Speaker 1: It's nice w BZ Radio.
Speaker 2: Well, we had a guest with us a couple of
Speaker 2: weeks ago who's joining us now for an hour to
Speaker 2: take some phone calls as well as to continue our conversation.
Speaker 2: Delighted to be joined again by doctor DEEB. Salem. I
Speaker 2: pronounced the last name correctly, doctor.
Speaker 3: Just like they all right, thank you very.
Speaker 2: Much, Senior vice president for Academic Integration and Tough's Medicine,
Speaker 2: former cardiologists and share of the Department of Medicine at
Speaker 2: Tough Medical Center. And we're talking about the Physician Pathway Act,
Speaker 2: which is now law in Massachusetts, assigned into law by
Speaker 2: the Governor in November. And what that piece of legislation
Speaker 2: is intended to do is to make more available more doctors.
Speaker 2: And I'm assuming prime merely you know PCP primary care
Speaker 2: physicians available in Massachusetts. I think doctor Salem, you and
Speaker 2: I can agree that it's that that Massachusetts is the
Speaker 2: medical capital of the universe. I mean, people from all
Speaker 2: over the world come here to be treated at some
Speaker 2: of the great institutions that we have. We can agree
Speaker 2: on that, correct.
Speaker 3: That absolutely, and the medical care in Massachusetts is probably
Speaker 3: the best in the country.
Speaker 2: I'll say it's the best in the world because I
Speaker 2: see all of these folks from various and sundry points
Speaker 2: across the globe coming here for either special surgeries, special operations,
Speaker 2: or to be treated generally. And I think that the
Speaker 2: proof exists right there that people are not oftentimes you know,
Speaker 2: the the most influential and the most wealthy, and whether
Speaker 2: they're you know, singers, you know Adele or some of
Speaker 2: the singers who have had throat problems, or whether they
Speaker 2: professional athletes or actors. We are the mecca for top
Speaker 2: medical care in my opinion. But the downside of that
Speaker 2: is that there are a lot of people in Massachusetts
Speaker 2: who are having a very difficult time finding a family
Speaker 2: practitioner where we call you know, family doctor PCP. Why,
Speaker 2: first of all, what's the problem with what cause has
Speaker 2: caused that problem? And then we can talk about what,
Speaker 2: hopefully the Physician Physician Pathway Act will do to solve
Speaker 2: or maybe at least alleviate that problem.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hopefully you can alleviate it. The problem is multifold
Speaker 3: and it's happening all over the country. Uh. One, the
Speaker 3: population has gotten older, and the older you get, the
Speaker 3: more often you need medical care. Two, not enough physicians
Speaker 3: are going into primary care. When I was chair of medicine,
Speaker 3: early on, we had a large percentage of our doctors
Speaker 3: and internal medicine go into primary care. As the years
Speaker 3: go by gone by, we saw less and less doing that.
Speaker 3: Why is it? It turns out that these days, the
Speaker 3: graduates of medical school often have a huge debt, and
Speaker 3: primary care in general is paid less than specialty care,
Speaker 3: and so more and more of the physicians to get
Speaker 3: it coming out of medical schools all over the country
Speaker 3: are not going into primary care. And that's really the thing.
Speaker 3: And I think I mentioned most time, it's gotten so
Speaker 3: bad that I have physicians calling me up asking me
Speaker 3: to help them find the primary care doctor in Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: Well, there's nothing that I heard in our interview before
Speaker 2: which emphasized so clearly the problem. When you mentioned that
Speaker 2: there are doctors who obviously need to have a doctor
Speaker 2: for themselves, and they don't want to be the doctor
Speaker 2: for their family. They're looking for a family practice or
Speaker 2: a primary care physician. And this is a horrific situation.
Speaker 2: Is it worse in Massachusetts than other states around the country,
Speaker 2: Because I'd always thought, Hey, the places that don't have
Speaker 2: doctors or places like Montana or Mississippi. Massachusetts, we have
Speaker 2: plenty of doctors. Is it just gotten worse everywhere or
Speaker 2: is it now just hitting Massachusetts.
