 1. Each
year, schools in the United States are graduating about 40,000 new
lawyers, and only about 15,000 new doctors.

"There are more than one million practicing lawyers in the United
States today. Over 50,000 men and women enter law school each year and
more than 40,000 become new lawyers each year."

A Good Lawyer
http://www.agoodlawyer.com/ 

"Law schools routinely graduate 40,000 new lawyers each year."

Negotiating Skills
http://www.negoskills.com/situation.html

Some interesting reading:

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: Lawyers, An American Epidemic
http://www.rpi.edu/~verwyc/Chap4law.htm

"Meanwhile, the United States is sending home 8,000 American-trained
foreign physicians each year, if they like it or not. And 8,000 new
docs are imported to replace them. Universities and hospitals have to
fill 23,000 residency slots each year, but American medical schools
mint only 15,000 new doctors a year. Foreign docs take up the slack."

Memphis Business Journal: Doc program targets need in rural areas
http://www.visalaw.com/news/mbj20030317.htm 

"About 25,000 physicians start a new practice each year, he said. That
includes established doctors who move to a new job and about 15,000
new doctors just finishing their residencies."

Sunday Gazette-Mail: Hinton native brings recruitment business home
http://sundaygazettemail.com/news/Business-20030209/

Regarding your question about insurance companies in the wake of 9/11,
these articles may be of interest:

New York City Partnership
http://www.nycp.org/2001_news/NPR_06_14_02.pdf

Insure Against Terrorism
http://www.insureagainstterrorism.org/facts_faq.html

Schmooz,

Several states, led by Pennsylvania, are now experiencing a severe
loss of physicians which has resulted in crisis-proportion
difficulties for patients in finding a doctor.

Because of the horrendous "pain and suffering" multimillion-dollar
awards which have become commonplace, physicians (even those who have
never been sued) are now frequently being told that the renewal amount
for their malpractice insurance coverage will cost more than the
profit they make from their practice in a year. Consequently, many
physicians are moving to other states, or retiring and closing their
practices permanently. I have read horror stories about pregnant women
having to drive several hours to another state just to find an
obstetrician to provide them with prenatal care and follow them
through the delivery.

As we reap, so we sow. While those who have suffered injury or loss
due to negligence or malfeasance by a physician should certainly have
recourse to compensation, I recently read that around 2/3rds of
malpractice suits that are filed are spurious -- that is, without real
merit.

In one case I know of personally, the suit named not only the surgeon
(who did a bad thing), it also named the hospital, the radiologist,
and the pathologist -- all of whom performed their roles perfectly,
and none of whom were at fault. At the deposition, the plaintiff asked
who all the other people present were, because she only had a problem
with her surgeon. Her attorney, unbeknownst to her, had decided to sue
everyone else as well, in order to get just as much money as he
possibly could -- after all, he would be keeping 1/3rd of whatever he
could get in settlements and awards.

The people who cry loudly against tort reform are not telling you that
it will NOT affect compensation awarded for reasonable calculation of
lost wages over a remaining lifetime, for expensive medical care that
will be required on an ongoing basis for the rest of the claimant's
life, or for other **demonstrable** losses. What tort reform WILL do
is cap "pain and suffering" damages at $250,000.

Let's be honest -- while we all know of people who have had
justifiable claims, we also know of a lot of people who are looking
for a free ride to Easy Street, and who have no compunction about
lying and/or placing blame where none exists, just so they will never
have to work a day in their life again.

In addition, we as a society are also to blame for expecting medicine
to be able to fix anything and everything. We think that if someone
dies, or a procedure or treatment does not work, or if a patient's
outcome is otherwise not what we hoped it to be, instead of accepting
the fact that medical science -- however advanced it may have become
-- simply can NOT fix EVERYTHING, we have to find someone to blame.
Perhaps this is because it is so difficult for humans to accept that
there is not a solution for everything. If so, we need to get over it,
stop expecting Physicians to be able to work miracles every time, and
stop blaming them if they are not able to do so.

Our collective greed as a nation (and that of our attorneys) in
attempting to collect just as much money as we can, especially in
circumstances where the physician is not at fault, is destroying our
own ready access to qualified, competent physicians.

Tort Reform, while not a perfect solution, would go a long way toward
stopping the hemorrhaging loss of physicians from the pool of health
care practitioners currently available to us. It's not too late, if we
do something about it NOW.

Regards,

aceresearcher

Dear schmooz, 

As much as I find your observations intersting and somewhat true, I am
not sure that one could identify a direct relations between the
general attitude/ vicitimization and the fact that there are two new
lawyers on each new physician.

You have to consider that: 
(1) It is much more difficult to get accepted into most med-schools as
it is to most law-schools
(2) Tuition might be higher (in real terms or because you pay longer)
(3) You have to excel, or at least understand, sciences, to succeed in
med-school. Law school students could have only strong analytical
mind, without any ability to disect a frog or analyse a chemical
formula. The level of science education in American schools has been
long criticised as not developing interest and abilities to study
science as a career. Speaking of earlier education, it could be also
claimed that our educational system directs us to think on our
profession in terms of money, and not in idealistic terms of
contribution to society.
(4) A thirty-year-old who graduated from a law school could be already
half-way to partnership, or at least hold a steady position. Her peer
from the medical school, is lucky if she just got her MD and began to
work.
(5) A forty-year-old lawyer could work 9-5 in most places (if they
hold no special ambitions); a forty-year-old physician works in most
places (that is, clinics) in shifts or long hours, and should be
always on the call.

All these factors and many more could be influential in the preference
of law-school on med-school, while the "insurance" factor might be
secondary and impact mostly people who are already in med-school (in
their decision to drop-out) or already physicians.