rowan rosel

I wrote this because the conversation around physician workforce shortages keeps circling the wrong target. Telling future doctors to commit to 20 to 25 years of full-time clinical practice sounds noble until you look at what the path actually costs. Medical school is not free. Training is not light. The years are expensive in money, time, family life, health, and opportunity. If society wants a service commitment, then society can fund the education and make that agreement clear before someone signs up. Until then, a medical degree belongs to the person who earned it. Physicians are already screened for discipline, endurance, delayed gratification, and the ability to survive a long academic obstacle course with a stethoscope waiting at the finish line. The better question here - that keeps getting ignored - is why so many capable, committed physicians eventually feel pushed toward the exits. If we want doctors to stay, we need to build a profession they can afford to enter, survive, and stay in.