Speaker 3: I don't have the statistics, but I think it's as
Speaker 3: bad here, particularly outside of Boston in the rural Massachusetts.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's much worse anywhere else that I
Speaker 3: know of. Now.
Speaker 2: There have been, you know, movies, and I think of,
Speaker 2: you know, like the movie Field of Dreams where the
Speaker 2: baseball player has one opportunity to play in the major leagues,
Speaker 2: but he goes home and is a lifetime doctor in
Speaker 2: his small town in Minnesota. Was in Field of Dreams,
Speaker 2: doctor Graham, And you think when you were growing up,
Speaker 2: I think anyone who thought for a moment they could
Speaker 2: be a doctor, there was sort of a romanticism involved
Speaker 2: that you would be a doctor in a small town.
Speaker 2: You would know everyone in the town, you would be
Speaker 2: the most respected person in the town, you would tend
Speaker 2: to people in the twilight of their lives, and you
Speaker 2: would bring children into the world. And it was sort
Speaker 2: of what small town America was. But that apparently has
Speaker 2: gone away. So what I want to do is the
Speaker 2: physician act that we're talking about tonight, which the title
Speaker 2: of is the Physician Pathway Act is intended to remedy
Speaker 2: this situation. Uh, it's just gone on the books, so
Speaker 2: it's not we're not going to have an overnight fix,
Speaker 2: but hopefully it will have over time a benefit, a
Speaker 2: benefit to the commonwealth. Instead of you starting to answer
Speaker 2: that for me right now, doctor, because I want to
Speaker 2: get a real thorough answer from you, let's let's just
Speaker 2: take a break. I have to take a news break
Speaker 2: in about a minute. Anyway, we'll take the break a
Speaker 2: little early and we'll come back and we'll talk. Now
Speaker 2: we've outlined the problem, and now let's talk about the solution.
Speaker 2: Is that okay with you?
Speaker 3: That's that's fine. I have plenty of times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just don't want to interrupt your thoughts. And
Speaker 2: if if you have had problems, I'm finding a doctor
Speaker 2: here in Massagers our name of where our program is
Speaker 2: being heard right now, please give us a call. I
Speaker 2: I know I went through this if few years ago
Speaker 2: and it was not an easy task. I had a
Speaker 2: doctor for thirty five years who I revered fellow by
Speaker 2: the name of doctor Alan Cole. He had a practice
Speaker 2: in Natick. He was just an incredible, incredible human being
Speaker 2: and uh, you know, an incredible doctor. He you know,
Speaker 2: I miss him to this day. But he got a
Speaker 2: little overwhelmed with a lot of the paperwork and also
Speaker 2: the onset of COVID and had reached a certain point
Speaker 2: in his life where he wanted to spend time with
Speaker 2: their grandchildren, which is understandable. We'll take a quick break
Speaker 2: if Alan, if you're listening tonight, I can't tell you
Speaker 2: how much they thank you for the care that you've
Speaker 2: provided me for thirty five years. Just an extraordinary physician.
Speaker 2: Going to be back on Nightside, Uh, if you like
Speaker 2: to join this conversation six one, seven, two, five, four
Speaker 2: ten thirty six one seven, nine three one ten thirty,
Speaker 2: we'll be back on Nightside with my guest, doctor DEEB.
Speaker 2: Salem has an extraordinary career associated with Touft's Medical School,
Speaker 2: and we're going to talk about this Physician Pathway Act.
Speaker 2: And obviously there's some other solutions that I think doctor
Speaker 2: Salem knows I'm very interested in. We'll talk about those
Speaker 2: as well, and from your solutions in addition, back on
Speaker 2: Nightside right after this.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray Live from the Window World,
Speaker 1: night Side studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: All right, we are back and with me is my guest,
Speaker 2: doctor Deep Salem, Senior vice president of Academic Integration and
Speaker 2: Tough's Medicine, former cardiologist, chair of the Department of Medicine
Speaker 2: and Tough's Medical Center. Quite a resume, Doctor Salem, explain,
Speaker 2: if you will, the idea of the Physician Pathway Act,
Speaker 2: and is this legislation a piece of a legislation that
Speaker 2: is in effect in other states or is this a
Speaker 2: piece of legislation that is specific to Massachusetts.
