Challenge to YOU!  / Residency Shortage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oajp9YP8k8Y

The last 2 blogs explained the process of “peaceful activism” to bring the cause of the residency shortage to the forefront of the Nation’s attention.

As I have explained in my biography of the NoMatchMDs blog, I do not personally work in the field of Medicine.  Yet, I felt that the travesty of the residency shortage warranted my activism, in lieu of the 50 years I have observed Medical Education.  I cannot solve this problem on my own.

I continue to educate the readers of the blog about the intricacies of the residency shortage dilemma.  I have delineated the politics of Medicine which are preventing a timely solution to the shortage.  I have described how a huge majority of the public and medical professionals are unaware of the current scenario.

Perhaps you are interested in this blog because you or someone you know is personally affected by the residency shortage.  I would encourage you and your supporters to become involved in this cause.  If not YOU, then WHO?  Before I became aware of this crisis, I had never even read a blog.  I had never created a logo, a website, never had a Facebook page or used Twitter, never had spoken to a Congressman, never written to an elected official, or fought for any cause.  There comes a time when we each need to speak up and DO something!  I have had to get out of my own comfort zone to learn and use these new skills.  I will be part of a panel at a World Affairs Conference in St. Petersburg, Florida in February, speaking before several thousand people.  I have never done this before either…So I am challenging each of you to step up and help with this cause.  Go back and re-listen to the two previous blogs.  Form your own “protest” group and show up at a Match Day 2018 “reveal” party.  If mine is the only “voice” talking about the residency shortage, the solution will be long in coming…

www.NoMatchMDs.blogspot.com

Dirty Little Secret / Residency Match

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCFIM1jnLxg

Assuming that over the last 5 years alone over 50,000 doctors have not matched into a residency, why are we not hearing more about the Residency Shortage?  Why are we not outraged?  Surely, the 50,000 unmatched doctors should be incredulous about their futures, despondent, mortified, frustrated, and ultimately furious with a system which has betrayed them! Why are we not hearing from them or about them?  My answers include:  the unmatched doctor is embarrassed by “their own” failure to match- a “dirty little secret”, the lack of a support group or committee to join, the isolation each unmatched doctor experiences while their peers are rejoicing in a “match”, and the other unmatched doctors are “scattered” across the US. There is a sense of futility unmatched doctors have when they try to figure out a plan, a solution, or “someone” to contact to correct this injustice.  Think about it.  Who would you contact under the circumstances:  your legislator, your dean, the Federal Government?  There is no “one person” who can right this wrong.

Recently, my son met a new doctor graduate at a happy hour he was hosting in his Chicago condo.  The doctor had failed to match into a residency this past March and was very sad and reluctant to discuss it.  My son told her about my blog and website, and encouraged her to look at them.  The topic was so painful that she just wanted to drop the subject.  My heart cringed ONCE AGAIN when I heard this sad story.  My first thought was, if only she would listen to my blogs she would realize the fault for not matching was not hers, but a system which had failed her.  That also, the sheer numbers of applicants and the use of computerized screening had probably eliminated her application from consideration, that any redeeming parts of her application had probably gone UN-READ, and that unfortunately that scenario was bound to repeat itself in subsequent match attempts.  I hoped that with this knowledge her sadness and embarrassment would change to one of anger and determination to let her voice be heard on this travesty.

Leading up to the next residency Match Day 2018 I am going to be focusing on getting those 50,000 unmatched doctors to unify and speak out.  No one will care about the solution to the Residency Shortage as much or as fervently as those affected by it.  Ironically, in the next decade we will all be affected by it to some degree with the impending doctor shortage.  Yet, until the unsuspecting public is directly impacted by this shortage, there will be little public outcry.  That is why the unmatched doctors, their friends, family and colleagues need to get over their “uncomfortable” dirty little secrets, and convert their embarrassment to action!  Let’s get the word out there regarding the residency shortage and our Nation’s failure to uphold its side of our “Social Contract

www.NoMatchMDs.blogspot.com