Submitted by Kenneth P. Cheng, MD, Nov 8, 2006 17:13

Interesting comparison to hairstylists...

1) While the physician and the hairstylist are compensated equivalently for their 15 minutes does the hairstylist have to pay an exorbitant fee for malpractice insurance. Has anyone ever sued a hairstylist for a haircut gone bad?

2) When someone moves to a new town do they find their hairstylist in the phone book or do they ask for recommendations from co-workers and neighbors? Physicians are all too often chosen on the basis of their name being on a list of providors and they need to have concerns over losing their practices if they chose to refuse to participate in contractual rates of reimbursement provided by the insurance industry and Medicare. Physicians are also not allowed to group together to negotiate the contracts that they must participate in or for that matter even to discuss such matters as a group. How would the unions of America like those terms?

3) Would anyone think to walk out after a haircut without paying the bill?

4) When approached by a young person with questions about a career in Medicine a physician can only counsel them that it must be a career choice motivated by a desire to help others, a sense of duty, and a promise of personal fulfillment with the value of one's work. Medicine would never be chosen on the basis of monetary return on investment for years of education and training. That it has come to the point where good physicians leave the practice of Medicine because they cannot support their families is evidence of a system gone bad. Perhaps the surgeon of the middle ages, the midevil barber, had the right idea.

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