Speaker 3: I believe that there is one or two states that
Speaker 3: are trying this right now. One is Tennessee and the
Speaker 3: other is somewhere out west. So this is fairly new.
Speaker 3: And the problem is that the issue is that a
Speaker 3: number of physicians sometimes are forced to leave a country
Speaker 3: or come here because of political issues. And they may
Speaker 3: be excellent physicians, but are not able to get a
Speaker 3: medical license now unless they spent three years in a
Speaker 3: residency program. And if you're you know, forty five years
Speaker 3: old and you have a family, you're not going to
Speaker 3: try to find the residency. So this I got involved
Speaker 3: with this through the as Medical Society and Governor Baker
Speaker 3: put together, a bunch of us together, including someone from
Speaker 3: the Board of Registration of Medicine, to say, what could
Speaker 3: we do to take physicians that know what they're doing,
Speaker 3: that are very experienced, and give them a pathway to
Speaker 3: get a license in Massachusetts. That's what it's all about.
Speaker 3: We worked almost a year putting this together. And actually
Speaker 3: when we had the white paper sort of come out,
Speaker 3: it was the time that Mara Heally was becoming governor
Speaker 3: and I actually called her before she even started because
Speaker 3: I've known her and I told her about this and
Speaker 3: she got excited about it. So it's the nice thing
Speaker 3: about this. It's a bipartisan effort to help in this
Speaker 3: physician shortage issue.
Speaker 2: Okay, now, what do you think realistically, if this is
Speaker 2: not going to happen overnight, how quickly do you think
Speaker 2: qualified physicians from other countries around the world either they
Speaker 2: have decided to come here. We don't want to obviously
Speaker 2: rob second and third world countries of their pool of
Speaker 2: their physicians pool. How much of a I guess, how
Speaker 2: large a group do you think we could eventually get
Speaker 2: on an annual basis? Are we talking about double digits physicians?
Speaker 2: Twenty thirty four of you we're talking about a large album.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking maybe close to one hundred, but I may
Speaker 3: be over excited. I guarantee you you can find, at
Speaker 3: least in our hospital. I've run into two physicians from
Speaker 3: foreign countries that are working as lab technicians to earn
Speaker 3: a living. And so I think you scan the Massachusetts
Speaker 3: or even outside of Massachusetts, you'll find that there are
Speaker 3: physicians that can't those have a license and will give
Speaker 3: anything to get one, and so they're around so known.
Speaker 2: Yes, would there be more academic requirements or some sort
Speaker 2: of a test that these physicians who would present themselves
Speaker 2: as potential, you know, participants in this physician pathway program,
Speaker 2: that they would have to do something above and beyond
Speaker 2: just saying I am already licensed to practice in Lincolnstein
Speaker 2: or or Libya or wherever, and I want to just
Speaker 2: picking two countries that came to the top of my head.
Speaker 2: I don't know why Lickenstein and Libya other than the
Speaker 2: fact that they both begin with the letter L. What
Speaker 2: have they got to do?
Speaker 3: Once I think the I'm sorry, the qualifications would first
Speaker 3: be coming from a recognized medical school. Uh and you
Speaker 3: know so it the Board of Registration has a good
Speaker 3: idea of medical schools all over the world that are very,
Speaker 3: very good, and that's number one. Number two, that the
Speaker 3: exams that they would have to pass the same way
Speaker 3: that our physicians are going into practice have to pass
Speaker 3: UH to get a license in Massachusetts, So that those
Speaker 3: two things are qualifiers, and they have to show that
Speaker 3: they've had experience, and the priority is for doctors that
Speaker 3: are going to be in primary care now UH, so
Speaker 3: that that will be in your You're right, it's not
Speaker 3: going to happen overnight. I'm guessing it will take us
Speaker 3: about a year to get this going, and we're starting
Speaker 3: now to talk to see how we're going to The
Speaker 3: implementation is going to be interesting. But I'll just give
Speaker 3: you an idea of primary care doctors these days take
Speaker 3: care of maybe about fifteen hundred to two thousand patients.
