Experts predict increase in doctor suicides due to Obamacare

(NaturalNews) Medical school is to doctors what boot camp is to soldiers. For the most part, the humanity and the nurturing aspect of care is drilled out of medical students, replaced with codes and systematic ways of moving patients down an assembly line. There's less time spent relating to patients, less time spent understanding their body signal's, signs, and messages. It's all replaced with procedure and paper work and a prescription model that thrives on haughty competition. Healing is overtaken by disease-management drugs that are almost always guaranteed to bring side effects, exacerbating health problems down the road. Students may go into the profession with a heart wide open for humanity, but it's soon stapled shut and taught to comply with insurance company demands, threat of litigation and new Obamacare mandates, now fused into the profession.

A belt tied around his neck

World Net Daily recently published a story of a 25-year-old medical student named Vincent who went into the profession with a willing and open heart but was soon burdened by the system's demands. Forced to work more than 80 hours a week, he became disillusioned working in the confines of a rigorous system. Within two weeks after starting his own surgical residency in New York City, he hung himself in his closet -- a belt tied around his neck.

The appalling story was brought forth at the 2014 American Academy of Family Physicians Assembly in Washington, D.C., to bring awareness of a growing problem in America -- physician suicide.

Time per patient falling, burning doctors out to the point of substance abuse

Now, with Affordable Care Act red tape tying up the medical system further, it only gets harder for physicians, stressing them, burning them out. Time per patient is being reduced like never before, as doctors are forced to shoulder even more work than before. The quality of care is falling fast. It's pushing physicians over the edge. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, physicians have the highest rate of suicide amongst any profession; between 300 and 400 doctors take their own lives each year in the US. Many turn to substance abuse or are enticed by their easy access to prescription drugs, which can include lethal combinations of painkillers and psychotic drugs.

Obamacare adding volumes of work to physicians' already demanding schedule

What's pushing doctors over the edge is what Obamacare is making worse. In autopsies conducted on physicians from England and Wales between 1991 to 1993, University of Oxford researchers found three startling reasons why over 65 percent of the doctors committed suicide. With evidence of substance abuse and in relation with follow-up colleague interviews, the researchers found out that the majority of physicians felt overburdened, unable to cope with their rigorous, professional responsibilities. They suffered long, grueling work hours and volumes of work that they could hardly keep up with or perfect. As Obamacare makes these problems worse in America, it's only natural to see doctor suicides continue to climb.

Writing recently in The New York Times, first-year physician Pranay Sinha, from the Yale-New Haven Hospital, said the workload becomes unbearable upon entering the profession, increasing "fatigue, emotional exhaustion, and crippling self-doubt."

"Most fourth-year medical students are expected to take care of four patients at a time," he said. "But within a month of graduation, without any additional training or practice, we are required to have a comprehensive understanding of up to 10 patients on any given day."

1 in 9 medical students admit to having suicidal thoughts in scathing 2008 study

This emotional exhaustion is not uncommon. In fact, a 2008 study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, found that over half of the 4,000 medical students at seven different universities were burned out, exhausted emotionally and felt a level of depersonalization. Astonishingly, one in nine students confessed that they had suicidal thoughts while attending medical school!

Since asking for help is a sign of weakness for an aspiring physician, sometimes they feel like they have nowhere to turn. Moving dozens of patients through an assembly-line type of care system takes all passion from the physician. Sometimes, suicide seems like the only answer.

According to 20-year veteran physician Pamela Wible, who understands physician suicide firsthand, "Just processing the insurance forms costs $58 for every patient encounter. To make ends meet, physicians have had to increase the number of patients they see. The end result is that the average face-to-face clinic visit lasts about 12 minutes."

According to new projections from the Heritage Foundation, the ACA is projected to add an additional 190 million hours of paperwork to the industry. The ACA is also guilty of flooding the healthcare system with more unnecessary doctor's visits. Since Americans are forced to pay in; they are more inclined to seek medical intervention more often, clogging up a system already buried neck deep in waste, fear and control.

Sources:

http://www.wnd.com

http://www.idealmedicalcare.org