On 2008-05-16 13:28:56 -0700, "Cheryl P." <cperk...@mun.ca> said:
> and if you have two doctors in a marriage, one of whom can only > practice in a city, both are lost to the small-town life.
Also, most married doctors (not 2 doctor families) have spouses who also need employment which is not available in smaller towns. Unless the second career is entirely portable, any married doctor is not going to force their partner into becoming a house-spouse.
Just read my own post about small-doctors decreasing in number. Make that small-town doctors. I've no research to support the decrease in small doctors. Sue D.
Mike Burke wrote: > What has changed? Attitdes more than anything. Young doctors do > their training in major cities. They meet and marry (or not as the > case may be) partners who tend to come from the same major cities. If > they come from the country themselves, and like the lifestyle, they > may return. If they come from the cities, teams of wild horses > couldn't drag them or their spouses out into what are, to them, the > intellectually sterile backblocks. Even if, in their adventurous > youth, they are prepared to rough it for a few years, the moment their > kids approach school age, they're out of there, because the range of > education options in such places is, at best, limited and, at worst, > non-existent, leaving boarding school the only option in many cases.
> And being on call 24/7 in a one doctor town (and district) gets old > very quickly.
> Mique
In my home town, there were pretty good schools, I think. But a local family faced with the alternative of boarding school for their precious four (adopted) children, opted instead to start a school, a day school. I was one of the children they planned would attend, but by then my parents had divorced and I made the difficult choice of staying with my mother, so I never did attend. The school is still going! It's been quite the success, even though we "children" are now past retirement age. The family who did this was very capable of doing such a thing, they were the Richard King Mellons of Rolling Rock Farms ..... and Mellon National Banks... -- Joanne stitches @ singerlady.reno.nv.us.earth.milky-way.com http://members.tripod.com/~bernardschopen/
Lauradog wrote: > Just read my own post about small-doctors decreasing in number. Make > that small-town doctors. I've no research to support the decrease in > small doctors. > Sue D.
There was an ad in the real estate section of our local paper for a Six Year Old Doctor's House.
On Fri, 16 May 2008 18:34:18 -0700, Pogonip <nobo...@nowhere.org> wrote:
>Lauradog wrote: >> Just read my own post about small-doctors decreasing in number. Make >> that small-town doctors. I've no research to support the decrease in >> small doctors. >> Sue D.
>There was an ad in the real estate section of our local paper for a Six >Year Old Doctor's House.
On Sat, 17 May 2008 08:25:38 +1000, Mike Burke wrote: > Even if, in their adventurous > youth, they are prepared to rough it for a few years, the moment their > kids approach school age, they're out of there, because the range of > education options in such places is, at best, limited and, at worst, > non-existent, leaving boarding school the only option in many cases.
Indeed. I was reasonably happy working as a psychologist in rural Kentucky until my son approached 5. Then we moved where a) he would be in a decent educational system, and b) he would meet someone other than white Christians.
> What has changed? Why isn't being a small-town doctor an attractive > option for doctors anymore? I'll confess that this particular small town > is very attractive, and has both summer and winter attractions that bring > tourists. But there are lots of towns that have attractions.
But very few doctors come from small towns, and they are used to city attractions, not small town ones. That so few come from outside the cities is partly due to the poor state of education in rural America. Relatively few rural kids even go to college, and many of those focus on practical majors like agriculture or business. For kids of limited means who've attended small-town schools without honors programs or any other advanced courses, just getting through four years at a modest state college is tough enough, and the debts incurred serious enough, to deter any thought of further education.
Doctors working in small towns usually make significantly less money. Far more of their patients will be uninsured or on Medicaid. It's the patients with good private insurance who pay for modern medical equipment and keep the best doctors well compensated.
>> What has changed? Why isn't being a small-town doctor an attractive >> option for doctors anymore? I'll confess that this particular small town >> is very attractive, and has both summer and winter attractions that bring >> tourists. But there are lots of towns that have attractions.
> But very few doctors come from small towns, and they are used to city > attractions, not small town ones. That so few come from outside the > cities is partly due to the poor state of education in rural America. > Relatively few rural kids even go to college, and many of those focus on > practical majors like agriculture or business. For kids of limited means > who've attended small-town schools without honors programs or any other > advanced courses, just getting through four years at a modest state > college is tough enough, and the debts incurred serious enough, to deter > any thought of further education.
> Doctors working in small towns usually make significantly less money. Far > more of their patients will be uninsured or on Medicaid. It's the > patients with good private insurance who pay for modern medical equipment > and keep the best doctors well compensated.
> Mark Alan Miller
I wonder exactly what everyone means by "small town."
> I wonder exactly what everyone means by "small town."
I once tried reading up on the literature on education in small rural schools, only to discover that everyone had a different definition of 'small' and 'rural'. There was stuff from the more urbanized part of the US that involved schools of approximately the size of the largest in our entire province!
I consider a real small town to have a population of up to 3,000, which would about describe the town I grew up in. Nowadays, I might use the term loosely to describe places up to abotu pop 10,000-20,000.
Another issue in small town life is how close the small town is to a more urban centre. One that's an hour from a major metropolis by a good highway is less 'small-town' by my standards than one whose nearest 'big city' has 10,000 people in it.
And then there's settlement patterns. In my neck of the woods, people tended to settle in small but discrete communities. In others, people settled in family groups on farms, and their nearest community would be different - smaller, further away from the people who used it as a centre - than is sometimes the case.