Speaker 3: So if you think of it that way, the more
Speaker 3: we have that will really help. It's not going to
Speaker 3: cure the problem, but if you're doing a thousand to
Speaker 3: two thousand patients at a time, you're helping a lot
Speaker 3: of people. And again, we're the focus on putting these
Speaker 3: physicians in areas that are underserved now, not in Boston,
Speaker 3: but you know, go in the more rural areas. And
Speaker 3: the magic about this too. Let's say the physician is Hispanic, Well,
Speaker 3: put that person in an area that there are a
Speaker 3: lot of Hispanic people, then they're not only going to
Speaker 3: be doing a good job, they'll be doing a better
Speaker 3: job than people like myself who don't know the culture
Speaker 3: well and their language issues. So that's some of the
Speaker 3: nice things about this.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let me ask you this as part and
Speaker 2: parcel of this. This is a state action by Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: How does this interact with the federal government? Are they
Speaker 2: given a visa and a pathway to citizenship if you're
Speaker 2: asking a physician from again, whatever country will stick with Lithuania, allows,
Speaker 2: we'll stick with the l theme here. Are they given
Speaker 2: a promise of if they want a athlete a citizenship
Speaker 2: and that can only be done I assume by the
Speaker 2: federal government.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's not we have not looked at that.
Speaker 3: We've looked that this is set up now and they
Speaker 3: go in the future, But it's set up now for
Speaker 3: physicians that are already here and are already have citizenship
Speaker 3: or there. We're not into that now. It becomes if
Speaker 3: we become more desperate. That may be something, but none
Speaker 3: of the discussions I've been involved with have talked about that.
Speaker 3: They'd have to be people just like the people I've
Speaker 3: run into in our own hospitals that already have they're
Speaker 3: working somewhere. Often they're working in some medical related issue.
Speaker 3: Some of them have actually didn't come nurses or or
Speaker 3: something else. But there are some that are working totally
Speaker 3: outside the field of medicine. But they have to already
Speaker 3: be eligible to stay in the country before this happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I've been told by a friend of mine who
Speaker 2: has spent some time recently in being hospitalized, and she
Speaker 2: happens to be a former nurse, that she has met
Speaker 2: nurses in some of the facilities in which she's been treated,
Speaker 2: in which the nurses disclosed to her that they had
Speaker 2: been physicians in their homeland and they had come hard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, they should be very happy. I love hearing
Speaker 3: that because it just tells us that there is And
Speaker 3: by the way, it's a shortage of nurses too. As
Speaker 3: this moves on, I think they'll be a move to
Speaker 3: do similar things for other health workers that have come
Speaker 3: to this country and can't get licensed now.
Speaker 2: I don't want to just for a minute or two,
Speaker 2: and I want to talk about this more, but I
Speaker 2: also want to take phone calls. There are hundreds, literally
Speaker 2: hundreds or maybe thousands of Americans young people who are
Speaker 2: studying to secure medical degrees at countries literally all over
Speaker 2: the world. Many of them in places like Antigua, Aruba, Belize,
Speaker 2: Cayman Islands, Curroso, Dominiqua, Guyana, Montsaret proably not Monsret because
Speaker 2: they had a tremendous volcanic eruption, Saint Kitts and Nevis,
Speaker 2: Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, These are all in the Caribbean.
Speaker 2: These are some of our best and brightest who are
Speaker 2: bringing their medical degrees back from some very distinguished offshore
Speaker 2: medical schools. Now, I know when we spoke last you
Speaker 2: told me that there's no room for these medical UH
Speaker 2: school graduates UH to be placed in a residency program.
Speaker 2: But that is a pool of people who I think
Speaker 2: we need to somehow incorporate into this They are not
Speaker 2: obviously focused on the this Physician Pathway Act. What can
Speaker 2: what can the medical societies here in America do about
Speaker 2: those students who maybe weren't able to get into Georgetown
Speaker 2: or UMass or Boston University or TOPS. But they've gone
Speaker 2: to to Saint George's or Saint john some of these
Speaker 2: these schools in the Caribbean and elsewhere and are coming
Speaker 2: home with medical degrees.
