WolfThomas said:
It's quite good. Though I do live in a different town to the one I work in partly to avoid seeing people I know all the time. I do like health policy and prevention. Though I'd have to cut down on the hours I'm working (darn mortage and impending baby).
You do do a lot in rural general practice, a lot of hands on stuff, trauma, a lot more management of trickier conditions city doctors could handball to specialists, though you also see the effects of the "tyranny of distance" when you do need high level advice and investigations (we have a particular shortage in terms of rheumatology and neurology where I am). We've had some doctor numbers decrease so there's no shortage of patients.
It took me a while to realise I'm my own boss in General Practice and therefore no one can tell me what to wear, so now it's chinos, polo shirs and desert boots in summer, sweaters in winter. I like wearing formal wear in my personal life, but tucked shirts are ridiculously annoying when you get in and out of a chair 4-8 times an hour. Scrubs were fun in hospital but I could never shake the feeling I was wearing pajamas to work.
Well who knows if most people will even have jobs in the future or it will be like the Expanse with whatever percent of the population on basic income.
Transhumanism is very interesting. I'm excited about a number of recent diabetic medications (like exenatide) and their possible applications in safe weight loss for people without diabetes. Older GPs scoff at the idea of a medication to fix weight loss but hey we've cured hepatits C recently. Vaccines were and still are awesome. HIV patients take like 1 tablet a day with no side effects and normal lifespans. We're making some pretty great advancements.
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Nah, young doctor ... at least 7 years for MBBS of 3k+ course x 10 per year + slave labour (also known as pracs) ... there's no shame in looking out for numero uno at 28 ... pay down those debts because after banks go after failing mortgage owners when they start bumping interest rates (so hopefully you're looking to pay off short term if on VIR), it will be student debt holders next. It's doubly bad for teachers and doctors because those are the first two things, education and medicine, governments cut when they want to "save money" (at the expense of incurring ridiculous costs in lost labour and taxes down the road).
You got a kid and house to pay off, and I have the feeling the job market and your income may not be so kind afer we bust after this world record boom time. So no shame in paying off that ball and chain that is a mortgage as quickly as possible. To be honest, I live off my investments. Even a young doctor paying off the education tithe to the government would scoff at the earnings I make on the market, but I actually
really hate working and I don't mind living a upper working class lifestyle so long as I don't have to
work for it.
Yeah, as per the neurology thing I've heard there's a general shortage of talent Australia wide, so I would imagine arranging for a consultancy and referral for a patient would be like pulling teeth.
I kind of get the reason why older GPs might be somewhat on the fence about medications to solve what are a combination of social, psychological, and physiological problems like obesity. I kind of get the idea why older GPs would be a bit leery of a culture that props up the; "drug your problems away...." Because I imagine they've seen patients for a LONG TIME who they have routinely told them to exercise and eat healthy simply not bother. So the idea of drugging the weight away might increase things like
diet apathy. Where you're skinny, and you have a drug to keep you skinny, so you keep eating crap which might lead to bigger problems beyond weight and diabetes ... like colon cancer and heart disease ... etc.
For older GPs I imagine they've been through the system enough where they just want to slap some patients and tell them to grow up and eat right, for a change. Plus they might have had patients who have died for reasons related to obesity, but wouldn't necessarily be solved by a weight loss pill. I think the older GPs would accept the weight loss pill for weight loss and iabetes if it was the
option of last resort ... but in the back of their head they'll be thinking; "And you could just eat healthy and solve all these other problems, as well..."
I'm no doctor, but could it be older GPs and some revolutionary weight loss medication, that they might have the opinion that medicine is 'enabling' the majority of obese patients to kill themselves thinking if they just take a pill they'll be okay? Sort of like a doctor giving a miracle medication to a smoker that will stop them ever getting lung cancer enabling the smoker to think; "And now there's no problems me smoking two packs a day!..."? Naturally the GP might be like; "No, at best this will cure the lung cancer you might've gotten for years of smoking prior. Smoking carries way more risks than lung cancer. Stop smoking now, stupid..."?
As for neuroprosthetics, what excites me is not so much the transhumanist potential, but the posthumanist potential. The capacity for self-less existence. The capacity to directly feel and live through robotic bodies. The capacity to share sense data. But the thing is barring things like the Argus II, and various submerged MMI chips which provides simulated sight that bypasses the retina and optic nerve all together via chipping the visual cortex ... we're still so far away from the posthuman revolution.
I think one of the reasons why my eyes are wandering elsewhere is a part of me is like; "You're still young, and you feel young(ish) ... so why grow up now?" It's not like I'm ever going to have kids of my own ... unless I adopt or marry into a pre-existing family.
You sound happy though, and I think that's what's important. Having a kid at 28 and barely out of uni seems like a brave thing to do, however ... but it sounds like you played your hand right.
One part of me is jealous, the other part of me would writhe if someone expected me to get a house, and get a proper job rather than playing the market, and not just disappear backpacking, or lounge about on a beach with my lips about a bottle of rose. I think I would have been worse if I didn't have jobs that forced me to adult and adult hard at periodic points in my life.
Universal income sounds nice .... not sure if the economic startegies people propose to prop it up are sustainable, however. We'll have to figure out something. I mean you're talking about a system that by necessity will require both things like PAYE and death taxes, while also assuming it's enough for someone to enter tertiary education to have those jobs you can't automate for.
And that's going to be a tough sell between now and 30% of people being jobless.