Speaker 3: Uh So that's a great question. But I will add
Speaker 3: to this UH that there are thousands of qualified uh
Speaker 3: people in the United States that uh and get into
Speaker 3: medical school. They're not foreigners. And by the way, many
Speaker 3: years ago, my sister describe what my sister did by
Speaker 3: my family. My sister and I were born in this country.
Speaker 3: Our parents were immigrants from Lebanon, and my sister couldn't
Speaker 3: get into medical school in the States in that era.
Speaker 3: She went to the American University of Beirut and then
Speaker 3: came here and got a residency.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: So the point is it is a great limiting factor.
Speaker 3: There is not enough residency capacity to train more physicians
Speaker 3: in this country. And that the capacity. The medical schools
Speaker 3: loved to get more students because you know, the tuitions
Speaker 3: are pretty high, seventy thousand dollars a year. The problem
Speaker 3: is to matriculate a physician, it's not just bookwork. They
Speaker 3: have to have a medical school, they have to go
Speaker 3: into a hospital, and be taught how to take care
Speaker 3: of patients, and that's usually in the third and fourth year.
Speaker 3: There are not enough teaching hospitals to support it. One
Speaker 3: of the needs we need to consider in a test.
Speaker 3: For example, we have two community hospitals and one of
Speaker 3: them we're hoping to build it up to have the
Speaker 3: capacity to take medical students and if they if we
Speaker 3: do that, our medical school could have bring in more kids.
Speaker 2: What happens to if I could ask doctor and then
Speaker 2: I get a break for news herein let me ask
Speaker 2: you the question and you can formulate the answer during
Speaker 2: the news break. My question is what happens to these
Speaker 2: American students who have graduated, sometimes from some of the
Speaker 2: greatest colleges in America, they're not able to get into
Speaker 2: an American based, US based medical school. They go off
Speaker 2: and they get a degree from some really fine medical schools.
Speaker 2: I assume and I know that some of them end
Speaker 2: up practicing here. Maybe you can tell me. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's you know, Saint George's University School of Medicine or
Speaker 2: Ross University School of Medicine. These are all schools that
Speaker 2: you're familiar with, and they may not be toughs. They
Speaker 2: may not be Harvard, they may not be Boston University,
Speaker 2: they may not be Georgetown, but there's still great medical
Speaker 2: schools and some you know as well as I do
Speaker 2: someone they hone their craft, and I just want to
Speaker 2: make sure we don't miss this pool of potential physicians.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to ask you that question when we
Speaker 2: come back right after the break here the bottom of
Speaker 2: the hour, and then we're going to get to phone
Speaker 2: calls and if you like to join the conversation and
Speaker 2: sill have a couple of open lines at six one, seven, two, five,
Speaker 2: four to ten thirty or six one, seven, nine three
Speaker 2: ten thirty. We're coming right back with my guest, doctor DEEB. Salem,
Speaker 2: who has been at TOUGH for many many years, retired cardiologist,
Speaker 2: and he is trying to do something about getting more
Speaker 2: doctors available for all of us, as all of us
Speaker 2: every day get a little old, get a little older,
Speaker 2: a day at a time. Back on Nightside, right after this.
Speaker 1: Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZY, Boston's news.
Speaker 2: Radio, doctor Deeve Salem is with me and we are
Speaker 2: talking about what's called the physic the Massachusetts Physician Pathway Act.
Speaker 2: I just don't want to see the American students doctor Salem,
Speaker 2: who at the age of twenty three or twenty four
Speaker 2: go away to get a medical degree, forgotten about in
Speaker 2: this process. I and I hope that the leadership of
Speaker 2: the Mass Medical Society of other important groups remember these
Speaker 2: young people as well. That's that's my place.
Speaker 3: So Dan, we do, I guess have to correct something.
Speaker 3: If and of my patients are listening. I still am
Speaker 3: seeing patients. I have a big one of tomorrow. I
Speaker 3: don't want them to free streak out.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I I what was written for me was
Speaker 2: that you were a retired cardiologist. And if that is
Speaker 2: not so.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, I used to be chief of Cardiology. I
Speaker 3: retired that what I retired of is a lot of
Speaker 3: the administrative things.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you're you're a current practicing cardiologist. My apologies
Speaker 2: and uh apologies, thank you for the correction.
Speaker 3: Uh so the one you know, as I people that
Speaker 3: go outside the country, UH will compete to get residencies.
Speaker 3: The whole trick to getting the license is to get
Speaker 3: the residency in the United States. So the places you
Speaker 3: mentioned when I was chairing of Medicine, we would have
Speaker 3: we'd see Americans that had gone to couldn't get into
Speaker 3: medical schools in the US, go to a school outside
Speaker 3: the US show us that they're often brilliant people. It's
Speaker 3: just hard to figure out how they didn't get into
Speaker 3: medical school. So they apply for residencies with everybody else.
Speaker 3: And so most teaching hospitals will have a percentage of
Speaker 3: their students whether they're Americans or not Americans apply for
Speaker 3: their residency. So that's how it's done. Main step is
Speaker 3: the residency.
Speaker 2: I think that you and I know that all the
Speaker 2: greatest doctors in the world didn't go to the same
Speaker 2: single medical school, and that all the greatest baseball players
Speaker 2: didn't go to the same school. People mature and develop
Speaker 2: at certain ages. And I know that the best lawyers
Speaker 2: in the world that I know of, all of them
Speaker 2: went to different, you know, different law schools, and some
Speaker 2: of them went to law schools that you might say, well,
Speaker 2: you know that maybe wasn't quite Harvard, or there were
Speaker 2: others that you know have done very well. So people
Speaker 2: mature at different agents. Okay, let's go to phone calls
Speaker 2: from my guest, doctor Dee Salim Salem, doctor Deep Salem.
Speaker 2: Let me go to Larry and Dennisport first, Larry first
Speaker 2: this hour and nice side welcome.
Speaker 4: Thanks for taking on call, Dan and doctor. I'm not
Speaker 4: sure if this would be a solution to help the problem,
Speaker 4: but I've been going to the same I had the
Speaker 4: same doctor for over twenty years over in Cambridge. It
Speaker 4: was integrated medicine, had acupuncture, chiropractor, had everything. And when
Speaker 4: my primary he was getting ready to retire, he had
Speaker 4: a nice young woman sitting in who was actually a PA.
Speaker 4: And from what I understand, if in Massachusetts, as long
Speaker 4: as there is a MD in the practice, a PA
Speaker 4: can become your PCP. And she was excellent. Unfortunately only
Speaker 4: last of the year, moved on to bigger and better
Speaker 4: things and I finally got a new doctor after two years.
Speaker 2: But let's see if you're corrected that assumption, Larry. I'm
Speaker 2: not going to cut you off. Let me just see
Speaker 2: if that's if that is accurate, Doctor Salem.
Speaker 3: PAS and nurse practitioners play a very big role, but
Speaker 3: there is uh, there's no way right now, and I
Speaker 3: actually would be totally against it that they are the
Speaker 3: sole caregivers. A lot of doctors can see more pay
Speaker 3: when they have a nurse practitioner and a PA with them.
Speaker 3: But uh, the chance of errors. Uh. And uh it's
Speaker 3: greater uh if there's no physician backing up and saying
Speaker 3: what's going on. And I can give you lots of
Speaker 3: stories about that. Uh. Tufts has a very strong PA school.
Speaker 3: Uh and uh we said, people they're they're they're they're
Speaker 3: precious and they're earning greater salaries and we would have expected.
Speaker 3: So they play a role, but they can't be the
Speaker 3: sole caregiver. They have to have some backup.
Speaker 2: All right, answers your question.
Speaker 4: No, No, I was just gonna say, yes, I agree
Speaker 4: with the doctor. And the nice thing about at the
Speaker 4: Marina Center was the PA was the person that I
Speaker 4: would go into, but there was always a doctor there
Speaker 4: for her to consult with. So it was just a thought. Okay, subject,
Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Take very quick break back with my guest, doctor DEEB
Speaker 2: Salem of Toughts Medical School. Right after these messages.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Night Side Studios. I'm WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: My guest is doctor Deeve Salem of Tufts Medical School,
Speaker 2: and we're going to Jane and Shrewsbury next. Jane, you
Speaker 2: were next on Nights.
Speaker 5: I welcome, Hi Dan and doctor Salem. I just wanted
Speaker 5: to say, I remember before COVID, the medical industry defeated
Speaker 5: the ballot question to have more nurses. And I was
Speaker 5: also really disappointed when it was on sixty minutes that
Speaker 5: the NYU langone Medical was going to offer free tuition
Speaker 5: to all students with no obligation to do any kind
Speaker 5: of public service or primary care. And I contacted a
Speaker 5: medical ethicis professor there and he said, well, maybe they'll
Speaker 5: do it just out of the goodness of their heart,
Speaker 5: which doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 3: So I'd like.
Speaker 2: To about correct me. I are you in the medical
Speaker 2: field yourself?
Speaker 5: No, I'm not.
Speaker 2: No, Okay, fine, okay, I may have you mixed up
Speaker 2: with another call, but go right ahead, as you have
Speaker 2: a question.
Speaker 5: I'd like to hear if doctor Salem could comment. I
Speaker 5: think there's at least fourteen medical schools that offer free tuition,
Speaker 5: and I really think there should be a commitment back
Speaker 5: for service.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know that number fourteen. In my experience,
Speaker 3: there are not many schools the way that at NYU
Speaker 3: that happened was a huge donor. The school teaching medical
Speaker 3: students is very expensive and so unless you have a
Speaker 3: huge endowment or you have a donor that gives you
Speaker 3: the money to do it. Our medical you know, tough charges.
Speaker 3: I think it's you know, close to seventy thousand dollars
Speaker 3: and the school barely breaks even in terms of all
Speaker 3: the expenses there are in doing it. I uh, you know,
Speaker 3: when I graduated with I thought I had to take
Speaker 3: loans to get through medical school. But if you looked
Speaker 3: at how it was pennies compared to what these four
Speaker 3: kids have to go through. So there there's uh, there're
Speaker 3: state school Uh that uh the tuition is lower, my hew,
Speaker 3: massive tuition is lower than the other three medicals. Uh schools.
Speaker 3: But uh it's it's not anywhere. There's here and that
Speaker 3: there are some uh ways that people people can get
Speaker 3: medical schools often weigh some money. Uh the people that
Speaker 3: have no money and and they give them loans and
Speaker 3: they have scholarships.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 3: We need more nurses and we need more doctors. There's
Speaker 3: no question about about that right now. And we need
Speaker 3: more pas Salem.
Speaker 5: I think you might have misheard me. I was saying
Speaker 5: I think they should have an obligation to do some
Speaker 5: sort of public service if they're getting free tuition.
Speaker 3: Uh, but how happy you do it? How can you
Speaker 3: force someone to do what they don't want to do.
Speaker 7: It's not a.
Speaker 3: Bad question, but if your heart's not in it, that's
Speaker 3: that's not But there are also shortages in other areas. UH,
Speaker 3: in specialties too, But.
Speaker 7: I don't know. You know, you may had something if
Speaker 7: the sense would support UH people going into medical school
Speaker 7: pay their tuition.
Speaker 3: And then say that you have to have for X
Speaker 3: number of years but this primary camp. But what happens, though,
Speaker 3: is then they don't go on to become specialists. There
Speaker 3: needs to be some money put into this to help
Speaker 3: solve the problem.
Speaker 2: All right, Jane, thank you. I got a couple other calls, Jane.
Speaker 2: I'd like to sneak in here if I can. I
Speaker 2: think that doctor Salem has responded.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Jane, Thank you.
Speaker 2: All right, Hank in New Bedford, I'd love you to
Speaker 2: be quick for me so I can get Daryl from
Speaker 2: from New Brunswick and go ahead, Hank.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 6: I just want to comment about the difference between Boston
Speaker 6: and the so called rural other areas of the state.
Speaker 6: I live in New Bedford, Fall Rivers, almost a mirror community.
Speaker 6: That's two hundred thousand, and if you're take in the
Speaker 6: metropolitan areas, it's three hundred thousand people. You can't get
Speaker 6: a primary care around here. And it's very easy to
Speaker 6: verify that because it's just a few corporations control all
Speaker 6: the primary care positions. It's just one call to make
Speaker 6: you get put on a list, and when your name
Speaker 6: comes up, you don't have any choice about who it is.
Speaker 6: You get who you get. Maybe the doctor would comment
Speaker 6: about that, well.
Speaker 3: Well, I smiled, because I trained a number of physicians
Speaker 3: over the years that practice in that area. And there's
Speaker 3: some and I won't mention them, but there's some fabulous physicians.
Speaker 3: We train, both primary care and cardiologists. Every area is affected,
Speaker 3: Every area is affected. You have a high belief of
Speaker 3: Portuguese population in that area, and it would be nice
Speaker 3: if there were some physicians that would speak their language,
Speaker 3: if from Brazil or so there it's there's no it's
Speaker 3: in Boston. Let me just go right down to the
Speaker 3: meat of this. In Boston, it is hard as hell
Speaker 3: to get a primary care doctor. UH. So all the
Speaker 3: areas are there. UH. The people that will come out
Speaker 3: of this program will hopefully end up in the UH.
Speaker 7: The Uh, the areas.
Speaker 3: That need the most help, and they're often the programs
Speaker 3: that are part of a hospital. They're just care areas.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 3: You know, we need a lot, a lot of more
Speaker 3: physicians right now.
Speaker 2: No question, no question, Hank. Thank you for your question.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you. Thank you very much. Bye, Darryl. I
Speaker 2: got about a minute and a half for you. You got
Speaker 2: to be quick for me.
Speaker 8: Pal go ahead, Darryl, Doctor Saloman Dan, great topic I'll
Speaker 8: go to. Even as a veteran, when I was looking
Speaker 8: for a physician, we had people from different countries not
Speaker 8: liking you because you smoked, and but at the same time,
Speaker 8: being deployed, you worked with physicians from other countries. And
Speaker 8: I had people from other countries as my physician for
Speaker 8: the last twenty years. And so therefore expedition of helping
Speaker 8: these people get to what we need is.
Speaker 2: Cool. Yep. I think you're right in that you shouldn't
Speaker 2: be smoking now. General. I'm sure doctor Salem will tell
Speaker 2: you that, and I tell you that too.
Speaker 8: Okay, I will take that under advisement.
Speaker 2: All right, thank you, I'll talk soon. Really flat, Thank
Speaker 2: you very much, doctor Salem. I appreciate your time tonight.
Speaker 2: I just have a big advocate as you. As you know,
Speaker 2: I kind of let that go a little bit tonight,
Speaker 2: but a lot of good information from you. This was
Speaker 2: my easier time to do this, and we should do
Speaker 2: it again. We didn't have the pressure of the eight
Speaker 2: o'clock hour where we're limited to just a few minutes.
Speaker 2: You've explained it well. I think we've explored the issue
Speaker 2: the topic very well, and we'll get back to it again.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us tonight, and best
Speaker 2: of luck with your clinics tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Okay, thank you, and I enjoyed this a lot to
Speaker 3: thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, doctor DEEB. Salem, amongst other things,
Speaker 2: tough Medical School, Chair of the Department of Medicine at
Speaker 2: Toughts Medical Center. When we get back, we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about a Boston City councilor who's in a heap
Speaker 2: of trouble under federal indictment. Should Tanua Fernandez Anderson resigned?
Speaker 2: I think, in fairness to her, she should, and I'll
Speaker 2: explain my feelings on that right after the ten o'clock
Speaker 2: news here at night Side